Hollywood’s Perception Of Debt Collection, Or How Hollywood Ignores Bankruptcy And Other Legal Help Available

People in debt need to speak to a good consumer bankruptcy attorney if they are in financial trouble. It is important to find out what protections are available under the law. Hollywood doesn’t give the whole story, and will ignore whole areas of law if it leads to an interesting story.

A recent episode of CSI Miami episode featured a collection agency that went far beyond harassment. The collection agents screamed and threatened debtors, told employers and family members about employee’s debts, and left horrible messages on answering machines. One collector offered to forgive payments if a college girl had “relations” with him, but rather than face that prospect or the debt that she couldn’t pay, she killed herself. No mention was ever made about how the woman could have protected herself from this type of treatment. The truth is that legal protection would probably been easy, if she had asked.

In reality we hope that no collectors go as far as the writers of CSI Miami took the script, but if they do a simple call to a good consumer bankruptcy attorney can provide a lot of protection. Illegal harassment can be met with a lawsuits for violations under Fair Debt Collection laws, or other options may be available. For acts as bad as were described on the show, any good consumer lawyer would immediately look at State and Federal laws that protect people from such activity and provide monetary remedies.  If bad enough, courts have allowed large awards against the creditors or collectors.

If dealing with that debt under the fair debt laws doesn’t solve a debtor’s problems, then bankruptcy might be the right answer for helping bring all the person’s finances under control.  In the right circumstances, Chapter 13 sets up an affordable repayment plan, or Chapter 7 writes off debts that can’t be repaid at all.

Too bad the writers didn’t have the debtors contact Bankruptcy Law Network’s own Chip Parker, Florida Bankruptcy Attorney (Northeast) or Carmen Delutri, Florida Bankruptcy Attorney (Southwest). But then, the show would have been over in just a few minutes and what would they have done for the rest of the hour?