Some of them, like the validation message required under section 1692g, are only required within five days of the initial communication, and so can be sent in other ways, but under section 1692(e)(11), all communications must disclose that the communication is from a debt collector.

Character constraints in texting don't allow for adequate disclosure and then a more detailed statement of the debt from the collector. Also, billing plans charge recipients for text messages and not the sender, so consumers definitely won't be happy about paying for texts that tell them they owe money to debt collectors.

That also brings up section 1692f, which prohibits unfair practices, and in subsection (5) specifically bars:

Causing charges to be made to any person for communications by concealment of the true purpose of the communication. Such charges include, but are not limited to, collect telephone calls and telegram fees.

While the above was written before text messaging it is certainly applicable to this newest development.

If you have had problems with debt collector harassment feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.
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The understaffing causes a delay before the bank gets back to you or can even confirm that they received your paperwork. Loan modification departments have groups of rotating phone representatives, meaning that you won't likely speak to the same person every time you call and will spend more time giving explanations that getting answers.

This method can take months if you go it alone, and be irritating when having to deal with courts or other legal proceedings that you might not be familiar with. This article suggests that if you are interested in pursuing a mortgage modification it's easier to contact a lawyer who can get you faster results.

If you would like more information on foreclosures, please check out our articles The Three Stages Of Foreclosure In Alabama and Wrongful Foreclosures In Alabama.

If you have more questions about mortgage modification, feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.

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Jobseekers should automatically assume that potential employers will do a Google search of their name and often social networking sites are some of the first results. You should take down questionable material and pictures. Or just set your profile(s) to private. Even established employees can sabotage themselves by posting negative material about their company or boss on sites such as Twitter. It's also important to remember that even material you set to private is still on the internet and thusly still accessible.

Social networking sites are also being used by debt collectors to track down debtors.

"If they don't have a good phone number or the mail's being returned, a lot of them use Facebook to find out if they have a different address or their employment information."

Debt collectors also keep an eye on debtors, not necessarily by contacting them, but by watching what the debtor posts. Some debt collectors violate legal and ethical boundaries and assume fake identities online to closer watch the debtor and possibly gain more information. Of course, debt collectors can also use this opportunity to further harass their debtors.

People provide social media sites with such a large amount of personal information that scams and identity thieves are rampant. Identity thieves can use seemingly innocent information to forge access your accounts.

If you have a public Facebook profile that gives your birth date and your parents' names and that kind of thing, they can provide the answers to security questions that your bank might have on its Web site.

Be wary of people who try and add you as friends, on sites such as Facebook, who you don't actually know. They might be hackers or scammers or people trying to sell products.

Being smart with the information you put online can save you a lot of trouble in the long run. Be careful of what you say about yourself and other people online, don't add people you don't know and always be mindful that identity thieves and hackers are on the same website.

If you have had issues with debt collectors or identity theft, feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.

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#4. You have received a Summons and Complaint for foreclosure and are now being sued by your mortgage company. You are in danger of losing your property and usually have 30 days or less to respond.

#3. A collection lawyer sends you a letter that gives you a deadline to catch up on delinquent mortgage payments and also threatens foreclosure. The next step is for the bank to sue you.

#2. Your mortgage company sends out a notification that your payments are in default. The next notification you receive should be a letter from the mortgage company's lawyer.

#1. If you are knowingly behind on your mortgage payments, go ahead and contact a mortgage defense attorney to plan a strategy and confront the problem head-on.

If you would like further information on foreclosures, please check out our articles The Three Stages Of Foreclosure In Alabama and Wrongful Foreclosures In Alabama.

If you have received one of the above notices, or have other questions or concerns, feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.

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Experian says these consumers live in and around metropolitan areas, favor leisure activities, have college diplomas or advanced degrees and more often tend to be married.

Experian identifies the common activities of those most often victimized by ID theft:

• Tennis
• Politics
• Foreign travel
• Charities/volunteering
• Cultural/arts
• Skiing

Where consumers live is also important to an identity thief. For example, it's easier to steal a discarded document in a suburban area. Also, these affluent households "may have domestic help and service people who may have the opportunity to steal personal info from the home that can be used to acquire credit."

Lenders also target these groups of people. Because of this, thieves have an easier time getting services and credit in the victim's name.

How to protect yourself can be tricky because you can't control where your information goes after it leaves your hands. Banks and other financial institutions have an obligation to guard your information. However, this article says that lenders need to strike a balance between guarding consumers' information and still making it possible to get a loan or credit without major hassles.

If you should be a victim of identity theft, consider a credit freeze even though it might be a bit more work on your end. Credit Monitoring alerts you when changes are made to your credit score.

If you have been a victim of identity theft or have questions or concerns on the subject, feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.

