Illinois Attorney General Files Lawsuit
Due to deceptive collection practices and threatening with abusive language while attempting to collect debts for a payday loan company a Jacksonville, Florida collection agency has been sued.Lisa Madigan, the Illinois Attorney General, filed the lawsuit in Wabash County against United Processing, Inc, and Lisa Walters, the company’s president and director. The suit claims that the company has threatened payday loan debtors, communicated private information to the debtor’s employers, and was operating without a proper state license in Illinois.
“These defendants used malicious tactics to bully alleged debtors, their family members, and even their employers,” Madigan said. “This case is an egregious example of the unscrupulous methods often used to collect debts. These methods violate consumers’ rights and certainly will not be tolerated in Illinois.”
The suit states that the company made threatened debtors that owed payday loans that the local sheriff would arrest them, that the state’s child welfare agency would remove the debtor’s children, and that they would be charged criminally and face a minimum two year federal prison term. United Processing’s employees also allegedly used abusive language to people who refused to disclose where the individual who took out the payday loan was and, in some cases, disclosed private information about the debtors to their employers and other individuals related to them.
A court order is also sought in the suit to order the defendants to pay fees, franchise taxes and penalties for failing to obtain approval to operate in Illinois as an out-of-state corporation and file the legally-required documents. A civil penalty of $50,000 is being sought as well as an additional $50,000 for each act committed with intent to defraud. The costs for investigating and prosecuting the case are also being sought.
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