TV Station Bashes Job Creating ARM Firm

In an interesting take on the typical “debt collectors ruin people’s lives” story, a TV news station in Tampa, Fla. ran a piece that calls into question the debt collection practices of a large debt buyer, while acknowledging that the firm has a large local call center.

ABC Action News in Tampa put its I-Team investigative squad to use to “expose” the practices of Asset Acceptance Capital Corp. (NASDAQ: AACC) in handling older debt. The story follows the experience of one consumer in her dealings with Asset Acceptance.

At no point does she, nor her attorney, accuse the company of engaging in illegal activity. In fact, the consumer is actually quoted as saying, “I understand where they’re coming from.”

Her attorney noted that Asset may be violating terms of a settlement by attempting to collect a debt that is expiring, not already expired (the statute of limitations on that debt runs out in March 2013, so he’s taking a pretty open definition of “expiring.”)

But that didn’t stop the I-Team from dragging out examples of Asset Acceptance’s past settlements.

The report also noted that the company does a lot of its debt collection work from Riverview, in suburban Tampa. In fact, it’s one of only three call centers that Asset Acceptance maintains in the U.S.

In the absence of a hard accusation of wrongdoing, we find it a little odd that a news outlet decided to attack a local job creator. We know that ARM companies that are truly doing it wrong need to be held accountable, but to throw a company under the bus with no new accusations seems wrong in its own way.