Debt collector to pay $1.5 million over Vulgar, racist voicemails

story by sifynews

For operators, camera phones drive up average revenue per consumer as users...Washington: Debt collectors from Advanced Call Center Technologies, Dallas, have to shell out a whopping 1.5 million dollars for explicit voicemails sent on a man's phone.

The company sent eight harassing and threatening voicemail messages on Allen Jones' mobile phone in August 2007 trying to collect what it said he owed on a credit card.

Most messages were laced with profanity and spewed racial slurs.

"This is your mother******* wake-up call you little lazy a** b****," wfaa.com quoted a collector as saying in one message.

"Get your mother******* n****r ass up and go pick some mother******* cotton fields," said another collector.

Jones is African-American.

"This shouldn't be tolerated. Nobody should have to experience what I had to experience," he said.

Mark Frenkel, one of Jones' attorneys said: "If we did not have tapes, no one would ever believe that this happened."

"This is absolutely, without a doubt, the most egregious collection case I've ever seen," Dean Malone, Jones' other attorney, added.

Jones sued Advanced Call Center Technologies over the harassing calls.

And on Friday afternoon, a Dallas County jury awarded him one of the biggest verdicts of its kind-he won 50,000 dollars in mental anguish and 1.5 million dollars in punitive damages.

"We made a statement and the statement is we will not tolerate abusive debt collectors," continued Jones.

Frenkel and Malone said employees from Advanced Call Center Technologies confessed to the calls.

However, it remains unclear if they are still with the company and whether it will appeal.

Jones always disputed the debt and claims he paid it.

And the amount in question was a meagre sum of 200 dollars.

"They did this to Allen for under 200 dollars. Two hundred bucks put him through this," noted Frenkel.