Here is a great 6 minute explanation (with whiteboard) using bottles and glasses to explain the mess that has been created. I found this through a wonderful blog dealing with making presentations - Presentation Zen (great book also!). Check out this video and the Presentation Zen website.
In these turbulent economic times, it is more important than ever to keep your credit reports clean and free of errors. Having an error could lead to your credit card limits being reduced. Your credit card rates being increased. Losing a security clearance which could lead to losing your job. Our friend Denise Richards has an excellent post on this subject. Read the entire article (as it also has links that will be helpful) but here are the ten steps she suggests:
Here are the 10 quick tips that can help you avoid fraud -(or errors) that can be costly;1. Monitor bank, credit card and loan statements. If you are expecting a bill that doesn't come, contact your account holder immediately. If you see any unexpected spikes in your interest rates, contact your creditor. Unexpected interest rate spikes can be a tip off that erroneous information is contaminating your credit report. Watch for withdrawals or charges you did not make!
2. Beware of people lurking nearby while using ATM, credit cards, checks and your laptop or community computer. Thieves will often hover near you to steal account and PIN numbers; they are trained to memorize credit card and account numbers.
3. Delete any personal information and passwords you may have entered into a shared computer. You never know who is going to be using it next and you never know if the computer is already infected with key-logging spy ware that collects bits of information on you with every stroke you make on the keyboard.
4. Examine all correspondence mailed to you to ensure it has your correct name and address. If there are name variations, contact the sender and ask why you are receiving it. When throwing out documents that contain personal information...SHRED them into small pieces.
5. Safeguard your laptop and Smart Phones. Many of the recent data breaches have involved the theft of laptops. Always make sure that your laptop is password protected, and armed with a firewall and up-to-date virus protection software -at all times. If you password protect your Smart Phone it will buy you some time to close accounts and change passwords if stolen. Also be sure to check that you have activated your firewall.
6. Monitor your credit reports. Look for any name, address or open accounts that are not yours. Dispute all inaccuracies via certified mail. Place fraud alerts on your credit reports. Remember, they fall off every 90 days or so. (Credit freezes are now available but you need to determine if you will be seeking credit in the near future as you will have to pay to freeze it and then pay again to unfreeze it). Determine which safety measure is best for your particular situation. The official toll free automated number to call in order to order your free annual credit reports is 877-322-8228.
7. Recognize that unfortunately profiles and posts are never private. Current and prospective employers often Google your name in order to see what your interests are, what is on your personal page and what others have to say about you.
8. Keep you Social Security number, passwords and PIN's safeguarded -and never carry them in your wallet. If your wallet was lost or stolen today...would you know who to call and what steps to immediately take?
9. Beware of scams. Never provide any personal information such as your Social Security number, bank account numbers or credit card data to anyone who contacts you via telephone solicitation, email or through social networking sites. Oftentimes, scam emails and phone calls will appear authentic and urgent -but they are not! If you receive a notice from someone instructing you to dial an 800 number (or any number), first check your statement or legitimate documentation for the valid phone number. Fake websites and bogus phone numbers are often included in "phishing" email scams, which are designed to appear urgent -don't fall for them. They only want information from you that they can sell or trade, to multiple thieves in the thriving underground chat rooms. Remember...legitimate companies will not ask for personal information through email.(see video here)
10. Prevent thieves from cracking passwords. Pick Passwords and profiles carefully. Pet names, birth dates, hometown and interests such as favorite sport team or band, favorite hangouts, hobbies, as well as spouses and children's names are often compiled in passwords and thieves know this. They use these bits of information to crack your password and then get into your email, bank accounts or other online sites you frequent such as Amazon, Itunes -or anywhere you utilize your private password.
Please contact us if you have any questions about your credit reports, identity theft, or any other consumer issues.
As lawyers representing Alabama consumers most of our cases are in federal court. After filing the case everything happens electronically with all orders and motions, etc. being sent by email. Most of the lawyers on the other side communicate mainly by email. Most of our new clients (that aren't referred by existing clients or lawyers) come through our website. So, we deal with a lot of email. Using Outlook just wasn't cutting it anymore with crashing issues, accessibility issues, etc. So we switched to Gmail.
