Racist Voicemails Left on Man’s Cell Phone, his reward? $1.5 Million Dollars!

Posted by The Marksman at 2 June, at 11 : 24 AM Print

We do not talk about racial issues that often here because people do not tend to change their opinions on the matter.  Let’s face it people have bias’s and that is not going to change anytime soon, and it really is not that big of a deal until they let their bias seep into the work place.

Debt collectors from Advanced Call Center Technologies in Dallas have learned a very painful lesson about that.  They are going to have to pay out approximately 1.5 million dollars for explicit voicemails sent on a man’s phone in an attempt to collect a debt.

The company sent eight harassing and threatening voicemail messages on Allen Jones’ mobile phone in August 2007 trying to collect what it said he owed on a credit card.  Most messages were laced with profanity and spewed racial slurs.

“This is your mother******* wake-up call you little lazy a** b****,” wfaa.com quoted a collector as saying in one message.

“Get your mother******* n****r ass up and go pick some mother******* cotton fields,” said another collector.

Jones is African-American.

“This shouldn’t be tolerated. Nobody should have to experience what I had to experience,” Allen said.

Mark Frenkel, one of Jones’ attorneys said: “If we did not have tapes, no one would ever believe that this happened.”

“This is absolutely, without a doubt, the most egregious collection case I’ve ever seen,” Dean Malone, Jones’ other attorney, added.

Jones sued Advanced Call Center Technologies over the harassing calls.  A Dallas County jury awarded him one of the biggest verdicts of its kind-he won 50,000 dollars in mental anguish and 1.5 million dollars in punitive damages.

“We made a statement and the statement is we will not tolerate abusive debt collectors,” continued Jones.

Frenkel and Malone said employees from Advanced Call Center Technologies confessed to the calls.  Jones always disputed the debt and claims he paid it, and the amount in question was a meager sum of $200 dollars.

“They did this to Allen for fewer than 200 dollars. Two hundred bucks put him through this,” noted Frenkel.

This is a prime example of a company being punished for the stupidity of a few employees.  These people had to be fairly stupid; every single call center and debt collection place in the world clearly says these calls will be recorded.

With them knowing that, why would they be so stupid to leave voicemails with such tone and rhetoric?  There was no information available that indicated whether the employees were still with the company or not, I would suspect that they were fired but who knows these days.

All of this over a $200 disputed debt?  I am not sure how debt collectors get compensated, but even if they get a little something from getting people to pay their debts I doubt the return on $200 is all that great.  Their reasons for doing this was pure ignorance, and thinking they were being funny, slick, or clever.

In the end the company is footing the bill, and these morons will find another job somewhere else.  This just shows that people are still incapable of keeping their bias out of the work place, and until people learn how to be professionals no matter what the job is it will continue to happen.  What would your reaction be if a debt collector left racial slurs on your voicemail?

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