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Mortgage modifications rarely work because the terms never go far enough to solve the long-term problem – massive negative equity. The only way a homeowner can eliminate negative equity is by convincing the “lender” that doing so is in the “lender’s” best interest. This ONLY happens by fighting the foreclosure in the state court case. A good litigator can shift leverage away from the lender and toward the homeowner, forcing the lender to offer more meaningful solutions.

California has seen huge numbers of unemployment and foreclosures, yet homeowners all over the country should avoid lawyers who only do loan modification "workouts" with a loan servicer rarely achieve long-term success and the foreclosure likely won't be permanently resolved. You should never hire a lawyer who does not intend to defend the foreclosure in state court.

If you would like more information about foreclosures, please check out our articles The Three Stages of Foreclosure In Alabama and Wrongful Foreclosures In Alabama.

If you have more questions or concerns, feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.

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As a Florida foreclosure defense attorney with over 500 actively defended foreclosure cases, I believe the banks have “thrown in the towel” in the cases I’m defending. I cannot recall the last time the plaintiff in a foreclosure case came to a court hearing with an intelligent argument that resulted in a ruling against the homeowner.

Since the plaintiffs rely on fraud in almost every foreclosure case, good defense lawyers are always frequency-tuned to find the lies, and now that Circuit Court judges have been exposed to the stench of foreclosure mill pleadings, more judges are looking at each foreclosure with more skepticism.

We in Alabama who face foreclosures that quickly proceed through the Three Stages Of Foreclosure often look at Florida with some envy since the courts at least get to review the foreclosures. We did not expect that to change but it seems the mortgage companies want to change the rules since they are not winning under the current rules.

If you live in Florida and are reading this - let your representatives know you oppose this non sense.

If you live in Alabama and are facing foreclosure, make sure you stand up for your rights and fight back against wrongful foreclosure. We don't have judicial review unless you take your case to court to stop wrongful foreclosures.

Our tele seminar on Wrongful Foreclosure In Alabama happened last month and if you live in Alabama and would like the audio let us know. We are getting a transcript but don't have it typed up yet.

Also if you have already been foreclosed and are facing an Ejectment Action in Alabama, on Tuesday February 9, 2010 we are offering an hour long tele seminar on the Five Critical Mistakes Often Made When Sued For Ejectment In Alabama. This is free and you can contact us to let us know you want to be on the call.

You can also sign up for our free email newsletter sent out every Thursday morning - we cover topics such as the one in this post. We would love to include you! Just fill out the form below:

Feel free to contact us through our website or you can call us at 205-879-2447.

Ourbroker.com has also posted an article that further elaborates on the massive rise in foreclosures nationally. 2009 saw a rise of 21% in foreclosures, which is 2,824,674 properties, because of the 7.2 million jobs that have been lost since 2007.

Going back to 2005, the annual totals from RealtyTrac look like this:

___ 2009 — 3,957,643 foreclosure filings — up 21 percent.

___ 2008 — 3,157,806 foreclosure filings — up 81 percent.

___ 2007 — 2,203,295 foreclosure filings — up 75 percent.

___ 2006 — 1,259,118 foreclosure filings — up 42 percent.

___ 2005 — 885,468 foreclosure filings.

However, due to state legislation, loan modifications and other short term factors, foreclosures actually decreased for about a four month window. However, the crisis is too severe for the turnaround to have lasted.

“In the long term a massive supply of delinquent loans continues to loom over the housing market, and many of those delinquencies will end up in the foreclosure process in 2010 and beyond as lenders gradually work their way through the backlog.”

December 2009 saw 349,519 foreclosure filings, up 14% from November and up 15% from December 2008. Four states have seen the most dramatic rise in foreclosure rates:

___ Alabama (up 156.26%)

___ Hawaii (up 182.64%)

___ Idaho (up 101.61%)

___ Mississippi (up 135.59%)

___ West Virginia (up 115.91%)

This percentage for Alabama matches up with the data reported by the Birmingham Business Journal.

If you would like more information on foreclosures, please read our articles The Three Stages of Foreclosure in Alabama and Wrongful Foreclosures in Alabama.

If you have further questions feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.
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Zanders pled guilty for...

conspiring to commit bank fraud. He helped direct the scheme to use the IDs and stolen bank information to impersonate victims and make “split” transactions, depositing a check drawn on the bank account of another victim, and then siphoning the money out of the falsely inflated account, court records show.

Darrell Earl Price, a co defendant in the trial, testified that Zanders gave him checks belonging to the Bernankes. Mr. Bernanke said that his family was just one of about 500 families affected by Zanders' crime ring. Zanders acquired the Bernanke's bank information after Mrs. Bernanke's purse was stolen.

Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the United States, victimizing about 700,000 people a year. Consumers should certainly be taking extra precautions to protect themselves from becoming identity theft victims themselves.

If you have questions or concerns, feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.

