Archive for November, 2006

I don’t usually watch Fox news, but tonight I caught an investigative report about The Mobile Solution, a mall-kiosk cell phone store. The problem, of course, is that most cell phone users are already in the middle of a contract with their cell phone provider. The solution? Lie.
Employees of The Mobile Solution claim to have [...]

Fair Isaac recently launched a new credit scoring model, the “FICO Expansion” credit score. The FICO Expansion score is aimed at providing a credit risk number for the “millions of Americans who have little or no credit information on file at Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.” According to Fair Isaac’s press release, some pretty important lenders [...]

If you’ve been paying attention to this blog or the recent surge in debt collection reporting (this article, for example), you probably have a general idea of how the system works. Debt collectors (both debt buyers and debt collection law firms) sue people as fast as they can fill in the blanks on their summons [...]

According to Progressive CEO Glenn M. Renwick, “[t]here is a power shift to the consumer” prompted by the ease of obtaining insurance quotes online. Auto insurance premiums are going down. That’s right. Down. This is, of course, contrary to nearly every other segment of the insurance market, and great news for consumers.
The full MarketWatch article [...]

I have received two calls in the last two weeks from people who were improperly served in connection with a debt collection. The first is a college student who has never lived with his mother. The law firm’s process server, however, turned up at his mother’s house with a summons and complaint. She refused to [...]

Following up yesterday’s post about tort reform in Texas, TortDeform posted a letter to the editor of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph (WV). West Virginian Gilbert Bailey says “So much for the promise of less expensive insurance premiums . . . .”
Make the jump for the full letter.

Here is a small sampling of the news releases just from today (sorry for the caps; I’m too lazy to reformat them all):
BARRY BRYANT SENTENCING A 64-YEAR-OLD ATLANTA, TEXAS WOMAN HAS BEEN SENTENCED FOR SUBMITTING FALSE CLAIMS TO THE RED CROSS FOLLOWING HURRICANE KATRINA
CARLOS ALBERTO DA VEIGA, OF NEW BEDFORD, HAS BEEN CHARGED WITH ILLEGALLY [...]

From Tortdeform comes the news that, following the Texas legislature’s 2003 sweeping tort reforms “designed to greatly reduce the frequency of medical malpractice lawsuits, the size of malpractice payments, and physicians’ insurance premiums,” the number of Texas physicians applications granted has actually decreased.
I’m not sure this is a news piece worthy of crowing about, but [...]

Consumer attorney Sonya Smith-Valentine brings a new phone-based credit card scam to light. In this one, the caller behaves like a representative from a credit card company investigating credit card fraud. “We need to verify you are in possession of your card,” the caller will eventually ask, and request your three-digit CVV code from the [...]

A University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign law professor says “A lot of credit-card users don’t have a clue as to how the monthly minimum payment is calculated.” Count me in. I don’t have a clue, but I have a pretty good guess. I think [...]

According to the NY Bankruptcy & Consumer Law Blog, the West Virginia AG’s office decided to investigate Pinnacle Credit Services after a consumer complained that she did not owe a debt Pinnacle was trying to collect. The AG’s office discovered Pinnacle was not licensed in West Virginia, and the settlement agreement followed.
Under the agreement, Pinnacle [...]

As Pete Barry often says, all consumer problems eventually end up being debt-collection problems. Early in October, Congress made some key changes to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which regulates the consumer debt collection industry. The main change is to the “mini-Miranda” warning that must accompany the debt collector’s first communication in writing. [...]

I think we often conceptualize the internet like a busy street, full of things to see, do, and learn. But unlike a busy street, your very presence on the internet leaves lasting impressions and information about you and your browsing habits. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group is filing a complaint with the Federal Trade [...]

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Phillip Morris v. Williams, a tobacco case from Oregon where a jury awarded $79 million to the plaintiff. The issue on appeal is whether juries can award punitive damages for harm to third parties not involved in the lawsuit, and places the Rehnquist Court’s BMW v. [...]