When someone claims that you owe them money they will do anything to get their bottom line; this can be a scary thing. You are on the receiving end of this lawsuit and you aren’t sure if you are protected from debt collecting harassment. It seems like you’re on the gridiron without even so much as a face guard to help protect yourself. There are laws which exist to protect you from potential unlawful practices of a bad collection agency that most are unaware.
Debt collecting has to have a solid foundation in honesty; any false statements that an agency can make are totally out of bounds. An agency cannot accuse you of committing a crime when you know you have not done such a thing. If they say that you owe over $500 in traffic tickets, for example, they can be held accountable for false statements. Another out-of-bounds move is altering the money you owe in such a way that the owed amount might be augmented.
Perhaps an even greater offense than false accusations towards the target is harassment. The idea of harassment by a collection agency goes far deeper than simply phoning someone for weeks or even months on end. Profane language is a big no-no as well. Any company, whether based in debt collecting or otherwise, should present themselves with a professional image and spouting off foul words that will make the late George Carlin blush does them no favors. To say that violence is not allowed is an understatement and only adds to the acts of treatment one does not have to put up with.
If you find yourself the victim of unlawful debt collection practices you can report such negative social behaviors. Just like any law, they may vary between states so make absolutely certain that you know your rights. Overall, being treated fairly is the utmost priority of a collection agency. If you’re the target and you’re being harassed, it can be solved by reporting such behavior to your state’s Attorney General Office or at the Federal Trade Commission.
More and more teenagers are opening credit cards lately. Some parents are actually encouraging their teens to get a credit card, thinking that it will teach them financial responsibility. However, that isn’t necessarily the case with teen credit card use. A lot of times, parents are doing their children a disservice by allowing them to have credit cards at such a young age. It is like handing them a weapon to teach them not to use it; it just doesn’t work.
Parents should be more conservative in their decision making with these matters, especially if their teen doesn’t have a job. How is giving the individual a credit card with no way to pay off their debt going to help? They’ll have a collection agency knocking down their door before they even graduate college and get a job. Trust me, a teenager can find ways to go into debt with all the things they want to buy today – new clothes, a new phone, maybe an iPod – the list goes on and on. Without a source of income to pay for these things, teens shouldn’t be buying them.
Giving teens a credit card just makes them think that they can afford all these nice things without having to ask their parents for money and without consequence. In the end, the most likely result is the parents will end up paying off their children’s bad debt. So what is that teaching them? How are they learning financial responsibility now? And what happens if their parents don’t bail them out? We’re going to have more young people filing for bankruptcy because they are getting credit cards before they can really handle them.
If you visit a college campus, you’d be shocked at how many credit card companies are advertising to young people without jobs. As you can see, the results of this can be truly distressing. This is a real problem. Some college students have even gone to extreme measures and committed suicide due to carrying an overwhelming amount of credit card debt. We need to stop this from happening. To do that, parents need to teach their teens the importance of waiting to have a credit card until you can financially support yourself. Maybe we should even start teaching mandatory finance classes to students in high school. Somehow, we need to find a way to properly educate teens about the dangers of credit cards.
Like the EZ Pass, the CLEARcard is a membership that you must sign up for and there is an annual cost of less than $200. Also, like the EZ Pass the benefits of being a member allows you to swiftly slide through airport security, much like how you can swiftly slide through a toll both instead of having to stop and wait on line.
Overall, I believe that this service is really useful and something that should greatly be considered for all frequent travelers. I know that when you see almost $200 as an annual fee, the first thing you think of is “Well, is it worth it?” And the answer is yes, I can tell you from experience that this service is really useful and has, in a few cases, been the reason I actually made my plane.
I do a lot of traveling to Orlando to work with a couple of programmers on various different projects, most of which deal with graphic design and graphic layout. Since the CLEARcard is accepted in Orlando’s airports, it made a lot of sense for me to sign up for a membership. It was almost something that I had to do, because I’m actually reaping the benefits of this membership.
In conclusion, the CLEARcard is a great thing to have if you are a frequent traveler, and in comparison to the EZ Pass, it is just as effective, just as affordable, and just as worth it as the EZ Pass is. For those that commute from state to state, or have to deal with toll booths on their way to work, I would highly advise you to take a look into the EZ Pass. And those that take trips on planes often, I highly advise you to take a look into the CLEARcard, it may be even more beneficial than you think.
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