Are you being harassed by GC Services?
Contact Creditor Harassment Lawyer Ronald Wilcox
Where is GC Services located:
GC Services, LP
6330 Gulfton PO Box 2667
Houston, TX 77081
Phone: 713-777-4441
800-727-5848
Fax: 713-776-6689
www.gcserv.com
Who is GC Services:
GC Services is, one of the nation's largest collection agencies, placing
telephone calls to consumers from about 30 US call centers. According
to information found on the Internet GC Services has the capacity to take
operator-assisted calls in various languages and handles about 20 million
calls each month.
Its headquarters is located in Houston, Texas, but it operates call centers
in several other states, as well as Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, in Canada
and Bridgetown, Barbados, in the Caribbean.
In
Peter v. GC Services, 310 F.3d 344 (5th Cir. 2002), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
that GC Services violated the FDCPA by impersonating the United States
Department of Education. The Court stated:
We do not need to reach the issue of whether
§ 1692f(8) implicitly includes an exemption for benign language, since the Defendants'
impersonation of the Department of Education is certainly not benign.
The Senate Report accompanying the FDCPA explained that the purpose of
the act was "to protect consumers from a host of unfair, harassing,
and deceptive debt collection practices without imposing unnecessary restrictions
on ethical debt collectors." S. REP. NO. 95-382, at 1-2,
reprinted in 1977 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin. News 1695, 1696. One [*17] of the deceptive
practices Congress was concerned about was "impersonating public
officials," id., because of the large number of pre-FDCPA cases where
debt collectors were sanctioned for impersonating government agencies.
See, e.g.,
Slough v. FTC, 396 F.2d 870, 872 (5th Cir. 1968) (ruling that use of "State Credit Control Board" by private debt
collection firm violated
15 U.S.C. § 45(a)(1) ban on "deceptive practices in commerce").
As Defendants' impersonation of the Department of Education implicates this core concern of the FDCPA, any implicit exception for benign language cannot be stretched to cover that thoroughly disapproved practice. Accordingly, we conclude that Defendants violated § 1692f(8). We also hold that the envelope violates § 1692e(14). n5 Section e(14) bars "the use of any business, company or organization name other than the true name of the debt collector's business, company or organization." The envelope violates the mandate of this section by using the United States Department of Education name and address in the upper left hand corner of the envelope. By convention the name and address placed in this corner [*18] is that of the return addressee, or the sender of the mail. n6 By using the department as the return addressee, GC Services represented the sender of the mail as the Department of Education, when in fact it was GC Services. Thus, GC Services used the Department of Education name as its own, violating § 1692e(14).
If you are being harassed or abused by GC Services or any debt collector, you should contact Consumer Protection lawyer Ronald Wilcox, a California lawyer protecting consumers from collection harassment and abusive debt collectors. If you are being harassed or abused by a debt collector you should contact consumer protection lawyer, Ronald Wilcox. We can help MAKE THE HARASSMENT STOP!