Hey everybody welcome back to another
episode of debt collection 101
here on Arbeit U. Yes, we have a
great episode
I love these episodes we have a guest
joining us today we got John Bedard who
we just saw at collector live if you
went great event. He's a corporate
defense attorney from Atlanta. Thank you
so much for joining we're going to apply
it I take my brick but I'm in compliance
yes yeah sorry thank you for having me
no thanks for doing this we really
appreciate it so I guess let's kick
things off with the tell us about
yourself yeah it's my favorite question.
Well my name is John Bedard I've been
here in Atlanta for 20 years now. I
started my career representing mortgage
lenders and mortgage brokers and that
was a very nice segue and a compliment
to representing the collection industry
and so my practice representing the
collection industry began in the late
90s and I've been representing debt
collectors debt buyers creditors and
lawyers ever since. We helped them do
compliance work helping them stay in
compliance with the myriad of laws that
they have to comply with around the
country and we do the defense litigation
when they get sued regulatory defense
and and civil defense litigation and so
I'm originally from the Northeast. New
York and Pennsylvania I know that I was. He was
smart enough to get out. Get to the warm
weather but now that I've been in
Atlanta for 20 years are saying now is
ain't never going back to the old
country. We're spoiled here. It
still gets cold. We still get the seasons but
it's just not the extreme. It's yeah it's
a great place it's a great part of the
world already to be in. Smart
choice.
Speaks to your intelligence already.
yeah exactly so how did you end up
getting in I mean so from from mortgages
to debt collection why did you do that
yeah so well it was it was really kind
of an accident
I just I just sort of fell into it I
knew that the the firm that
was represented primarily the mortgage
industry and I was really you know in
the shadows and under the wings of the
partners at that firm and they
encouraged me to you know to find a
practice that was a nice complement to
the mortgage practice but was still
inside the firm's core competency which
was compliance and litigation and so you
know one client by accident became two
and two became four and you know fast
forward you know ten years and you're a
partner at the firm and you know fast
forward another ten years and you know
you've got this whole practice that
you've been doing for a while yeah
awesome that's yeah that's awesome
you know I promise you I didn't go to
law school telling myself I wanted to
represent debt collectors for a living
it just sort of happened yeah see I went
to a college thing I want to solve this
debt collector so I get it
that's the comic you know wouldn't
happen any other way and so it's a great
industry they're great people and so I'm
kind of I'm real I'm happy about the
trajectory that my career is Egham you
yeah that's awesome cool so I guess
we're off the bat first question I keep
revising predictions on any legislation
that might come out in 2019 that will
help agencies navigate compliance a
little easier for an exec for example an
official a TDS definition okay well you
know I don't you know I think we are
gonna see some rules in some legislation
this year perhaps I don't know
compliance any easier though you know
the best thing we can hope for is
clarity in the law now no matter what
the rule is and so you know they we have
been waiting patiently for the
highly-anticipated rules from the CFPB
and so you know we're expecting that
again I know we've been told that many
times but potentially in second quarter
here we might be getting some
rules or some guidance hopefully we'll
get some some guidance on the definition
of automatic telephone dialing system
it's really really unfortunate that we
cannot get from lawmakers or courts to
agree on what the words mean in the
statute really you know we are all
victims of unclear law yeah and it's
really burdensome for folks that are
navigating these waters and so hopefully
we will see something there the other
thing that I think might be on the 2019
radar is more and more rules or laws
about privacy privacy seems to be at the
forefront of a lot of people's minds and
we're beginning to see States all over
the country adopt privacy rules data
security rules and so if I had a
prediction it would date you know
privacy would be one of them for 2019
very good prediction I wouldn't man yeah
so until that day what do you yeah well
not that but what do you tell your
clients basically how do they handle
these how do they handle these loose
definitions how do they handle not
knowing what they're doing not you know
being in this murky water not knowing
that you know what yeah what can they do
to like stay compliant when there's you
don't know what compliance oh yeah well
a lot of people in this industry now
have counsel they have good legal
counsel to help them navigate these
waters aside from that however I tell
clients all the time that there are
really only two categories of consumers
that find attorneys and filed lawsuits
against people the first category is
angry consumers right and angry
consumers is a category of consumer
we can really control you know we have
to make sure we are giving consumers
great customer service and we're not
making them angry so that they have no
reason to go to a lawyer to achieve what
they could otherwise achieve on the
telephone with a law-abiding respectful
debt collector by and large what we see
all over the country now law-abiding
respectful debt collectors that are that
really want to do the right thing
the second category of consumer is the
