We wrote an article about another investigation into Encore (Midland Credit or Midland Funding) and in that post we discuss the "Consumer Bill of Rights" that Midland promises to abide by.
Interesting stuff about credit reporting, suing you, and collecting from you.
Let us know what you think of this by Midland....
Ever get those annoying robo dialed or computer dialed calls to your cell phones? Everyone does and they can be very harassing.
Instead of a person dialing your number, collection agencies (such as Portfolio Recovery), car finance companies (such as Santander), credit card companies (such as Chase), and others can hit a button on a computer and blow up thousands of phones a minute.
This is why these places will call you several times a day up to sometimes 10 times a day.
Not only is it harassing and annoying, but quite often it is illegal.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) makes this illegal unless you gave permission.
If this law has been violated, as it often is, then you may be entitled to damages of either $500 per call or $1500 per call.
Find out more at Alabama Consumer Protection where we have a practice area page devoted to illegal calls to cell phones.
If you live in Alabama, please feel free to call us at 205-879-2447 to discuss this matter.
There are many reasons to consider bankruptcy. Maybe you are dealing with abusive debt collectors or you are facing foreclosure. Or maybe you have lost your job and are drowning in debt.
Bankruptcy is a very serious option with serious consequences. Those consequences can be good overview of the bankruptcy laws, particularly for the Birmingham, Alabama areagood or bad.
It makes sense to do what you are doing -- research to find out about your options.
On our website Alabama Consumer Protection, we have a page which gives you a good overview of the bankruptcy laws, particularly for the Birmingham, Alabama area.
You can also watch videos related to bankruptcy and read articles about bankruptcy and blog posts about bankruptcy. Our goal is to give you resources that can help you.
We wish you the best in your research and if we can help you understand the law or your options, and if you live in Alabama, please feel free to call us at 205-879-2447.
About half of our practice is suing abusive debt collectors in state and federal courts in Alabama. We have a ton of information on this blog, on our main website Alabama Consumer, but we also have just completed a long page with very detailed information about abusive debt collection practices and links to videos on Alabama Consumer Protection.
We invite you to check it out if you live in Alabama and if you are having any contact with debt collectors.
We hope you find this useful -- if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them on this page or contact us at 205-879-2447.
As Birmingham, Alabama, foreclosure defense attorneys, we have put a lot of information on the internet about foreclosures in Alabama.
We have videos, articles, and books on the subject. We hold educational seminars and classes here in Alabama and across the country for other lawyers on this subject.
We know the best way for us to help understand your situation with an Alabama foreclosure is to meet with you in person.
But . . . we also know that you are getting bombarded with offers to help. Some legitimate. Some not so legitimate.
It is wise to be skeptical.
So, we recently created a page with a lot of information, and links to videos, on many of the issues and questions that come up regarding an Alabama foreclosure and the lawsuit after a forclosure -- called an ejectment lawsuit.
We hope you find this useful and, if you live in Alabama, let us know if we can help you.
Alabama consumers are sometimes amazed at the number of errors on credit reports, and there is conflicting advice on how to fix credit reports which have errors.
Some advise disputing every negative item.
We don't.
We do advise disputing with the credit bureaus, Equifax, Experian, Innovis, and Trans Union, any information that is false.
On our sister website, Alabama Consumer Protection, we have a detailed description and video on how to recognize credit report errors and how to dispute them.
If you still have errors after properly disputing them, then we have some suggestions on how to ultimately correct those errors -- normally by suing the (ir)responsible companies.
We hope you enjoy this information and find it useful.
John Watts
I'm going to quote from the end of a wonderfully insightful article by Barry Ritholtz, but please read the whole article. You need the interesting first part of this article to appreciate the logic and explanation of what he is saying about some of the trader fraud at investment banks and the mortgage crisis we are still in the middle of and whether the US taxpayer should be bailing these banks out. The bolding is mine.
In an era of bailouts on the backs of the taxpayer, it points to a simple reality: Firms must decide whether they are going to sacrifice profit in pursuit of safety, or sacrifice safety in pursuit of profit. Whatever they decide, it is not the responsibility or obligation of taxpayers to backstop these choices.Consider the choices made by management: The collapse of firms such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers were caused by the same sort of poor judgment as UBS’s $2 billion in losses — only the rogues gallery there included the senior-most managers of the firms. Alan Greenberg exhorting his staff to focus on reusing paper clips, while the mortgage syndication division lost billions of dollars. Dick Fuld surrounding himself with yes men while the firm’s leverage and risk exposure went through the roof. Tom Savage, president of AIG’s Financial Products, calling derivative underwriting free money.
Paul Volcker, arguably the greatest central banker in history, has persuasively argued that proprietary trading should not be part of the insured depository banking sector. I utterly agree with Fed governor Thomas Hoenig, who has described the banking sector as “more akin to public utilities” than independent entities. Want to be independent to pursue proprietary trading? Let’s drop their FDIC insurance and see how far their reputations carry them.
The next crisis — the one after the present one in Europe — is where I expect to see the ultimate damage wreaked by rogue bankers.
The bailouts have created a moral hazard, where leveraged speculators and rogue bankers know that the state will bail them out. This is unacceptable. There is no reason that taxpayers should be responsible for any rogues, traders or bankers.
Perhaps UBS’s failure to prevent this did us a favor. It points out that Volcker is right: Any firm that can blow itself up should not qualify for taxpayer guarantees. Lenders, underwriters and mortgage originators are in the business of using their capital to earn a fair return safely. That government-backed insurance should be available only to depository banks, not firms associated with speculative traders.
When you are sued by a debt collector or a debt buyer in Alabama, it is a scary thing to face. Part of the reason it is scary is you are dealing with the unknown.
