Owner: Consolidate Debt URL:http://www.creditselfdefense.com Join Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:50:37 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Repair and protect your credit reports, credit scores, and reputation from predatory lenders, fraudulent bill collectors and other pests. Site statistics:Click here
Predatory Subprime Mortgage Lenders Escape The Law 2008-03-08 02:28:00 The most common phrase now associated with finance companies is: "We are happy to cooperate with the ongoing investigation."
However, as the Bush administration's Justice Department has turned a blind eye to wire fraud, mail fraud, RICO and extortion by corporate contributors, those corporate PR flacks are talking more and more about civil investigations, not criminal prosecutions. Civil Read more:Escape
, Lenders
, Mortgage
, Mortgage Lenders
, Subprime
Law Firm Caught In Debt Collection Misdirection 2008-03-07 04:07:00 The law firm Baker, Miller, Markoff & Krasny, LLC of Chicago violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1692, when it sued Pauline Sumowskiw for a debt allegedly owed by her deceased husband.
Even though Pauline Sumowskiw was never an authorized user on her late husband's Discover card, and no debt, if it had ever existed at all, would have been within the statute of Read more:Caught
, Law Firm
The Legal Limits On Debt Collectors And How That's Going 2008-03-06 02:24:00 Michelle Singletary, the smart Personal Finance columnist for the Washington Post has an article about the benefits derived by the debt collections industry due to the suffering of families by the failing economy. Also explored are the rising tide of consumer complaints against abuse and consumer rights.
More... Read more:Going
, Limits
Franklin Collection Service Will Get To Explain In Court 2008-03-05 02:01:00 Franklin Collection Service
, a third party debt collector doing business in Alabama, has been engaging in unlawful practices familiar to anybody who has dealt with insurance companies and medical bills. But one Alabama father has fought back in a new way.
Kevin A. Calma received a hospital bill for treatment his daughter received last June. Calma thought his insurance was going to handle the Read more:Court
, Franklin
Payday Lenders Caught Not Disclosing Interest Rates 2008-03-04 02:59:00 American Cash Market Inc., and Anderson Payday
Loans, both based in California, and CashPro d/b/a MakePaydayToday.com, based in Nevada, stated their loan costs on their Web sites such as a $20 fee for a $100 loan. But they didn't disclose the entire costs. For example, they failed to disclose the annual percentage rate (APR) for a typical 14 day pay period from American Cash Market would be 460 Read more:Caught
, Interest
, Lenders
, Rates
Foreclosures By Subprime Lender Fremont Investment and Loan Stopped By Court 2008-03-03 02:36:00 The Massachusetts Attorney General obtained a preliminary injunction against California based Fremont
General and Fremont Investment and Loan ("Fremont"), a subprime lender that originated thousands of risky loans in Massachusetts. Risky loans significantly contributed to the foreclosure crisis and Massachusetts is holding Freemont up to scrutiny for possible illegal acts. The order prohibits Read more:Court
, Foreclosures
, Lender
, Subprime
Student Loans Pay For Millions In Sallie Mae Lobbying 2008-03-02 03:36:00 The New York Attorney General has served subpoenas on Sallie Mae's corporate offices seeking information about a type of private loan the company offers, the company said in a regulatory filing.
This comes after it was revealed Sallie Mae spent four million dollars of payments from student loans not to decrease the cost of student loans but to lobby Washington DC insiders to get more favorable Read more:Loans
, Student
, Student Loans
Homeowners Seek To Cancel Predatory Mortgages With Class Actions 2008-03-01 11:36:00 When standards loosened at many mortgage firms during the housing bubble it led to a rise of predatory practices. Now, record numbers of people are finding themselves with loans that are more than they were told they would be and are looking for a legal remedy to cancel the loans.
A federal appeals court is going to rule in a suit against Chevy Chase Bank if homeowners across the country can Read more:Actions
, Cancel
, Homeowners
Collection Agency Charged On 132 Counts 2008-02-29 02:55:00 Pacific States Credit Company in California is the latest collection agency to get caught placing illegal liens on property and blackmailing the owners into having them removed.
At least 113 Sacramento County homeowners have had illegal liens placed on their houses by the central California debt collector. And the debt collector faces trial this summer in Orange County on 132 felony counts Read more:Charged
, Counts
Experian Credit Bureau Finds A Consumer Who Fights Back 2008-02-27 02:32:00 Attorney Robert Sola won the nation's largest consumer-credit verdict, $5 million in punitive damages against TransUnion, for Judy Thomas, an Oregon woman whose information was mixed up with another woman's who had atrocious credit. A judge later reduced the award to $1.3 million.