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There are two ideas of what will happen:

One group says a breaking point will come in the second or third quarter: The supply of these distressed homes will get so big that banks and mortgage servicers will have no choice but to begin moving more borrowers into foreclosure and working through their stockpiles of seized collateral...First American CoreLogic, an analytics unit of the Santa Ana, Calif., title insurer First American Corp., has estimated that 1.7 million homes make up the shadow inventory — properties that have been repossessed, are in foreclosure, or are seriously delinquent. This supply is not included in the official measure of inventory — amounting itself to 3.75 million homes - listed in Multiple Listing Services across the country.

Banks are in the difficult situation of trying to figure out what to do when the shadow inventory hits the market to prevent real estate prices from plummeting. Many think the situation will last longer because of programs like Obama's Home Affordable Modification Program.

"The time line for a recovery has been stretched out, because some of these government programs can't cleanly separate out the borrowers who can be saved from those who can't," she said. "Five years from now seems to be the time line for a lot of these servicers."

Servicers have approved 46,056 mortgage modifications under HAMP. Roughly 25% of the 787,231 borrowers in the program are expected to not make payments and drop out.

To speed the resale of foreclosed properties, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said Friday that it will temporarily waive a rule that restricts homebuyers from obtaining Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages when the seller has owned the house for fewer than 90 days.

Pendley said she expects 65% to 70% of the small group of borrowers who received permanent mods to redefault within a year, largely because so many of these borrowers have large nonmortgage debts and they stretched to buy homes they could not afford.

Many experts say banks are expecting the government to come up with more money to fix the problems by tweaking the program to address borrowers who are unemployed and those who have negative equity.

If you would like more information about foreclosure, check out our articles Wrongful Foreclosures in Alabama and The Three Stages of Foreclosure in Alabama.

Feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447 if you have further questions or concerns.

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Next, contact the creditor and credit reporting agency if there are any discrepancies on your credit report. An official dispute should be sent to both places in writing and include things like copies of canceled checks. If the error is the reporting agency's fault you should contact them directly.

You should try to bring your score up to the next round number, even if that is just a few points. For example, a score of 710 may be eligible for a mortgage company's best rate, but being as close as a 705 can cost you thousands of dollars. A good suggestion is to get a credit card with a low limit. Use it to buy some things that you would normally pay for with a debit card or cash and paying the balance off each month will boost your score.

Cancelling an unused card can actually hurt your score. If you must cancel cards, keep the ones with the oldest accounts as length of time is important when determining credit scores.

...reputable sources say that canceling an unused card can actually hurt your score rather than improve it. The reason is because in the eyes of the reporting agencies, you'll have a higher utilization ratio, or higher total outstanding credit vs. what you have available to you. You'll essentially have the same outstanding balance as you did the day before (assuming you haven't paid anything down), but you'll have less credit available to you.

Before doing something major, like searching for a mortgage, you'll want any credit repairing you do to show as soon as possible. Some lenders offer rescoring services in as little as 72 hours as opposed to thirty days. Your payment history is still the most important thing when factoring a credit score. If you're behind on payments, do your best to catch up with the accounts you currently have and don't open new ones.

If you have questions or concerns about your credit report, feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.

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Though the four are not in all the same businesses, they were caught in one of the same traps: They sold mortgage guarantees — in some cases to each other. Now when homeowners default, as they are doing in record numbers, these companies are covering the losses. Essentially, taxpayer money to these companies is being used partly to protect banks and other investors who own the mortgages.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy and resell mortgages, will likely receive another $400 billion this year from the Treasury. Together, the two companies have used $112 billion. GMAC, which finances auto sales, was already given $13.4 billion and is in negotiations for another $5.6 billion "because a government “stress test” showed it was still too weak."

A.I.G., the insurance conglomerate, recently drew $2 billion from a special $30 billion government facility, which was created in the spring after a $40 billion infusion proved inadequate.

Altogether, the four companies have been given or have been promised a total of $600 billion... and it may climb up to $1 trillion if the government doubles its Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae support.

A spokeswoman said that Freddie Mac and GMAC have made all their scheduled payments to the Treasury. A spokeswoman for AIG has said that repaying the taxpayers will be difficult and depend on the market. Fannie Mae also said it will have trouble repaying the Treasury.

If you would like more information on mortgages and foreclosures, please read our articles The Three Stages of Foreclosure in Alabama and Wrongful Foreclosure in Alabama.

If you have further questions, feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.

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If the major banks were honest about the value of their home equity debt, their capital would take a huge hit. At a time when the banks are repaying Treasury’s equity investments, they do not want to expose this fundamental weakness in their balance sheets. Bloomberg reports that the four big banks, who are also the largest servicers of investor-owned first mortgages, have a combined total of $450 billion in home equity debt on their own books.

Banks seem to be the primary problem when it comes to write-downs in second mortgages.

