Jan 30, 2012
These people are the worst kind of people, scam artists! If you don't believe me google their fake law firm Brown Andrews and Scott, that should be enough proof to never send money to them!! Be smart think before you act! They use fear as a tactic to get you to pay quickly without thinking! This is America! We have no debtor prison/jail. The act of threatening a person with jail time if they don't pay a debt is in fact a crime itself!
Sec. 392.301. THREATS OR COERCION. (a) In debt collection, a debt collector may not use threats, coercion, or attempts to coerce that employ any of the following practices:
(1) using or threatening to use violence or other criminal means to cause harm to a person or property of a person;
(2) accusing falsely or threatening to accuse falsely a person of fraud or any other crime;
(3) representing or threatening to represent to any person other than the consumer that a consumer is wilfully refusing to pay a nondisputed consumer debt when the debt is in dispute and the consumer has notified in writing the debt collector of the dispute;
(4) threatening to sell or assign to another the obligation of the consumer and falsely representing that the result of the sale or assignment would be that the consumer would lose a defense to the consumer debt or would be subject to illegal collection attempts;
(5) threatening that the debtor will be arrested for nonpayment of a consumer debt without proper court proceedings;
(6) threatening to file a charge, complaint, or criminal action against a debtor when the debtor has not violated a criminal law;
(7) threatening that nonpayment of a consumer debt will result in the seizure, repossession, or sale of the person's property without proper court proceedings; or
(8) threatening to take an action prohibited by law.
(b) Subsection (a) does not prevent a debt collector from:
(1) informing a debtor that the debtor may be arrested after proper court proceedings if the debtor has violated a criminal law of this state;
(2) threatening to institute civil lawsuits or other judicial proceedings to collect a consumer debt; or
(3) exercising or threatening to exercise a statutory or contractual right of seizure, repossession, or sale that does not require court proceedings.
You can find the full list here: http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/docs/fi/htm/fi.392.htm
Not paying a payday loan is not the same as bouncing a check, Most states have stipulation that explain any post dated checks (checks written for a future date) cannot be considered fraudulent under the rule of criminal law because at the time you wrote it you intended on having the money at the date that was written on the check so you had no Mens Rea or criminal mind when you wrote the check (that is needed for every criminal case)- so no they cannot hit you in criminal court only in civil court.
What they are doing however, is highly illegal and can be punishable up to 20 years for violating federal debt collection laws.