Collection Industry reports reports that “Attorney General Eliot Spitzer today announced that his office has filed a lawsuit against a debt collection company alleged to have engaged in illegal and abusive practices to coerce payment on time-barred or unverified debts..” There is nothing new about a collection agency that engages in abusive practices. In its report, Mr. Spitzer has accused JBC & Associates, P.C. and its successor companies, JBC Legal Group, P.C. and Boyajian Law Offices, P.C., and their operator, Jack H. Boyajian of New Jersey are accused of violations of both federal and state laws regarding debt collection practices.
The allegations against the agency include threating to sue on checks when they had no such intention to do so. It also appears that the agency would attempt to bully their debtors with questions such as “do you look good in stripes?” intimating that criminal action would be taken against them.

Collection agencies making the news for poor collection practices is nothing new. What makes this so interesting is that JBC appears to have specialized in the collection of bad checks. In Michigan, this can be quite lucrative as Michigan law allows a plaintiff tto recover reble damages (3x) for a bad check plus $250 in costs. Hence, if one sues for a $100 check, the recovery, without interest, would potentially be $1,000.00. If New York has a similiar recovery of bad check statute, which it probably does, JBC and Associates could have made made its clients whole, even after paying an attorney and a collection agency fee. What is even MORE SUPRISING is that this collection agency was owned or managed by an attorney. If these allegations are true, then the agency was managed by either pure ignorance or pure greed. Either way, its clients cannot be happy about this.