Some of the advantages of using Gmail are:
1. Massive storage;
2. Related emails are grouped together in a "conversation" that puts your email and all replies to it together to make it easier to read;
3. Searchable - while not as good as we would expect from a google product it still is very good;
4. Accessible anywhere. We have this on our blackberries - all our Gmail messages are accessible through our blackberries and any changes made on our blackberries are made on the Gmail accounts.
We both resisted changing to a "web based" email but having been exclusively on Gmail for a year or so neither one of us would go back.
Give it a try and let us know your thoughts.
John Watts
Linkedin is a service that Stan Herring and I have started to use to connect to people all over the country. We have just started using it so we are definitely just "playing" with it right now but we invite you to check out our profiles and "link in" with us. It is pretty neat to be able to send a message to everyone in your network and then they can pass that on to their network. Its a quick way to get answers from all sorts of people - fellow lawyers, experts, people you go to church or school, etc. and then all of the people that they know.
Here are the links to our public profiles:
Play around with it and let us know what you think.
As always, we look forward to hearing from you.
Collection agencies and debt buyers (both of these are "debt collectors") love to put debts on credit reports of Alabama consumers because this is so effective at getting the attention of consumers. This is legal and fair as long as it is accurate and true. That's the problem - so often these debts are not owed or the amount is wrong.
So Congress said in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) that if a consumer "disputes" a debt, the debt collector (collection agency or debt buyer) must show the account on the credit report as being "disputed" - normally this is shown as "consumer disputes this account".
There is not certainty in this but most courts rule that an oral or verbal dispute is sufficient. The problem, of course, is that there is no proof other than the consumer's testimony. Far better, however, is to send a certified letter (keeping a signed copy) simply stating you dispute the debt. Send it to the collection agency or the debt buyer. You do not have to explain why you dispute it or prove that it is wrong - simply disputing it is sufficient. Of course if you happen to file an answer to a lawsuit denying the allegations, then this is strongest form of a "dispute" anyone could imagine and the debt buyer must correct the credit report if it updates it. This is because....
When you dispute it, some courts say (wrongly in my judgment) that the debt collector has no obligation to tell the credit reporting agency that the account is disputed unless the debt collector updates the account. Many debt collectors update every month. Some don't. At least this much is clear - if you have disputed the account and then the collection agency or junk debt buyer updates the account a couple of months later - without saying "disputed by consumer" - then this may very well be a strong FDCPA and state law violation.
If you have any questions regarding this let us know as we have devoted a large percentage of our practice to suing abusive and harassing debt collectors, particularly as it relates to falsifying credit reports of Alabama consumers.
Unfortunately sometimes consumers must file Chapter Seven Bankruptcy ("straight bankruptcy") and this results in debts, including debts owed to Capital One, being discharged. Years later the consumer may need to file a Chapter Thirteen Bankruptcy to save a house or because of medical bills and Capital One will file a fraudulent "proof of claim" in the new bankruptcy case to get paid on the discharged debt.
Capital One knows the old debt has been discharged as it was a part of the original bankruptcy but it appears that Capital One has thought it had a "free shot" to try and illegally get paid in the second bankruptcy.
Our fellow consumer lawyer Jay Fleischman has an interesting post about Capital One agreeing that it has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from this type of illegal activity. If you are currently in a chapter thirteen bankruptcy after having been through a chapter seven bankruptcy, and you have had a Capital One card, you may want to see if you have also been a victim of this evil practice.
If you live in Alabama and you have any questions about this issue, feel free to contact us.
In these troubled economic times there will be more and more harassment by debt collectors and debt buyers as Alabama consumers will continue to be squeezed tighter and tighter financially by what is going on in our country. Because there is not as much money to give to collectors, many collection agencies and debt buyers will step way over the line and find themselves in the middle of harassing Alabama consumers in order to obtain money. While the limits of harassment are only determined by the limits of the debt collectors' ability to creatively break the law in order to extort money from Alabama consumers, there are certainly patterns that come out. We have included on our website a listing of frequently asked questions regarding debt collection harassment. While this primarily focuses on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, some of the answers would also apply to creditors who are violating Alabama state law in their harassment of Alabama consumers.
We invite you to look at this FAQ on debt collection harassment and if you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact us and we look forward to speaking with you in the near future.
We frequently post about Fair Credit Reporting Act issues and over the years of representing consumers we have realized that there are a lot of questions that are frequently asked. While nothing can replace a face-to-face meeting with an experienced attorney, on our website we have prepared a page which has a lot of frequently asked questions and some short simple answers. We hope that this will prove useful to you if you have any questions regarding the Fair Credit Reporting Act and/or your credit reports.