Hundreds of such cases are filed every year and Sola has filed new suits for a new client. Sheldon Chrysler's Read more:Consumer
, Fights
, Fights Back
Predatory Lending Industry Front Group Disguises Itself As Consumer Rights Group 2008-02-26 02:36:00 Astroturfing is slang for public relations campaigns that seek to create the impression of being spontaneous grassroots efforts, hence the reference to the artificial grass AstroTurf.
The goal of an Astroturfing campaign is to disguise the efforts as an independent public reaction to an opponent. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate actions by both overt ("outreach," "awareness," etc.) and covert Read more:Consumer
, Front
, Group
, Itself
, Lending
, Rights
Payday Loan Victim Wins 200K 2008-02-25 11:30:00 Emma Staton sued the payday lender Americash in 2001 and accused the company of violating state law by charging more than 17 percent interest. A judge ruled in her favor and awarded Staton $834,000 and $50,000 for attorneys' fees.
However, Americash successfully frustrated Emma's ability to collect the judgment.
Now, Arkansas' highest court has ruled Emma Staton can collect the two hundred Read more:Payday
, Payday Loan
Collection Agency Gets Away With It 2008-02-24 15:40:00 Jack Southern had an accident that sent him to the emergency room. He paid his co pay and put the incident behind him. Then the CMRE collection agency sent him a demand for 500 dollars claiming it was the remaining balance.Jack paid CMRE. Then an insurance statement arrived showing medicaid and Jack's co pay had covered the bill in full.Jack tried to get CMRE collection agency to refund the
FTC Settles With Debt Reduction Companies 2008-02-24 02:18:00 Debt-Set and Resolve Credit Counseling sold debt reduction services through Web sites and television and radio advertisements with claims such as “Reduce Debt Now” and “Eliminate Harassing Calls.” When consumers called a toll-free number they were encouraged to enroll in a “debt consolidation program” if their unsecured consumer debt was up to one month overdue, or a “debt settlement program” Read more:Companies
Newspaper Faces Down Collection Agency And Lets Them Off The Hook 2008-02-22 02:22:00 Every day innocent consumers victimized by fraudulent collection agencies contact local TV stations and newspapers for help. Like cockroaches fleeing the sunlight, the bill collectors predictably shut down their scam, close the account and flee.
But they slink off with a smile, because they are exposed without consequence. The media fires blanks.
Dorothy Archambeau contacted a Minnesota media Read more:Newspaper
TV Station Confirms Credit Bureaus Don't Know If They Put Judgments On The Right Reports 2008-02-21 02:03:00 Before a charge can be filed in criminal court a burden of proof called "probable cause" must be met by law enforcement. A civil suit must have enough proof to be able to withstand a motion to dismiss, otherwise the plaintiff can be counter sued for filing a frivolous claim.
However, credit bureaus place judgments on consumer credit reports without any idea if the report they are tainting is the Read more:Right
, Station
Home Depot And Their Collection Attorney's Shakedown Consumers 2008-02-20 16:12:00 Miami handyman Glenn Rudge was falsely accused of shoplifting an $8 set of drill bits by Home Depot
. When Rudge showed his receipt to prosecutors they dropped the charge. Rudge thought he'd settled the matter.
He was wrong. Home Depot
hadn't got their collection attorney involved yet.
The next month Mr. Rudge got a letter from the Palmer Reifler law firm. Home Depot's lawyers demanded Rudge pay Read more:Attorney
Barack Obama vs. Predatory Lenders 2008-02-20 11:13:00 Barack held a Town Hall meeting in San Antonio, TX on February 19, 2008 prior to winning his 9th and 10th contests in a row. The crowd at his victory speech wanted to know his plan to take on predatory lenders.
More... Read more:Barack
, Barack Obama
, Lenders
, Obama
Payday Lender Whistleblowers Testify In Virginia 2008-02-20 02:50:00 A former manager of a payday lending store urged Virginia
legislators to pass aggressive industry reforms to stop what he called “financial terrorists” from preying on vulnerable Virginians.
The former manager revealed he was trained to push people into taking out the maximum $500 payday loan as a way to keep them coming back for more money. “I realized I was working for financial terrorists, Read more:Lender
, Payday
Returning Soldiers Face Collection Agency Harassment. 2008-02-19 02:11:00 After countless hours of training and a year of combat duty in the desert, the last thing a returning soldier should expect is a new and unfamiliar conflict: Close quarter collection agency harassment.
But that's what happened to Dan Whiting.
Shortly after enlisting at college in 2004 Dan Whiting's unit was deployed for training and then combat duty.
