Archive for November, 2007

The StarTribune reported today on another criminal investigation of mortgage fraud. While it is a good thing that someone is going after these people for the fraud they have committed, it would have been much better if someone had been guarding the hen house in the first place. The eggs are now gone and a [...]

I was cruising the web and found this site on payday lending. It has all kinds of stuff about how to run a store. One of the links in the “learning center” is on the profitability of payday and check advance lending. Based on their projections Payday lending is a hell of a business.
If [...]

I am always a bit shocked at some of the commercials I see and hear, but being that I deal with car sales scams quite a bit the CARFAX commercials catch my attention. Maybe you have seen or heard one. It starts out warning about damaged cars and then says a CARFAX report will protect [...]

Consumer attorney Nick Slade has joined the Caveat Emptor blog as a contributing editor. Nick has been taking consumer cases since 2000, when he refocused his practice from criminal defense to consumer law.
Nick deals with a variety of consumer issues, including auto fraud, equity stripping (also called foreclosure rescue scams), predatory lending, the Truth-In-Lending Act, [...]

Want to know just how many lawsuits are filed by the debt collection industry? Well, in a document I just received, Unifund admitted to filing 14,172 collection lawsuits in California between January 1, 2004 and July 31, 2006! That is over 450 lawsuits per month and nearly 5,500 per year!
Of the total, Unifund obtained almost [...]

I called HSBC Bank this evening because I wanted to see a copy of their credit card agreement. I said I was interested in applying for a credit card, but I would like to see a copy of the credit card agreement before I applied. They told me I could not have a copy of [...]

My wife and I tried to order two pizzas from Uptown Pizza this evening, intending to use the buy-one-get-one-free “Sports Lovers Special” coupon that was attached to the pizza we ordered a couple of weeks back. The coupon has no expiration date.
Neither the employee on the phone nor the manager would honor the coupon, claiming [...]

Dolores Maddux owed a credit card debt to CitiFinancial. CitiFinancial sold the debt, and Merchants Retail Credit Association (MRCA) eventually bought it.
MRCA tried to collect the debt from Gilbert Maddux, Dolores Maddux’s spouse, and Jeni Maddux, her daughter. MRCA treated the Madduxes like dirt.
MRCA demanded $10,000 from Dolores Maddux when they finally called her after [...]

Three consumers were awarded a total of $87,000 for Marshall and Ziolkowski’s conduct in New Mexico, plus $5,903 in attorney fees and costs. The New Mexico U.S. District Court found that Marshall and Ziolkowski abused the plaintiffs by:

calling Stephanie McMichael and telling her that her “mom might have to go to jail”;
calling Bill McMichael derogatory [...]

Some debt collection law firms have apparently been targeted by counterfeit check scammers. Here is the scam:

The pitch is simple: An Asian company says it’s seeking a law firm to collect delinquent accounts in the United States.
Once the parties sign a retainer agreement, the company forwards a check allegedly from a past-due account. It asks [...]

It is no news flash that subprime borrowers are having trouble paying back their loans, but this graph showing the number of delinquent subprime loans (60 days or more overdue, in this case) is a bit shocking. The curve has gone vertical! Whoops.
In stark contract are the number of delinquent prime loans, which have remained [...]

Wen you have been sued, the most important thing is to answer the complaint. An answer is not a phone call or a letter, it is a formal response to the formal complaint. This is especially important in debt buyer lawsuits, and especially in Minnesota, where pocket service and prejudgment garnishment give debt collectors the [...]

November 23rd is Black Friday. It is also Buy Nothing Day. From Adbusters:

This November 23rd, environmentalists, social activists and concerned citizens in as many as 65 countries will hit the streets for a 24-hour consumer fast in celebration of the 15th annual Buy Nothing Day, a global cultural phenomenon that originated in Vancouver, Canada.
. [...]

ABC News blog, The Blotter, picked up on my post about the “Dear SHIT FACE” letter sent by Nationwide Collections. Blotter blogger Joseph Rhee apparently called up Nationwide Collections and spoke with its President, Phil McGarvey, who said:

The president of Nationwide Collections, Phil McGarvey, told the Blotter on ABCNews.com that the account in question contained [...]

Noam Chomsky used to recommend the Wall Street Journal because, he said, business readers couldn’t afford biased news and commentary. No more, it seems. The recent WSJ editorial “Party at Ralph’s” (PDF link) contains little but inaccurate, biased garbage.
I was there, “standing up for the little guy by sipping cabernet at a Dupont Circle manse [...]

Airlines have given consumers a record number of delays this year, due in large part to rampant overbooking. In response, the Transportation Department has proposed a new rule increasing the “bump fee” that airlines must pay to passengers who are bumped due to overbooking. The rule would require the airlines to pay $400 (up from [...]

This list of “ways to gather funds” (PDF) provided by Credit Solutions of America contains an amusing list of ways that consumers in need of money to pay bills can scrounge up some extra cash.
There are some quality recommendations in there, such as getting a second job and selling the car, but these are my [...]

Nationwide Collections, attempting to collect a debt of $16.39 that originated with Columbia House, addressed a collection letter to “SHIT FACE” and began with the salutation “Dear SHIT”. I’m not kidding. Here is a copy of the letter (PDF link).
The consumer who received the letter signed an affirmation stating he never used the words “shit [...]

I will be in Washington, D.C., for the National Consumer Law Center 2007 Conference from tomorrow afternoon through the weekend. If my posting frequency falls off, that’s why. But I will try to keep the posts coming, especially about topics that come up at the conference.

From the article:
As Twin Cities home foreclosures multiply, so do the opportunities for mortgage fraud.
With more and more homeowners desperate to hold on to their homes, experts are concerned that many are vulnerable to rescue scams like equity stripping.

Not much to add, here. It seems obvious that with more targets, equity strippers and predatory refinancers [...]