West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw announced Tuesday a settlement his office reached with Capital One and various affiliated businesses to resolve claims involving credit card practices in place prior to January 1, 2006. The settlement calls for $10.5 million to be paid by Cap One and $3 million in credit card debt to be forgiven.

The case names Capital One Bank (USA) N.A.; Capital One Service, LLC, a Delaware corporation; Capital One Services II, LLC; Capital One Services III, LLC; and COSI Receivables Management, Inc. (collectively referred to as Capital One),

In 2005, the Attorney General’s office began an investigation into Capital One’s credit practices, which spawned a legal battle in two circuit courts, the West Virginia Supreme Court, and the Southern District of West Virginia.

After the United States Supreme Court paved the way for the State of West Virginia to proceed against Capital One, the West Virginia Attorney General’s office filed an action in 2010 in Mason County, before the Honorable Judge David W. Nibert. The trial was to start on April 24, 2012. In that initial filing, McGraw accused Capital One of “unconscionable conduct in connection with their credit card lending and collection practices.” A specific allegation of re-aging debt that was beyond the statute of limitations was made in the AG’s press release.

But the settlement announcement is remarkably short on details. It does not specify the alleged violations, just that Capital One had settled them without admitting wrongdoing. The AG’s press release noted that the settlement resolves claims related to practices utilized from 2001 through 2005 involving the sale of payment protection and the Credit Recovery Services line of business.

Capital One agreed to provide $3 million in debt forgiveness to West Virginia consumers, $9.5 million to the State of West Virginia to be used for financial relief for West Virginia consumers, and $1 million to the Attorney General’s office for consumer education and restitution.

McGraw commented, “This was a hard-fought battle, resulting in a lot of money for the State of West Virginia. Capital One is to be commended for changing the practices that prompted the State’s action.”

“We’re pleased to have worked with Attorney General McGraw to resolve this matter which dates back to a time prior to 2006,” said Tatiana Stead, spokesperson for Capital One. “We’ve since made significant improvements and look forward to continuing to serve our card customers in West Virginia.”

If you need assistance with debt collections call a Collection Agency like Rapid Recovery Solution. This article, Capital One, ARM Firm Settle Credit and Debt Collection Company Case for $13.5 million is available for free reprint.

We all know what it takes to be the best at debt collection. To be the best debt collector the phone calls need to be made, the letters need to be sent and the information on your clients needs to be updated constantly. The best debt collection agency is going to be persistent and stanch to getting the money that is owed from the delinquents that can’t seem to pay their bills on time. Now with that thought what does it take to be the worst collection agency? What experience does a bad debt collection agency have to exhibit in order to be the worst collection agency?

My beliefs on the worst collection agency are nothing different about how I feel about the best. Debt collectors suck either way. The bad debt collection agency that establishes to be the worst collection agency, is the company that proves time and time again they are incompetent. The worst collection agency is not going to make the midnight calls that stir you in our sleep to pay your bills. The worst collection agency is not going to send the infuriating letters as frequent as the best bad debt collection agency. Chances are the worst collection agency is not going to be appointed at all.

If I were to ever end up having a bad debt collection agency call and press me for money I would rather it be the worst collection agency. The worst collection agency I feel would hire the nicest people out there that are unable to harass me appropriately. The best bad debt collection agency is going to hire the rudest and crankiest people to ever carry out a phone agency. The worst collection agency will have a staff of the nicest people on the planet. I can picture the phone call conversation as if it were calling a cousin and asking for money. The bad debt collection agency employee would be mousy and unconfident and apologize for asking for money constantly giving me extensions and credit.

The worst collection agency is definitely the corporation I would want sending me letters to my house. I constantly am flooded with junk mail so receiving letters from a bad debt collection agency would simply be added to that load and simply discarded. I would like to believe that the worst collection agency would not only send me a letter in the mail telling me that if I could send money it would be “great but no biggie.” They would tell me it was okay to send all my irritating junk mail to them as well. Imagine me sending the bad debt collection agency all of my junk mail. The cost of the package would probably cost a fortune. The worst collection agency would probably volunteer to pick up the cost and I just have to fill the envelope. I wonder will they would fill up the envelope.

Of course I do not have a bad debt collection agency hunting me like a deer. The worst collection agency will eventually fall into default and lose their business slowly but surely. The worst collection agency is simply going to have the best bad debt collection agency calling them constantly and sending them letters. I cannot express the enjoyment of knowing that there s a lovely sense of irony with something like that. I sure hope though that the worst collection agency doesn’t step up their game and become the superlative bad debt collection agency because I can’t take all this junk mail anymore.

Rapid Recovery Solution is an attorney based collection agency specializing in consumer and business debt collections. Contact them today for more information!. This article, The Woes Of Bad Debt Collection Agency Failure: What It Takes To Be The Worst Collection Agency Ever is released under a creative commons attribution license.

When you get that first alarming phone call from debt collectors or debt collection agencies start sending you letters, you might start to worry about how to pay off your bills. What you likely don’t realize, and what many debt collectors will likely never tell you, is that there are ways that they can actually help you. In the atypical instances when you talk to debt collectors who are supportive, here are some ways that they can help your situation.

Debt collectors can actually reduce your debt. By thousands of dollars. Debt collection agencies buy bad debt for pennies on the dollar. They could settle your debt for a few more pennies on the dollar than they bought the debt for. For instance, if you owe someone $10 thousand, they may have bought that debt for a quarter or a fifth of that. They may be willing to settle with you for a third of the original amount. They still make a substantial profit.

Debt collectors can work with you to create good payment plans that you can actually pay. Although the optimal situation for them is to get all of the money at one time, they will settle for smaller payments over a longer period of time. If you speak to in-house collections for a company, they may be willing to accept a small fraction of your amount owed to keep you out of collections.

Some debt collectors can lengthen deadlines without you paying a penny. If you make a commitment to pay on a particular date, you may extend it without paying if you call ahead of time. Usually this can only be controlled by in-house collections. This is a way of keeping collections from going further and getting the debtor some extra time to get their money together.

Despite all the bad attention that debt collectors and debt collection agencies get, they can sometimes assist you in ways that you didn’t realize that they could. Often, it can depend on the person that you speak to whether or not these possibilities will be presented to you. But there are possibilities out there so if you get a call from debt collectors, don’t automatically imagine the worst. Better yet, be proactive and call companies that you are going to owe money to. Hopefully they will be more accommodating than if they have to call you first.

Rapid Recovery Solution is an attorney based debt collection agency specializing in consumer and business debt collections. Contact them today for more information and to request your FREE quote!. This article, How Can Debt Collectors Help You? is available for free reprint.