About a month after deployment a letter Read more:Harassment
, Soldiers
Some Credit Repair Companies Are Credit Ripoff Companies 2008-02-18 11:23:00 With falling home values, increasing mortgage defaults and a recessionary economy, more people are drowning in a sea of debt. May will turn to companies that sell credit repair and credit counseling services. Some of those companies, though, are not law offices and sometimes the services they charge for do not exist. Many of these companies aren't regulated by federal law.
Anyone can open a Read more:Companies
, Repair
Phony Legal Aid Services Seeking Out The Most Vulnerable 2008-02-17 03:33:00 Colorado has filed a federal suit against Legal Aid National Services
, Inc., (LANS). Legal Aid National Services president Kendrick E. White, White's wife Jasmine Ewing, and White's half-brother Derrich E. Brown, have also been sued by the state. The defendants defendant preyed on lower-income consumers with confusing business names and false promises of legal aid. According to the Attorney Read more:Seeking
, Vulnerable
FEMA Provieds Toxic Trailers, Evicts Victims, Then Sends Threatening Collection Letters 2008-02-17 03:28:00 FEMA is the agency with acres of empty mobile homes because they couldn't find the hurricanes to take them to.
FEMA is the agency that put homeless Americans and their children in trailers filled with toxic chemicals.
And on the same day the Centers for Disease Control released a study that the poison in the FEMA trailers was 75 times the limit OSHA allowed workers to be exposed to, FEMA Read more:Letters
, Trailers
, Victims
Failure To Prosecute Usury Laws Allows Predatory Lenders To Steal Cars 2008-02-17 02:50:00 Potomac area lawyer Leonard J. Koenick shared the following story with the Washington Post, making the point that payday lenders aren't the only predators running loose. "I'm a lawyer, and a client recently came to me with something called a "motor vehicle equity line of credit." For the "privilege" of borrowing $300, she had to first pay a $150 "membership fee" and was charged 300 percent Read more:Lenders
, Steal
Government Bill Collectors OK To Keep Pursuing Families Of Fallen Soldiers 2008-02-16 03:05:00 When is giving all not enough? When you are killed in the line of duty and government bill collectors come after your surviving family members.
A bill in the Senate to protect families of fallen soldiers has been stopped by Senator Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii.
Legislation had been introduced that would change Title 38 of the U.S. Code and forgive the debt owed by men and women who had lost their Read more:Fallen
, Families
, Government
, Soldiers
$5 Million Verdict Against Debt Collector Portnoff Law Associates 2008-03-13 02:07:00 Pennsylvania property owners who received collection demands from the law firm of Portnoff Law Associates
were charged unauthorized fees, interest, and penalties. They filed a class action suit and were represented by the law firm of Donovan Searles, LLC.
The Court found Portnoff Law Associates had charged and collected fees, interest, penalties and attorney fees that the Pennsylvania courts had Read more:Collector
, Verdict
Bad Credit & No Credit No Problem For 500% Interest Loans 2008-03-12 02:36:00 There was an organized rally on the streets of Denver today. It was not a rally for equal justice or social justice or economic justice as one might expect of such things. It was a rally to keep 500 percent payday loans legal. The demonstration was organized by payday loan companies threatened by a law that might make them scale back to a mere 45% annual interest rate. Payday loan employees made Read more:Bad Credit
, Interest
, Loans
, Problem
Predatory Mortgage Companies Fast Tracked To Federal Court 2008-03-11 02:07:00 The facts about predatory loan practices in minority communities are not new. In 2006 the Center for Responsible Lending released a study that found when income and credit risk were equal, African-Americans were more than 30 percent more likely to receive higher-rate, more expensive subprime loans than Caucasians. A 2007 report by the Federal
Home Loan Mortgage
Corporation ( Read more:Companies
, Court
, Tracked
Eliot Spitzer's Fight Against Predatory Lenders Might Have Cost Him 2008-03-11 01:07:00 Elliot Spitzer
testified before congress last month about the Bush administration looking the other way and doing nothing to protect American homeowners from the predatory lenders that were destroying uncounted numbers of families. Spitzer went further to testify that federal law enforcement under this administration chose instead to align itself with the criminals that were victimizing consumers Read more:Eliot
, Eliot Spitzer
, Lenders
Private Student Loans Are The New Predatory Lending 2008-03-10 04:14:00 College students are becoming increasingly reliant on high-priced and lightly regulated private loans to pay tuition and other expenses.
And those students are risking their futures.
“Paying the Price: The High Cost of PrivateStudentLoans
and the Dangers for Student Borrowers”, is a new report from the National Consumer Law Center
It finds that:
• Private student loans are more expensive Read more:Lending
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