Debt collector Michael John Stanyer used all kinds of invective to persuade people who owed money that they should settle their bills.
He called one person “delusional”, another a “dickhead liar” and a “pathetic lying loser”, and labelled a couple “country bumpkins”.
Debt collector Michael John Stanyer.
Between 2021 and 2023, Stanyer aggressively pursued Victorians whose debts were referred to his firm RMS Collections by using strong-arm tactics to compel debtors who owed between $300 and $10,000 to pay businesses what they owed.
But in April 2021, nine debtors fought back, making complaints about Stanyer’s sometimes threatening calls, texts and emails to Consumer Affairs Victoria (CAV), who charged him in March this year.
Stanyer was convicted and fined $15,000 in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Thursday for using unlawful collection practices and charging the debtor the cost of collections. He is also banned from debt-collection activities for five years.
The court heard that one man, who owed almost $9000 and initially thought Stanyer was a scammer, was labelled a “pathetic lying loser”. Stanyer told him, “You are slightly unstable, aren’t you?” and “You lie and can’t be trusted or believed”.
He then said: “I’m going to default you first thing in the morning, so there goes your credit rating.”
He belittled another man, sending him 16 text messages in which he labelled him and his wife “country bumpkins”.
He threatened several people with default judgments, telling one man that he “will simply default your business on Monday”.
“Very easy to do it, we do it regularly and the default never goes away with the systems we use,” he said.
Stanyer in a photo from social media.
He also called the man “delusional”, told him to “stop wasting his time with pathetic emails and simply pay the money that is owed”, badgering him to “grow up and take responsibility and pay bills”.
He rang another man 56 times over five months pursuing a $7500 debt, swearing and threatening him over “what’s coming”.
Stanyer told The Age he works with small businesses, that his firm will close as a result of the prosecution, and he won’t contest the ban.
“The debtor who isn’t paying is protected by CAV and simply complain [sic] and then get out of paying their debt. Not really fair for us to get abused by nearly everyone we speak to and cop this treatment,” he said.
“I’m looking out for small business who are screaming desperately and closing down every day.”
Michael Stanyer
He admitted in a May hearing that he knew he should not be “yelling at people and swear at people”, and that he had begun seeing a psychiatrist and attended an anger management course, as well as going to the gym.
However, when the allegations were put to him, Stanyer remained defiant, saying he was trying to help small businesses struggling during the cost-of-living crisis, and turned his invective towards prosecutors from CAV.
“You know these guys [CAV] are looking out for the criminals and [people] not paying bills and I’m looking out for small business who are screaming desperately and closing down every day,” he told the court.
He said that collection has become difficult because debtors will use the legal system and report him to regulators when he approaches them to pay a bill.
“The latest one is people put IVOs [intervention orders] against you, so then I can’t speak to them from a debt collection point of view, this is why the country is in such a bad way, because small businesses can’t operate any more,” he said.
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