On 1/10/22, the CFPB sued United Debt Holding (UDH), JTM Capital Management (JTM), United Holding Group (UHG), and their owners, Craig Manseth, Jacob Adamo, and Darren Turco, for illegal debt-collection practices. The Bureau alleges that the defendants placed consumer debt with, or sold consumer debt to, collection companies that used unlawful and deceptive collection tactics. Based on CFPB’s statement, the defendants knew, or should have known, the collection companies made false threats and false statements to consumers.
UDH, JTM, and UGH are debt collectors that buy debt portfolios from creditors, or other debt sellers, and then place the portfolios with or sell them to other collection companies. From September 2017 through April of 2020, the defendants collectively placed debts with a face value of more than $8 billion. The CFPB asserts all three companies allowed third-party collection companies to deceive consumers and placed or sold debt portfolios to collection companies engaged in unlawful behavior.
According to the CFPB’s release, the defendants allegedly harmed consumers by:
Allowing third parties to deceive consumers.
UHG, UDH, and JTM and their owners were aware some of their third-party collection companies were deceiving consumers through false and misleading statements. The defendants received hundreds of complaints that their collection companies were threatening their consumers. The defendants also received recorded phone calls in which some of their third-party collection companies falsely threatened suits or made false statements about credit reporting but they continued to allow them to collect on consumer debt. As a result, some of the third-party companies continued making false threats and misleading statements for years when collecting on debt they received from the defendants.
Placing debt with and selling debt to collection companies engaged in unlawful behavior.
UHG, UDH, and JTM and their owners substantially assisted third-party collection companies engaged in deceptive conduct. From 2015 through January 2017, UDH’s compliance team reviewed recorded phone calls from JTM’s collection companies and found that many contained major violations of federal law. Instead of terminating its relationship with JTM, UDH increased the amount of business it sent to JTM and by 2017, UDH was using JTM almost exclusively for debt placements.
Read CFPB’s full release here.