bankrupt consumer because those are the
consumers that go to bankruptcy lawyers
for help and those bankruptcy lawyers
very often tried to help their clients
avoid bankruptcy and often that includes
suing somebody and so you know
collectors have a little bit less
control over the bankrupt consumer but
they can still do what they would they
do best which is to continue to work
with consumers that are in financial
trouble to help them avoid bankruptcy
just as much as their own bankruptcy
lawyers do Gould there's a golden tip
right there just so the biggest way is
basically just you know be nice yeah but
I mean it's a very simplistic version of
it but yeah yeah but it's true I mean no
one a lot of that you have their songs
silly technical violation that somebody
makes and you they're not mad at you
they're not gonna the consumers not
going to just go out of the way them to
do anything you know very nice to them
and they enjoy having a conversation and
you were helpful to them so in a sense
but yeah so
jiminy while you made your yeah I guess
for this coming year you your prediction
is the privacy laws yeah I mean that's
everywhere yeah that's that's
Nostradamus over here predicting that
yeah that's a great call yeah so there's
that but you have an app right you have
an app actually yes
it's called arm law on lock and
available on all kinds of different
platforms iOS platform Android you know
Amazon Kindle all those kind of
platforms and really what it is is it is
a resource for the law so you have the
Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
record recording act telephone Consumer
Protection Act so you can get the actual
statutes right there in the app but you
can also get case law related to those
statutes and so if you're trying to find
a letter case if you're trying to find
cases about the identification of a
debtor under the TEL under the FDCPA you
can categorize case law and really look
for cases and law as a resource and the
best part about it is it's pretty get
out yes yep that yep yeah that's a great
resource for every collection in the
agency to have yeah not only that I've
gotten calls from consumers that love it
I even got calls from the CFPB saying
hey we really like this app would you
mind adding something else to it please
and say la they wanted the
gramm-leach-bliley Act so okay great
we haven't grabbed these by reactive so
we have we have just under 10,000
downloads on it really yeah now we've
had this for several years now so that's
in a it's incredible incredible yeah and
so it's got some very easy ways to link
to navigate to different things you can
you can communicate with me directly
through it so it's pretty neat blowing
up your QAM that's awesome good for you
yeah that's cool I'm going I want to go
back to what we were talking about a
little earlier keeping uh you know angry
consumers banker petunias and you also
are involved with speech analytics right
I'm sorry I missed it said you're also
involved with speech analytics right oh
yes so so one of the things that our
office does is offers an outsourced
speech analytics tool to clients you
know we've got a lot of clients who are
either unable or unwilling
to invest what it takes to develop their
own in-house speech analytics program
right it's a big capital investment it's
a lot of labour in fact it cost more to
operate than it does to buy in many
circumstances and so what we do is you
know I invested in that speech analytics
tool and instead what we do is we serve
as an outsourced speech analytics tool
for clients so clients drop their
recordings on us we do all the analytics
on those recordings and then we deliver
a result back to them which takes all of
the capital investment out of the
equation which takes all their labor and
their learning curve and all of that out
of the equation for them love that's
really it's turnkey for clients and they
love it and they love it and so yes
that's another added bonus of a service
that our office provides to clients and
it's a legal service because we're
giving them legal advice on the content
of their recordings as well and so that
helps you know that that just helps to
our firm provide a more rounded service
to meet the needs of the collection
industry yeah are you so with are you
able to spot like with the speech
endlich's where the agents to be able to
see if they have a lot of angry
consumers that their blockers are
talking to is that something that's
gonna spot
absolutely yes and so we call that the
red flags call and so we have a whole we
have a whole dialogue dedicated to what
we call red flags and so angry consumers
bankrupt consumers the consumer is
represented by counsel you know we're
looking for all of those things and we
provide results to the client now one of
the things that's really neat about it
you know I'm a big advocate of the
mantra don't tell me you're compliant
show me you're compliant yeah and one of
the things that we've given our clients
the opportunity to do through speech
analytics is actually download all their
speech data for themselves so not only
can they
say that they're confident that their
agents recite the mini Miranda can to
consumers they actually have the data to
prove it right yeah and so that's huge
that's huge and our clients are really
take advantage of that that's awesome
I've got so many great services yeah
yeah I know where you have $10,000 right
on the app it's just you got a wealth of
knowledge up there all right yeah well
thank you so much for doing this watch
for joining this one link the
information so people can hunt you down
how would how it can people find you
they can find me at
www.elegantinnerguidance.com are doing
this I appreciate I see you next time
see you next time
