Luebke Baker and Associates: Collection Agency Or Co-Conspirator?
Updated. Includes FTC reply.
Luebke Baker and Associates is a collection agency in Peoria, IL. They collect delinquent magazine subscriptions for Consolidated Media Services among other supposed clients. They must do lots of collections for Consolidated Media Services considering the number of reports about them on sites like RipOffReport.com, ConsumerAffairs.com, etc. There are page after page of similar complaints about the way Luebke Baker and Associates is trying to collect old magazine subscription bills. Many of the complaints involve possible FDCPA violations because of the tactics and possible statute of limitations complaints because the alleged subscription debts are so old. Those are civil questions, however. What about the possible criminal aspects?
Res judicata comes to mind. Res judicata is a Latin phrase meaning the thing has been judged already. Consolidated Media Services was judged and judged harshly. The FTC nuked Consolidated Media Services after judging them to be a criminal operation which gained its revenue from victims of crime. In 2002 the Department of Justice, at the request of the Federal Trade Commission, charged Consolidated Media Services and the other names it went by (Cross Media Marketing, Media Outsourcing, Direct Sales, and Magazine Sweepstakes) with violating federal laws by misrepresenting and failing to fully disclose the costs and conditions of magazine subscription sales. They also charged that the defendants failed to cancel subscriptions and pay refunds. The complaint further alleged violations of a previously issued FTC order prohibiting deceptive practices in selling magazines.
The FTC settled with the defendants in 2003 for fines and more orders prohibiting deceptive practices. Consolidated Media Services, by way of its parent company Cross Media Marketing, subsequently filed filed for bankruptcy in June 2003 and went out of business.
Which begs the question, regardless of civil FDCPA or statute of limitations violations, what is legal about Luebke Baker and Associates collecting for unpaid magazine subscription bills already judged by the federal government of the United States to be criminally fraudulent?
Isn't Luebke Baker and Associates victimizing the same people already thought to have been protected by the actions of the Department of Justice and the FTC?
An answer has been received from the FTC.
And it says you are on your own. While the following answer might be interpreted to mean any contact by Luebke Baker and Associates is a FDCPA violation per se, the point is still that as far as your federal government is concerned each victim of the fraudulent magazine subscription charges is required to perform their own law enforcement action against Luebke Baker and Associates in state or federal civil court.
FTC: Although we can't opine on the legality of a particular business practice, the order (http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/06/crossmediastip.pdf) defines what the settling defendants must do when attempting to collect debts, and they are bound by the FDCPA, which, among other things, prohibits false representations about the character or legality of a debt, and requires a collector to provide verification of the validity of a debt once a consumer has disputed it. We cannot say whether or not the FTC is looking into a collector's activities in this or any other matter.
Luebke Baker and Associates is a collection agency in Peoria, IL. They collect delinquent magazine subscriptions for Consolidated Media Services among other supposed clients. They must do lots of collections for Consolidated Media Services considering the number of reports about them on sites like RipOffReport.com, ConsumerAffairs.com, etc. There are page after page of similar complaints about the way Luebke Baker and Associates is trying to collect old magazine subscription bills. Many of the complaints involve possible FDCPA violations because of the tactics and possible statute of limitations complaints because the alleged subscription debts are so old. Those are civil questions, however. What about the possible criminal aspects?
Res judicata comes to mind. Res judicata is a Latin phrase meaning the thing has been judged already. Consolidated Media Services was judged and judged harshly. The FTC nuked Consolidated Media Services after judging them to be a criminal operation which gained its revenue from victims of crime. In 2002 the Department of Justice, at the request of the Federal Trade Commission, charged Consolidated Media Services and the other names it went by (Cross Media Marketing, Media Outsourcing, Direct Sales, and Magazine Sweepstakes) with violating federal laws by misrepresenting and failing to fully disclose the costs and conditions of magazine subscription sales. They also charged that the defendants failed to cancel subscriptions and pay refunds. The complaint further alleged violations of a previously issued FTC order prohibiting deceptive practices in selling magazines.
The FTC settled with the defendants in 2003 for fines and more orders prohibiting deceptive practices. Consolidated Media Services, by way of its parent company Cross Media Marketing, subsequently filed filed for bankruptcy in June 2003 and went out of business.
Which begs the question, regardless of civil FDCPA or statute of limitations violations, what is legal about Luebke Baker and Associates collecting for unpaid magazine subscription bills already judged by the federal government of the United States to be criminally fraudulent?
Isn't Luebke Baker and Associates victimizing the same people already thought to have been protected by the actions of the Department of Justice and the FTC?
An answer has been received from the FTC.
And it says you are on your own. While the following answer might be interpreted to mean any contact by Luebke Baker and Associates is a FDCPA violation per se, the point is still that as far as your federal government is concerned each victim of the fraudulent magazine subscription charges is required to perform their own law enforcement action against Luebke Baker and Associates in state or federal civil court.
FTC: Although we can't opine on the legality of a particular business practice, the order (http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/06/crossmediastip.pdf) defines what the settling defendants must do when attempting to collect debts, and they are bound by the FDCPA, which, among other things, prohibits false representations about the character or legality of a debt, and requires a collector to provide verification of the validity of a debt once a consumer has disputed it. We cannot say whether or not the FTC is looking into a collector's activities in this or any other matter.
I hope this is helpful.
Frank Dorman
Federal Trade Commission
Office of Public Affairs
202-326-2674
Labels: Collection Agency, consumer fraud
posted by Credit Report at
3:12 AM
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