By Steve Austin
In your will eventually become important, as your debt grows and some clients do not pay. To collect small business debts legally, you must send a written notice that collections have begun, within five days of first contacting the debtor for collections. The letter must include dispute instructions.
Small Business Debt Collection Laws Forbidden Practices…
-Collect any amount beyond the actual debt, unless you really can do so legally.
-Continue collections on a debt if the debtor has disputed the debt, unless you provide the debtor with written proof.
-Continue contacting the debtor if within 30 days of first contact, the debtor disputes the debt.
-Credit a payment the debtor has made to a non-disputed debt to a debt the debtor has disputed.
-Deposit a post-dated check before the post-date.
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By DIANA B. HENRIQUES
Published: April 1, 2009
As Bernard L. Madoff waits in jail to be sentenced, legal problems are accumulating for some of the hedge fund managers who helped him raise billions of dollars from around the world for what he now admits was a vast Ponzi scheme.
Massachusetts regulators have sued the Fairfield Greenwich Group, one of the earliest of these so-called feeder fund managers, for fraud, saying it had repeatedly misled investors about how diligently it checked out Mr. Madoff’s operations over the years.
“Fairfield’s complete disregard of its fiduciary duties to its investors and its flagrant and recurring misrepresentations to its investors rises to the level of fraud,” said lawyers for William F. Galvin, secretary of state for Massachusetts and its top securities regulator, in an administrative complaint filed Wednesday.
[Read full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/02madoff.html?ref=global-home]