If you see any questions that are not listed that you think would be helpful to other consumers or attorneys, please feel free to contact us and let us know so we can make that page of our website as helpful as possible. We appreciate all suggestions and questions that you have.
We have previously blogged about the two-year federal statue limitations which applies to cell phone bills. It seems as if debt collectors and debt buyers have purposely ignored this federal law as they routinely sue and threaten to sue Alabama consumers when it has been well beyond two years. The irony is that the debt buyers claim that they stand in the shoes of the original creditor -- Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, etc. -- but then they do not like the fact that this federal law limits cell phone companies to bringing suit within two years of the default. This is yet another example of debt buyers wanting special rules for themselves but not for others. They routinely want courts to enforce the rules of procedure against consumers who do not answer a complaint in a timely manner but then debt buyers become indignant and incensed when the same judges apply the most basic rules of evidence to debt buyers who come into trials with absolutely no evidence.
We recently were contacted by an Alabama consumer who was threatened by a collection agency with being sued over a cell phone bill which had gone into the fault almost 6 years ago. The collection agency threatened the Alabama consumer by saying that suit would be filed by the end of this year which is when, the debt collector said, the statute of limitation of six years would expire. This is a blatant violation of The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act which prohibits filing suit beyond the statute of limitations and prohibits threatening to sue beyond the statue limitations. It is inconceivable that debt collectors and debt buyers would not know about this federal law when they claim to, at a minimum, be representing the original creditor and, in fact, normally state that they stand in the very shoes of the original creditor.
If you are dealing with debt collectors such as collection agencies which are threatening you with suit or threatening you with garnishments or threatening you with judgments over cell phone bills which are more than two years old, you may very well have a legal right to suit the collection agency for violating the law. If a debt buyer has actually sued you over this then it is quite likely that this is also a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act if the debt is more than two years old. Even if a default judgment has been entered against you, the very act of filing the lawsuit more than two years after the cell phone bill went into default is quite likely a violation of the fair debt collection practices act. If you have any questions about this matter or would like to have a free consultation with us, please feel free to contact us through our website or by calling us at that 205-879-2447 (for John Watts) or calling Stan Herring at 205-714-4443.
We have discussed many times the problem with the explosion of debt buyer lawsuits against Alabama consumers, particularly when the debt buyers will not or are not able to present any proof or any evidence to the court that the hundreds and hundreds of Alabama consumers that they sue each month actually owe one penny to the debt buyer. We thought it might be helpful to give you a quick story about a recent case in Birmingham (Jefferson County) that we had the opportunity to actually try. Normally the debt buyers concede at the courthouse that they have no proof and ask the court to enter judgment against them in favor of the consumer defendant or they ask for a dismissal with prejudice.
In this particular case, however, the debt buyer sought to win its case by putting our client on the stand and questioning him under oath. We explained that this would do no good as Alabama consumers cannot testify as to whether or not the debt buyer actually owns the debt. The only party that can testify to that is the debt buyer and then the company that the debt buyer allegedly bought the debt from which often is not the original creditor but is, yet another, debt buyer.
Nevertheless, this debt buyer wanted to proceed with trial. It brought no witness. It brought no documents which could be admitted into evidence. Instead, our client was sworn in and was questioned by the attorney for the debt buyer along these lines:
Did you have a credit card account with bracket [original creditor]?
Did you receive bills from the [original creditor]?
Did you owe any money to the [original creditor]?
Finally, the questions turned to the debt buyer which is the only relevant matter as the original creditor had not sued our client. The questions went something like this:
Did you receive letters from the debt buyer?
Don't you admit that you owe the debt buyer money?
We were then allowed to cross-examine our client and we did so in the following way:
Did you ever do business with the debt buyer?
Did you ever borrow any money from the debt buyer?
Did you ever buy any goods or services from the debt buyer?
Had you ever heard of this debt buyer before this debt buyer sued without offering any proof that it owned the debt?
Do you owe this debt buyer any money?
