Psychotic Debt Collectors

The "Fatal Attraction" Method Of Debt Collection

Moe Tkacik | May 1, 2009, 12:18PM

Remember James Ricobene, the suburban Chicago man who fell behind on his Mercedes payments and found a threatening wall post on his daughter's MySpace page a few weeks later? Yeah, we thought that was bad, but some of you had much worse tales from the collection agency annals.

But the tale of Phoenix's Jennifer Dicks and her delinquent Chevy Cavalier is so beyond we fully expect Lifetime to option the story for a film. Last year Dicks (allegedly) bought a Chevy Cavalier with a loan from the Auto Financing Network, a local auto loan company that claims to approve 100% of applicants for loans. AFN's website claims its Top 3 Priorities of 2008 are #1 Treat Customer Right #2 Treat Customer Right #3 Treat Customer Right.

A new motto for 2009 might be in order. ("Treat Customer Like Psycho Ex-Girlfriend"?) In a lawsuit filed against the company in an Arizona superior court Dicks claims the collection agency went so far as to buy the url that matches her name and create a "Jennifer Dicks isn't paying for her Cavalier!" website.

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