The Attorney General of Massachusetts is seeking a preliminary injunction against a number of companies owned by the same individual to halt what the AG calls harmful debt collection practices. In announcing the motion seeking a preliminary injunction, the AG’s office also made public that it filed suit against the companies and their owner last month.
The companies being sued are Champion Funding Inc., Champion Funding LLC, Judgment Acquisitions Unlimited and their owner, Andrew Metcalf. One of the companies purchases judgments and defaulted consumer debts and then use “aggressive” methods to collect on the debt, according to the AG’s office. Those methods include placing telephone calls, sending letters, text messages, and emails, filing litigation, garnishing wages, recording liens on property, and seizing personal property. One tactic detailed by the AG is to seize the car of an individual with an unpaid debt as a means of coercing payment from then individual. Cars are seized when when the debtor’s vehicle is worth so little that it is exempt from state seizure laws, according to the AG.
The preliminary injunction seeks to stop the defendants from selling any vehicle that is seizes at auction, prohibits seizing any vehicle from a Massachusetts consumer, and filing or appearing in any legal proceeding without the representation of an attorney licensed to practice in the state.
“The Defendants appear to have little interest in complying with Massachusetts debt collection laws,” the AG’s office states in its memorandum in support of its motion for a preliminary injunction. “This is apparent from their lack of written procedures on car seizers and unwillingness to follow existing procedures on other topics to ensure that employees have proper training … The Defendants have made deceptive statements in the course of collecting debts, overstated interest in court filings, collected debts without a debt collector license, and in the case of Defendants Metcalf and Champion, Inc., engaged in the unauthorized practice of law.”
