Sunday, December 04, 2011

How debt collectors pursue family members of deceased debtors

After Linda Long's husband died of colon cancer last year, the phone calls poured in.

The 68-year-old retired office worker says she got as many as 10 calls a day from a debt-collection firm asking for $16,651.52 that her husband, Millard, had racked up on a Bank of America Corp. credit card.

An employee at West Asset Management in Omaha, Neb., explained that she wasn't legally obliged to pay, according to a recording of the November call reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Then he veered into a discussion about how she could "get this taken off your plate."


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