You can read about a recent lawsuit that our Alabama consumer filed against the famous debt collection firm IC System out of Minnesota. The allegations include that IC System committed false credit reporting.
The moral of this story is to be careful if you are dealing with a collection agency and to check your credit reports to make sure there is no false information from the collection agency.
A couple of years ago I was interviewed on the "Steve and Leah Show" -- we talked about debt collectors, harassment, calls to work, how to deal with debt collectors, zombie debt, and credit reports.
They were great and if you would like to read the transcript, just click the link above.
John Watts
Find out where you are right now on your student loans and then you can plan for where you need to go next.
This is especially true when dealing with student loan collection issues -- sometimes it can be very confusing on which loan is being collected upon by which collection agency.
If you live in Alabama and have questions about student loan issues, please feel free to give us a call at 205-879-2447.
Alabama consumers are filing lawsuits against the well known debt buyer and debt collector LVNV Funding for violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). You can read about a recent suit against LVNV and a collection lawfirm called Budzik & Dynia, LLC (out of Chicago) that an Alabama resident filed.
Remember when a debt buyer sues you in Alabama, it must prove that you owe the debt and that the debt buyer now owns the debt. From what we see, normally debt buyers will not and cannot do this in Alabama.
You can find a listing of some lawsuits against LVNV for this type of mis-conduct.
If you live in Alabama and have had a similar experience with LVNV or any other debt collector or debt buyer, please feel free to contact us for a free analysis of your rights and options, including suing the debt buyer. You can call us at 205-879-2447 and we'll be glad to chat with you.
There is a lot of news right now about foreclosures and potentially wrongful foreclosures. More and more lawyers (and non lawyers) are claiming they can help.
The non lawyers will give you a "loan audit" or "loan analysis" and tell you all of the laws that were violated in your loan. All of the ones I have seen have been worthless. But not free -- typically a thousand or two thousand dollars.
The lawyers all claim to be "Alabama Foreclosure Defense Lawyers" or "Birmingham Foreclosure Defense Attorneys."
There is even a New York firm that says it will do foreclosure defense in Alabama.
So what is a foreclosure defense lawyer and what can he or she do for you? And how do you find one? You can click on the link to go to a somewhat lengthy article that we think will give you some insight into the answers to these questions.
Do your research and your due diligence. Ask lots of questions. Then take the right action for you and your family.
We recognize it is a difficult decision when you are facing a foreclosure, or have already been foreclosed, and you have to decide whether to make decisions and take action with a lawyer or without a lawyer.
There is no right or wrong answer to every legal issue you face.
We do suggest, however, that foreclosure type cases can be some of the more complicated cases and may not be the right legal matter to handle yourself. We just posted an article that discusses some thoughts and ideas about hiring an Alabama foreclosure defense lawyer or handling it yourself ("pro se").
Our encouragement is get some good advice and then decide whether to handle the case on your own or not.
Whatever your decision, we wish you the best.
John Watts and Stan Herring
This is something that we have been arguing and that we always believed but there was some doubt as to which way the court would go. We are thankful the Alabama Supreme Court simply applied the plain language of the contract (mortgage) and did not accept the mortgage bank industry's argument to ignore contracts.
Our Alabama Supreme Court is a conservative court that does not intend to "legislate" from the bench -- instead it simply desires to apply the law as it is written and enforce contracts as they are written.
Many in the mortgage industry thought the Supreme Court would do whatever was helpful to the mortgage industry -- nice to see that this was a mistaken belief.
If you are facing, or have faced, a foreclosure, look at your note and mortgage and see what happened so you can be better equipped to make decisions on whether to take any action or not against a mortgage company that has improperly and wrongfully foreclosed against you.
Yes -- here is an example of Alabama consumers who sued Chase for auto dialed (computer or robo dialed calls) to their cell phones without permission.
If you never gave the creditor permission to call your cell phone, or if you revoke permission, then these annoying auto dialed calls can be illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and can entitle you to $500 or $1500 per call in statutory damages.
If you live in Alabama and want to discuss your particular situation, please let us know and we'll be happy to do so. You can call us at 205-879-2447 or contact us through this blog or our website contact form.
Our clients in Huntsville recently sued several mortgage companies before a planned foreclosure that we feel would have been wrongful and illegal.
Foreclosures are still running rampant across our state and when they are illegal and wrongful foreclosures, they need to be stopped or reversed.
Learn about your rights and take the appropriate action to protect yourself.
Remember Portfolio's slogan about giving debt collection a good name....
You can read a recent Alabama consumer lawsuit against the large debt collector Allied Interstate. This lawsuit relates to alleged abusive collection practices related to a federal student loan.
If you have any similar experiences, let us know as we are curious to see how widespread the problem is with Allied Interstate -- we know Allied Interstate has been fined in the past for student loan abuses and we doubt this is an isolated event.
On our redesigned main site of Alabama Consumer, we have posted a new page which details some of the specific cases and allegations brought against the debt buyer LVNV Funding, LLC by Alabama consumers.
We will update this page with additional links to lawsuits. Let us know if you live in Alabama and have experiences with LVNV as we would like to continue to expand our knowledge of what Alabama consumers are facing.
Last year brought a decline in bankruptcies around the country. The question is will it continue to decline or will it spike up this year?
Filings fell 12% in 2011 as 1.35 million Americans entered Chapter 7 or 13, according to an analysis for the National Bankruptcy Research Center by Columbia Law School professor Ronald Mann.That’s down from more than 1.5 million filings in 2010, or about one out of every 150 people. In 2011, the ratio was one out of every 175 Americans. Chapter 7 liquidation filings were down 17% compared with 2010's figures, while Chapter 13 rehabilitation filings declined 25%.
It’s the first drop since 2006 -- but Mann said filings began increasing again in November and December and could portend yet another rise this year.
Read the rest of this good article by Tiffany Hsu by clicking here.
You can find out more about bankruptcy by visiting our sites Alabama Consumer Protection and Alabama Consumer.
Ever wonder why it seems the mortgage foreclosure disaster is not getting better? When Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae say they are on the side of the consumers?
Read this article and be disturbed....
Freddie Mac, a taxpayer-owned mortgage company, is supposed to make homeownership easier. One thing that makes owning a home more affordable is getting a cheaper mortgage.But Freddie Mac has invested billions of dollars betting that U.S. homeowners won't be able to refinance their mortgages at today's lower rates, according to an investigation by NPR and ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit newsroom.
These investments, while legal, raise concerns about a conflict of interest within Freddie Mac.
"We were actually shocked they did this," says Scott Simon, who heads the mortgage-backed securities team at the giant bond trading and investment firm called PIMCO. "It seemed so out of line with their mission, out of line with what Congress wanted them to do."
In this article by article by Chris Arnold, there is a demonstration of the arrogance of Freddie Mac. I encourage you to read the entire article.
Gotta love the conclusion:
Meanwhile, even though Freddie is a ward of the federal government, its top executives are highly compensated. The Freddie Mac official then in charge of its investment portfolio, Peter Federico, made $2.5 million in 2010, and had target compensation of $2.6 million for last year — the time period during which most of these inverse floater investments were made. ProPublica and NPR made numerous attempts to reach Federico. A woman who answered his home phone said he declined to comment.
You can follow the link below to read about our client who was sued by Freddie Mac for ejectment (or eviction) after a foreclosure by CitiMortgage.
Many Alabama consumers, unfortunately, just give up even when they have valid claims and defenses.
Our client, however, felt the foreclosure was wrongful and improper and she decided to take action.
If you have dealt with similar issues in Alabama, please contact us at 205-879-2447.
Take care and we look forward to hearing about your story.
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