Bank of America is being forced to hand over more than $1 million to a Florida couple after the bank flooded them with hundreds of loan collection calls for years – the latest example of alleged behavior that has cost the bank tens of millions.
In a complaint filed in July, attorneys for Nelson and Joyce Coniglio said that the couple had been on the receiving end of “patterns of outrageous, abusive and harassing conduct” by a subsidiary of Bank of America that included 700 calls in four years, after the bank said the couple fell behind on mortgage loan payments in 2009. The Coniglios also received “threatening collection letters asserting false and misleading information,” the complaint said.
The couple sent multiple letters from legal representation asking the bank to stop, but the calls — sometimes up to five a day — continued. The complaint describes automated calls leaving repeated pre-recorded messages.
2009 seems to have been a high-water point in this kind of debt collection. That was when I was going through my own credit card debt mess, and lots of others who were in the struggle at that time were victims of the “let’s just call them a million times and see if they’ll pay!” routine.
And hey, let’s be honest–$1 million is a pretty nice payday. This is why you document everything. Log every call. Record every call (if it is legal to do so). Take notes.
Document everything.