BofA Finally Dumps Debt Collector After Report Of Use Of Racist, Obscene Calls Hits National TV; Bank Continued Using Outfit Despite $1.5M+ Jury Award

In Dallas, Texas, ABC News reports:

• Two days after being confronted by ABC News, Bank of America has fired a debt collection agency after several of its operators were caught using racist and obscene phone calls to collect debts from bank customers.

• "What's up, you f---ing n---r?" said one of the collection agents in a message to 32-year old Allen Jones of Dallas, who owed $81 on his Bank of America credit card. "This is your f---ing wake up call, man," the debt collector said in a message left at Jones' home at 6:30 a.m. In a message left a few minutes later, the debt collection agent told Jones, "You little, lazy ass bitch, get your mother f---ing ass up and go pick some mother f---ing cotton fields, bitch."

• Jones said the calls continued even after he told the debt collection company he had paid his credit card bill. [...] Jones saved the taped messages and hired lawyers to sue ACT. A jury in Texas found the [sic] both the debt collectors and the corporation responsible and awarded Jones more than $1.5 million.(1)

• Despite the verdict, Bank of America continued to use ACT, accepting the company's explanation that these calls were made by rogue employees, until the bank CEO, Brian Moynihan, was given a copy of the taped calls and questioned about the use of the agency.

For more, see Investigation: Debt Collectors, the N-Word and Bank of America (Bank Fires Collection Agency After Operators Caught Using Racist, Obscene Phone Calls to Collect Debts).

(1) Click Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, and Here to listen to phone messages left by the debt collectors (Warning: Offensive Content in the phone messages, and be prepared to first sit through a ponderous commercial before hearing the messages).