There’s increasing evidence in the form of lawsuits and complaints that some debt collection companies are using abusive and illegal tactics in an effort to debtors to pay up. Attorney Steve Halbert handles 30-50 cases at one time, representing clients who say they’re being harassed and even bullied by debt collection companies.

Halbert says, at a time when many can’t afford to pay the hundreds or thousands of dollars they owe in one lump sum, collectors are becoming less and less willing to work out a payment plan.”Now the collectors are saying we can’t do that,” said Halbert. “We’re only going to have this account for a short time. We need a lot of money and we need it up front, and we need it fast.”

Indiana Deputy Attorney General David Paetzmann say his office is given at least a dozen calls each week from people complaining about slanderous debt collectors. The number of calls has raised more than 20 percent from just 4 years ago.”We do keep track of the names of the collection agencies against whom we receive complaints, and there are some that we receive more complaints against than others,” said Paetzmann.

One of those businesses is Premiere Credit of North America. It’s named in two of the 6 lawsuits acquired by Fox 59 News.A representative for Premiere Credit says the company has “strict policies, training and monitoring against threats and harassments.”Paetzmann suggests consumers become accustom with the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the legal limits it places on debt collectors.

“The collection agency is only supposed to contact people between eight o’clock in the morning and nine o’clock at night so people should be aware of those limitations,” said Paetzmann.

The act also prohibits debt collectors from deceitfully claiming they can arrest you or snag your property, talking about your debt with anyone else, and trying to collect any fee in addition to the amount owed.

At a press conference Tuesday in Buffalo, N.Y., New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo declared that his office has shut down a debt collection operation in Western New York that included at least 9 collection agencies owned by Tobias Boyland.

Cuomo said that his office executed search warrants on four of Boylands businesses and his residence early Tuesday morning. When investigators executed the warrant at Boylands home, they found a loaded gun, prompting the Erie County Sheriff to take him into custody. Boyland is a convicted felon and may face additional weapons charges in Erie County.

Boylands operation was featured heavily in a Dateline NBC segment that was broad-casted in March. Cuomo remarked that a Dateline crew was present at one of the offices raided Tuesday. The attorney generals office alleged that Boylands operation annoyed and browbeat consumers into paying old debts by threatening jail time, posing as police officers and worse. According to Mitra Hormozi, special deputy chief of staff to the attorney general, These are some of the worst tactics we’ve seen.

“Plain and simple, this company was run by people who lied, bullied and preyed on vulnerable Americans struggling to resolve their financial situation,” said Cuomo in a statement. “Pretending to be a police officer, threatening to throw consumers in jail – these practices are as despicable as they are illegal. My Office will continue to relentlessly root out these kinds of tactics and shut down unscrupulous companies that violate the rights of consumers across New York and the entire nation.”

Cuomo said that Boylands debt collection operations in the Buffalo area had been shut down, including offices running under the names Central Resource Management, Final Claims Asset Locator’s, Final Control Asset Locator’s, Interchange Payment Solutions, Next Step Services, Portfolio Asset Assurance, Silverbay Services, and Teleport. As well as 3 others, ” 2 with criminal records ” associated to Boyland were named in the suit.

The office of the attorney general announced in May that it had shut down two collection agencies and subpoenaed 20 others in what they called a statewide inquiry into debt collection companies. Less than a week later, the office said that it had settled with three more collection agencies under investigation.

In June, Cuomo announced that his office will keep on investigating the countless deceptive practices that debt collection companies, debt settlement companies and others make use of as a means to exploit consumers who are already down on their luck.