Some company that you have never heard of and never done business is suing you. Asset Acceptance. LVNV. Midland. Unifund.
A lawyer that you don't know is filing the lawsuit against you. Zarzaur & Schwartz. Ingram and Asssociates. Holloway & Moxley. Nathan and Nathan.
You are expected to be somewhere that you have never been -- the Circuit Court for Jefferson County, Alabama or the District Court for Shelby County, Alabama, or the Small Claims Court for your county.
These sound like, and they are, very official places where your rights will hang in the balance of what you do and what the collection lawyer and debt buyer do.
Finally, it is scary because people are using terms that you may not fully understand. This is why we have a page on our Sued By A Debt Collector website dedicated to explaining in simple English the meaning of a dozen or so terms (we will be adding to this list).
We hope you find this useful and if there are any terms that you would like to see added, let us know.
Best wishes
Dustin Kittle and I are looking at this collection agency CRB because it has sent out many collection letters to Alabama consumers threatening them over alleged unpaid bills to the notorious, and bankrupt, roofing company American Shingle.
Dustin mentioned this early on and it is a problem that has not gone away.
CRB sent out letters this time last year that say:
"We are representing both the Court and American Shingle . . . . You are legally obligated to pay the above amount but have chosen to ignore this balance."
Several issues with this type of harassing letter.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) prohibits a number of illegal harassing collection tactics.
A collector cannot lie or misrepresent in order to collect a debt. CRB does not represent the Bankruptcy Court -- it represents the Trustee who had to ask permission to hire CRB to collect debts.
The Bankruptcy Court in the Northern District of Georgia does not need a debt collector to represent it. In our opinion what CRB has done is to falsely represent it is connected with the Bankruptcy Court in order to bring pressure to bear on Alabama consumers.
The letter also states that the consumer is "legally obligated" to pay it. Who decided that? Oh, I see, the Bankruptcy Court that hired CRB.
You see how that works? First CRB lies about representing the court and then it says you are legally obligated to pay the debt.
The Bankruptcy Court in Georgia has not made any determinations on whether you owe this debt. Instead it simply is allowing the trustee of the bankrupt debtor, American Shingle, to attempt to collect debts that are supposedly owed. The Bankruptcy Court makes no determination of whether there are debts owed -- it is just saying, "OK, trustee, you can hire a debt collector to collect debts."
This comes up in the personal injury context. An injured person will file for bankruptcy. We represent the injured person. Now we have to get hired by the Trustee and approved by the court to pursue the lawsuit.
The Bankruptcy Court is certainly not saying the truck driver or insurance company or whoever we are suing is at fault. It is simply giving us permission to represent the trustee.
If you have received one of these letters or paid CRB, especially if you know you did not owe any money, we would like to talk with you.
American Shingle was notorious for lying about roofing jobs and promising there is nothing owed (outside of insurance) and then not completing the jobs. Now you have CRB coming along threatening people with false collection letters.
Amazing.
We need to gather our evidence quickly as at least some of these letters were sent out in mid October and there is a one year statute of limitation.
So if you have dealt with CRB, give me a call at 205-879-2447 or contact us through our website so we can continue to gather evidence to use in our cases we are looking at filing against CRB for violating Alabama state law and the FDCPA.
You can reach us at 205-879-2447 or through our contact form.
Robo signing is a big problem in the world of foreclosures but it seems Fannie Mae and others have ignored it or downplayed its significance.
In this interesting story, the following information is revealed:
Federal mortgage giant Fannie Mae was told in 2006 about faulty court documents filed by Florida foreclosure attorneys acting on its behalf but did nothing to correct the practices, an inspector general found.A report issued Friday by the Federal Housing Finance Agency Office of Inspector General said an outside law firm Fannie Mae hired to investigate allegations of wrongdoing confirmed "unlawful" practices and stated that foreclosure attorneys were sacrificing accuracy for speed by filing false documents.
After learning of the attorney misconduct in 2006, Fannie Mae failed to make any improvements in its oversight of the firms.
"Strengthened law firm oversight by Fannie Mae could have detected - if not prevented - these abuses by attorneys," the report said.
Florida foreclosure defense attorneys agreed, pointing to the morass that followed last fall's revelation of robo-signed documents and other faulty paperwork, some of which was produced by Florida's so-called foreclosure mills.
"If action were taken sooner, we would have avoided a lot of this instead of muddying up the public land records in tens of thousands of cases," said attorney Tom Ice of Ice Legal in Royal Palm Beach. "It goes without saying that if someone did something to stop the fraud, it would have benefited everyone."
Here's the kicker -- you can draw your own conclusions:
Friday's report also noted that Federal Housing Finance Agency officials told the inspector general they were unaware of the 2006 report until it was disclosed in a March 2011 "magazine article." The Wall Street Journal published an article in late March about the report.Fannie Mae declined to comment, but the Federal Housing Finance Agency disputed some of the inspector general's findings, including that foreclosure abuses in Florida and elsewhere "illustrate the negative consequences" of Fannie Mae's oversight failures.
This is why when we sue Fannie Mae and mortgage servicers such as Wells Fargo, Chase, Bank of America (BAC), etc. we can be confident that the evidence will reveal abuse that is consistent with what our clients have alleged. If Fannie Mae can't even discovery reports warning of fundamental problems, until they read it in a magazine (but not the WSJ), then I'm not sure they have any credibility....
If you live in Alabama and have questions about a foreclosure that is either about to happen or has already happened (and if you have been sued for ejectment/eviction), please feel free to pick up the phone and call us at 205-879-2447 or contact us through our blog form to the left or through this contact form.
You can also see many of our foreclosure and ejectment/eviction videos here.
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