Buffaloed: A wild ride
Opens in theaters February 14,2020
by Dan Locke
Rated 41/2 thumbs up out of 5
I was invited to check out a movie name Buffaloed. (When someone has you buffaloed, he has tricked or fooled you) Being from Buffalo, NY. This caught my attraction. This is a movie that stars Zoey Deutch as Peg Dahl, who dreams of escaping her blue-collar childhood home to attend an Ivy League university just by using her wit and sharp tongue. While pursuing her dreams she ends up in debt. And what the films show, her ups and downs to get out of debt. Until she gets all she wanted with a surprise adding.
I think the film is based on the 2019 news story. A $60 million settlement that will close a Buffalo-based debt collection company. Three debt collection companies in total make-up the $66 million settlement.
Douglas MacKinnon, who owns Northern Resolution Group and Enhanced Acquisitions, was required to pay back millions of dollars in restitution and penalties. Delray Capital, a Toronto-based company owned by Mark Gray, was imposed $6 million in penalties, but that was suspended to $10,000 due to an “inability to pay.”
According to Attorney General James, the debt collection companies caused $200 to be added to the debts they purchased and placed for collection. Collectors then demanded consumers to pay thousands of dollars they did not legally owe. The settlement also alleges collectors told consumers they would be arrested for check fraud. Collectors would spoof calls and make it appear government agencies were calling consumers.
The settlement bans MacKinnon, Gray, and their companies from the debt collection industry.
What I liked about the film. I was filmed in my childhood home. So it brought back memories of places like Lackawanna, Tonawanda, Cheektowaga, Niagara Falls and other places in this blue-collar town. If you are from the Buffalo area you will enjoy it. And maybe learn a few things or two.