At the end of this questioning of our client, the Jefferson County District Court Judge asked if the debt buyer had any further proof to offer. Not surprisingly, the answer was "No". The trial court then asked if we had any additional evidence which we did not because we have no burden of proving anything at trial. The debt buyer sued our client and therefore the debt buyer bears the burden of proof that it is entitled to money damages against our client. While every plaintiff in every civil litigation bears this burden, it is extraordinarily hard to meet this burden when you do not bring a witness and do not bring a single shred of evidence.
The trial court took about 30 seconds to rule in favor of our client, the Alabama consumer.
Not all cases that are tried between debt buyers and Alabama consumers will play out this way as a debt buyer certainly can bring witnesses and evidence. But we wanted to share this one example out of the dozens and dozens of cases that we have handled successfully for Alabama consumers to give you a feel for what trial can be like in cases where debt buyers have sued Alabama consumers.
We hope that this post has been helpful to you and if you have any questions please feel free to contact us through our website.
While in the past we have put up some audio and video posts, we are making a concerted effort to add more audio and video to our blog. Please let us know by contacting us if you have any suggestions or requests for various audio or video blog posts. We will do our best to accommodate any special requests that you might have.
As always, please feel free to let us know what you think of our blog and how we can make it more helpful to you. We know that this blog is read by many consumers and consumer attorneys and we want it to be as useful as possible just as so many other blogs that we read are so very helpful to us in our practice.
We have just started using Twitter and we are still figuring out what it all means... :) I heard someone describe it as "stalking" but let's put a positive spin on it - its a way to put up blog posts, short updates on what is happening, and to ask quick questions. There is not much room to type but that's part of the charm of Twitter. I have now exhausted my knowledge of Twitter. ;)
Here is my twitter profile - http://twitter.com/JohnGWatts.
Many Alabama consumers have made the hard decision of filing bankruptcy and then after going through it expect to be given the "fresh start" promised by federal law only to find that debt buyers and collection agencies are waiting for them "on the other side" of the discharge order. There are several ways to deal with these scoundrels - sue them in federal court under state law and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act - but another way is to sue for violating the discharge order. This is, in effect, a request that the Bankruptcy Judge hold the violator in contempt for thumbing his nose at the federal discharge order.
The question comes up - do you have to re-open the bankruptcy to go this route? Read this post by Jay Fleischman and this follow up post that contains a statement from Texas attorney Chuck Newton. It may not be a requirement to re-open but that is what is typically done. Perhaps it is unnecessary.
Regardless of whether you should re-open, or you sue in federal district court, do contact us or a consumer or bankruptcy attorney to understand your rights so that you truly can get that fresh start that you are entitled to under the law.
Over the years we have handled Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) cases where employees have not been properly paid overtime. It is often assumed that managers are "exempt" from overtime laws - the FLSA - and therefore can be worked into the ground with the employer only paying the salary. This is not always correct.
Please read this short but informative post by Derek T. Braslow on this issue. Basically if the manager is really not "managing" then there may not be an exemption and the manager may be owed overtime work for all of those hours. This typically occurs in a small to mid sized retail establishment where you see the "manager" sweeping the floors, unloading and unpacking deliveries, etc.
In a bizarre story (as if it wasn't strange enough), listen to this:
In a city where luck means everything, O.J. Simpson came out the big loser — and his unlucky number in a case full of bizarre twists was 13.He was convicted of an armed robbery that happened on Sept. 13 and was found guilty on the 13th anniversary of his Los Angeles murder acquittal. The Las Vegas jury deliberated for 13 hours after a 13-day trial.
We will start posting some ideas and experiences we have with productivity tools, software, and websites. We have learned better ways of doing things over the last several years of having our own firms and we want to share those with you.
We need to always be ahead of our competition as the lawyers representing debt buyers, credit reporting agencies, and collection agencies are usually large firms with a lot of staff so technology and productivity tools allow us to concentrate on lawyering and not getting bogged down in the logistics.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact us.
We just were this week contacted by an Alabama consumer who is dealing with false charges on her credit card bills. Unfortunately, this problem affects consumers across the country including those of us in Alabama.
Our friend Jay Fleischman has an excellent post on this issue which we recommend you read. Jay has several points but here are just a couple of things you need to do to dispute the false charge:
You must:* write to the creditor at the address given for “billing inquiries,” not the address for sending your payments, and include your name, address, account number and a description of the billing error.
* send your letter so that it reaches the creditor within 60 days after the first bill containing the error was mailed to you.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about false charges on your credit card statements.