Jury Bills Collection Agency $11 Million for Harassing Couple

A jury has ordered a collection agency to pay a couple $11 million, saying that bill collectors hired by the company went too far in pressuring them to settle a $2,000 credit card debt.

Marianne Driscol said the collectors called at all hours of the day and night, interrupting sleep and disrupting her work.

The callers threatened her life, she said. They swore and called her names. Ultimately, she fled El Paso with her husband.

“They literally scared the hell out of this poor lady,” Driscol’s attorney, Noel Gage, said Thursday. “She cracked; they broke her; they literally broke her.”

The state jury ruled Wednesday that Household Credit Services Inc. of Salinas, Calif., and the now-defunct Allied Adjustment Bureau violated the state Debt Collection Practices Act. The law prohibits debt collectors from threatening violence or making harassing or obscene calls.

The Driscols were awarded $9 million in punitive damages and $2 million in actual damages.

“It’s outrageous,” said Household’s attorney, Robert Skipworth, adding that the company will appeal. Household must pay the entire amount since Allied has folded.

Collection agents made numerous profanity-laced phone calls to Driscol’s home and office in 1991 and 1992, made at least one death threat and phoned a bomb threat to her place of work, the lawsuit said.

Household didn’t dispute the Driscols’ complaints but said Allied was an independent contractor and was doing things on its own, in breach of its contract with Household. Allied never responded to the lawsuit and offered no defense at the trial.

Household received several complaints about Allied and eventually terminated the agency’s contract, Skipworth said.

Gage said, however, that even Household employees made threatening calls.

Gage said the Driscols eventually moved to New Mexico, but he wouldn’t say where.

The problems began in 1991, when Driscol began falling behind on a Household Visa credit card account. Her husband, Albert, was working sporadically.

Gage said the harassment began when Mrs. Driscol, 52, said she could pay only about $22 a month.