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Unfortunately it's not BS. Lots of collection agencies use illegal tactics. Many of the "collectors" are commission-only, and legally independent contractors. The agencies can give them a list of rules for the agencies' legal protection, but neither the agencies nor the collectors have any real incentive to make sure the rules are followed.

A few years ago, an administrative error caused my U.S. Dept. of Education loan to be transferred to a collection agency. I called and wrote and called the DoE, and they kept saying "wait a couple more months, it takes a while to process these things". Meanwhile, the collection agency and other areas of DoE took the position that the debt was now owned by the collection agency and that DoE couldn't do anything (and couldn't accept any payments from me!). I was getting frequent calls from collectors with thinly veiled threats, and only when I threatened the agency with legal action (in writing) did the account get transferred back to DoE.

I have law degree and had no trouble understanding my rights and what was going on behind the scenes, and on top of that I was perfectly able and willing to pay what I owed. For people who are not sophisticated about the legal and business aspects of these situations and/or are really unable to pay some of their bills, these collectors can be truly terrifying.

I use to think that these stories of strong-arm collection tactics were 99.9999% made up. Until just shortly after I moved to Los Angles.

The wife and I took a temporary apartment while house hunting and as soon as the phone was hooked up we began getting calls from all kinds of people. First it was folks calling asking for so n so… wrong number… thanks and they’d hang up. Then the calls would come in asking if we knew so-n-so, then the calls would come in asking us to do really out of the ordinary stuff.

One guy said he worked for a car rental company and that so-n-so had a rental that was overdue, could I go and see if the care was parked out front. I told him no and as I was hanging up he yell something into the phone.

I even had a pair of goons I am certain were repo-thugs pounding on my door at 2AM one Saturday morning wanting me to open the door.

I just told them to hang on while I put on some clothes then I’d talk to them, then I called 911 and told them two guys were pounding on my door and I thought one might be armed.

It took LAPD all of 90 seconds to arrive, goons even ran when the cops pulled.

While I have very little sympathy for people who make a conscious choice to go into debt they cannot pay I have no sympathy for mafia style collection tactics.

TMMT