Bank of America, for example, has $150 billion in home equity debt, and 50% of it is underwater, or nearly, although most borrowers are still making payments, so far. BofA estimates that half of the home equity debt is on homes with total first and second mortgage debt exceeding 90% of the home value. This at a point when its tier I capital was $191 billion. Total loss provisioning for this portfolio was 6.4%, or about $10 billion, a figure that is clearly inadequate. Large write-offs of BofA’s $150 billion home equity assets would take a big bite out of its capital base.

The Treasury is working on a plan to get second mortgage owners to accept 15 cents on the dollar...but banks are reluctant to cooperate. The current Bankruptcy Code allows homeowners to get rid of second mortgages if the first mortgage as eaten up all home equity. However, few homeowners take advantage of this and instead resort to bankruptcy.

If you would like more information about foreclosure, please check out our articles: The Three Stages of Foreclosure in Alabama and Wrongful Foreclosure in Alabama.

If you have more questions, feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.

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"You're being judged by the type of transactions you make, how you pay your bills, how much profit you generate for your lenders and a host of other factors."

This type of information is used to determine things like:

The kind of credit card offers you get.

-Whether your credit limits are raised or suddenly lowered.

-Whether your over-limit credit or debit transactions are approved.

-Whether your card issuer calls you about a suspicious transaction, blocks it or shuts down your account.

-How cooperative your issuer is about waiving fees or lowering your interest rate.

-How quickly your issuer calls you if your payment is late.

-Whether a collection agency contacts you about an old debt and how hard it pushes.

Several other lesser-known things are taken into consideration:

-Credit-risk scores are the most well known and show companies how big of a "risk" your account will be. A score above 700 is considered to be low risk.

-Response scores "predict the likelihood a consumer will respond to an offer of credit, such as a new card or a balance transfer offer."

-Application scores deals with data submitted to the company that's not related to your credit score. The data includes things like how long you've lived at your current address, worked for the same employer and how much you earn.

-Bankruptcy score:

Credit scores typically predict the chance you'll miss a payment in the next two years. Bankruptcy scores predict the likelihood you'll throw in the towel on your debt entirely and file for Chapter 7 liquidation or a Chapter 13 repayment plan, said David Rubinger, spokesman for credit bureau Equifax, which produces the leading Bankruptcy Navigator Index or BNI. BNIs range from 1 to 300, with the higher the score, the lower the predicted risk. Most lenders use both credit scores and bankruptcy scores, Ulzheimer said, to help assess the risk that you won't pay.

-Revenue scores try to predict how much profit your account will generate.

-Attrition-risk scores address the probability of a user no longer using a particular card. This score is often tied in with other scores. For example, if you are low-risk and your account generates large amounts of profit, the credit card company will likely lower your interest rates or raise your credit limit to keep your account.

-Behavior scores

provide a snapshot of how a consumer is handling all of his or her credit accounts. Behavior scores, by contrast, typically focus on a single account (the one you have with that particular creditor) but take in a broad view. Does the user pay off her bills every month, carry a balance occasionally or frequently pay only the minimums on her cards? That information typically isn't available on a credit report, but is contained in the issuer's databases, along with other data that helps the score describe how she handles her account. A behavior score might be used in conjunction with other scores, such as credit or bankruptcy scores, to decide whether an overdue payment is an aberration (maybe he's traveling?) or a sign of impending financial crisis (maybe we should call the consumer today and find out what's going on).

-Transaction scores are used every time you use your card to decide if the transaction will be approved. It is also used to determine if fraudulent transactions.

-Collection scores are used to assess whether or not you'll be able to pay. Collection companies watch for signs of change in your financial situation, such as other accounts being paid off.

If you have had credit card or credit report issues, feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.

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There are two features of loan modifications that show the big difference in securitized and portfolio loans. The first big difference is called principle reduction.

Lenders holding their own mortgages offered principal reduction in some amount for about one-third of their modifications. Servicers handling investor-owned mortgages, on the other hand, wrote down principal essentially never.

The next difference is the amount of unpaid interest and other fees.

While investors understandably would prefer to add these amounts to borrower's balances rather than write them off, the result is to increase the homeowner's debt burden, and the likelihood of eventual default and foreclosure. Lenders modifying their own loans used capitalization in fewer than 20% of their modifications, while securitized mortgage modifications included capitalization 70% to 80% of the time.

Portfolio loans and securitized loans are very different, but this information definitely shows that securitized mortgage loans are much more difficult to modify.

If you would like more information on mortgages and foreclosures, please read our articles on the subject: The Three Stages Of Foreclosure In Alabama and Wrongful Foreclosure in Alabama.

Should you have further questions, feel free to contact us through our website or by calling 205-879-2447.

Also remember you are invited to our free tele seminar on Alabama Wrongful Foreclosures set for today, January 19, 2010, at 4 pm CST.

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