Program helps seniors dogged by debt collectors

The phone calls to Mary Hudson's home in Chester began at 8 a.m.

Five minutes later there was another.

Then another just after that.

All day until after 9 p.m. the calls came, one after another.

"I just felt like throwing the phone out the window," Hudson, 67, said. "I just had enough."

The calls were from debt collectors.

When the calls started about two years ago, Hudson said, she answered them and paid the collection agencies what she could. But she had a limited income, her credit-card debt kept mounting, and she could no longer send money. Soon the callers became more persistent.

"It got to the point where I stopped answering my phone," Hudson said

In June, she turned for help to Widener University Law School's Civil Clinic, which provides assistance to low-income Delaware County residents who have encountered financial problems, including bankruptcy.

The clinic decided to sponsor a summer program for seniors after Widener associate professor Nathaniel C. Nichols, director of the clinic, and Carl Clauss, a volunteer with the Delaware County Office on Services to the Aged, started seeing more older clients. Law students provided information on how to properly respond to debt collectors and manage finances.

"There is something going on here," Nichols recalled thinking. "They can't make bill payments."

The Federal Trade Commission received 27,382 complaints in 2008 from people who claimed collectors harassed them by calling repeatedly or continuously. In Pennsylvania that year, there were 5,874 complaints about debt collectors, according to the Attorney General's Office.

Four Widener law students helped seniors through a clinic program funded with a $10,000 grant from the American College of Bankruptcy Foundation. In July, law student Meryl Peterman of Pottstown and two other students visited the Upper Darby Senior Center - one of five centers - to talk about the U.S. Fair Debt Collections Practices Act.

The students are available for follow-up questions from the seniors who participated in those sessions through the school's Civil Clinic should the need arise.

Collection agencies rely on people's ignorance, Peterman told the seniors.

"Don't be afraid to hang up," Katrina Shea, 25, of West Chester, a second-year law student, told them. "Tell them you know your rights."

The students informed participants that debt collectors who contact people with delinquent accounts must within five days of calling provide a letter stating how much they owe.

Collectors cannot contact debtors' relatives or neighbors, garnishee any Social Security, disability, or veterans benefits, use threatening or obscene language, or phone before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m.

Repeated calls are not allowed. Neither are calls to people whose cases are represented by attorneys.

Michael Scoliere, a lawyer with the Harrisburg office of Linebarger, Goggan, Blair & Sampson, said, "It is silly for a collection agency to beat up on someone when they can't pay. It is so much more effective to listen and help resolve the problem."

Bruce K. Warren, a lawyer in Philadelphia, said he had had complaints from people who claimed to have been abused by debt collectors. In one case, he said, a 68-year-old Luzerne County woman recovering from surgery was told she was going to be arrested. Warren said the woman packed her bags and sat for hours at home waiting for police, who were never called.

"It is a spiral effect," Warren said. If a senior on a fixed income misses a bill payment, they might not be able to get current again, he said.

The rate of bankruptcy filings for people over 65 has more than doubled since 1991, according to a 2007 Consumer Bankruptcy Project report.

"More and more people are getting into trouble," said Clauss, a former DuPont Co. chemical engineer.

Hudson said her limited income goes entirely for basic living and medical costs.

A Delaware County resident for more than 40 years, Hudson never expected to be in financial trouble. She worked, raised a family, paid her bills and taxes, and even found a little left over for an occasional vacation.

In 1996, she had back surgery. In too much pain to continue working as a nurse's aide, she filed for disability benefits and her financial woes began.

Hudson said she rarely leaves her bedroom because of her pain. Before she contacted the clinic, she felt she had no choice but to listen to the phone ring constantly.

But she said that after the clinic sent a letter, the calls began to subside.

"People feel bad when they know they just can't pay," Hudson said. "If I could pay, so help me God, I would."