Thursday, July 03, 2008
Federal Reserve received THOUSANDS of consumer complaints about banks
From Angry Consumers Flood Federal Reserve Board with Complaints
“I get a form letter from Bank of America that says my interest rate is going to be raised from 7.9% to 21.99%. Why? Because I have a large balance that I haven’t paid off and I carry balances on a few other cards. Never mind that I’m not late, overlimit or anything else that would be a problem.” — Angela, Louisville, Kentucky
“The worst is Bank of America….The worst experience with this card was when I received my statement the other day. There was a $39 late fee on it. I knew that I paid on time and when I called the rep stated that I ‘paid too early’ so that it was applied to my previous billing cycle. Therefore, it was if I hadn’t made any payment in [the] current billing cycle. I have never heard of such a thing, being penalized for paying too soon.” — Eileen, Farmingdale, New York
“My husband and I recently experienced Bank of America raising our interest rate on our credit card from 13% to over 24%. The reason they sited [sic] was because they ‘re-evaluated’ our credit history…. Thankfully we continue to pay all our bills on time but these actions are predatory as I feel like they are in a dark corner just waiting to pounce.” — Jennifer, Fort Meyers, Florida
“Back when the President signed the new bankruptcy law, all my credit cards doubled the minimum payment and at least doubled my interest rates. What was a $100 minimum payment with a 9.99% interest rate went to $200 a month at 28%. I had to open more cards to transfer balances to help pay the other cards. Now I have to file for bankruptcy.” — Tim, Troy, Ohio
The consumer complaints received by the Federal Reserve
BofA called me today to offer me a lower interest rate and to “help” me. I stopped paying last month after they closed my account despite my perfect payment history. What are they smoking?
My extensive comments to the Fed and FTC and legislators were ignored.
It took me FOUR years to realize that I was wasting my time.
Finally, my complaints took the form of NO MORE PAYMENTS to these thugs.
You may have noticed that I haven’t bothered to post any more of the daily BAD NEWS about foreclosures, defaults, inflation, rising oil prices, layoffs, corporate bankruptcies and the general doom and gloom everywhere. Several European banks recently publicly stated that they are expecting the collapse of the American banking system.
I’m hopeful.
Credit - Collection - Economic News • (0) Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
HSBC (Household) LIES to get fees - I STOP paying
I just tried to schedule my payment online and it’s due on 6/28 and that’s what I scheduled for the payment date.
The date you selected is invalid because payments cannot be scheduled on a weekend or Federal Banking holiday. Please select a different date.
The million dollar question:
How can a payment be DUE on a “Federal Banking holiday” when you can’t schedule the payment for that date?
OF COURSE you can schedule your payments for holidays, many other credit card issuers have no problem doing so. Just like you can USE the card on banking holidays, you can schedule payments for holidays. Since many people schedule their payments just before the due date, they will have to pay the FEE to make a rush payment.
Rush payments can be requested 365 days a year, including weekends and holidays.
The fee for rush payments is $15.
Household will forward the $15 to the federal reserve because the payment is scheduled for a banking holiday? Hell no.
The $15 are pure profit.
I’m at the point where I can’t take the lies anymore. Why don’t they just state that they designed their online payment system to maximize profits and that’s why you have to schedule payments DUE on a holiday PRIOR to the holiday.
I’ve had enough of the lies. And as I recall, I’ve actually paid this $15 fee once and they refused to give me the credit when I called. So, it’s time to teach them a lesson.
I didn’t schedule any payment.
I hope they sue me. I’d like to do discovery about their clever design. It’s not just the rush payment fees, but people who mail payments are likely to incur late fees if they mail the payment just a few days before the due date.
And please don’t waste your time on submitting comments about how we simply need to schedule our payments earlier. This site is about exposing and documenting how the working people who barely get by are being systemically exploited and forced into default by ruthless bankers.
2008 Monetary Reform - stopping the bank fraud • (4) Comments • Permalink
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Served IC System with complaint, summons, initial disclosures and my discovery requests
I’ve been so busy, finally set a day aside to prepare the discovery docs and initial disclosures (posted at CreditFactors)
ATTN: KENNETH RAPP
President/CEO
I.C. System Inc.
444 Hwy 96 E
Saint Paul, MN 55127-2557June 22, 2008
Re: Open Letter: Complaint and summons Baker v. I.C. System, Inc.
Dear Mr. Rapp,
Enclosed are my Complaint, Summons, Initial Disclosures and Discovery Requests served by US postal service as per the AZ Rules of Civil Procedure.
As you may know, I previously mailed my draft complaint and I provided I.C. System with the opportunity to settle. However, my offer was ignored just like my requests to stop the harassment calls.
I.C. System Director of Legal Affairs Sue Johnson’s letter dated 5/2/08 added insult to injury.
Accusing me of lying by demanding proof of my claims while you obviously train all your employees to make harassment calls, responding over a month after the settlement deadline and ignoring my request for communications by email or fax is NOT a good start to settle. Clearly, she was going to jerk me around and waste MORE of my time and I therefore decided that it was more cost effective to file suit.
As per Ms. Johnson’s request, some of the recordings are included on CD with my initial disclosures. I am currently extremely busy, but I should soon have a lot more time to search for additional recordings and to widely publicize the I.C. System atrocious debt collection practices.
Mr. Rapp, you choose to run a collection agency, trying to harass people into paying debts allegedly owed to the criminals who deliberately destroyed the economy and who CREATE money out of nothing.
I can’t tell you what to do, but I can publicize how you operate. I just registered the domain IC-SYSTEM-COLLECTION-SUIT.INFO to supplement my blog entries at http://creditsuit.org/credit.php/blog/C173/ with more details about the litigation.
Please be advised that I never delete or alter my publications as part of a settlement and that I will be writing a book about the credit crisis scam, the banking criminals, the corrupt regulators and legislators and of course the collectors engaging in illegal collection practices and assisting with the collection of entirely fraudulent debts.
This Open Letter is published at http://mylitigation.net/, where you can also find my Open Letters to banks such as Washington Mutual.
Nobody with PERFECT credit deserves to have the interest rate more than doubled to 26% on money CREATED by the bank.
I can’t eliminate the corruption. I can only try to get the word out and help my readers survive and possibly remove themselves from this broken system.
Sincerely,
Christine Baker
c: posted at http://mylitigation.net/, http://creditsuit.org/ and other relevant web sites.
6/23/08 update:
I forgot to mention that I also called and left a message for IC System’s director of legal affairs Sue Johnson Friday a week ago, obviously would have settled for less prior to all this work. She ignored me again.
There’s someone who should be fired. Not only because they’re incurring the additional costs, but they’re getting so much publicity. I see IC System on credit reports all the time and I sure hope that MANY people will sue them.
Have to start a topic for them at Fight Back with the info on serving, specific violations, etc.
2008 IC System suit (FDCPA) • (0) Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
6/16/08 amended complaint: Trans Union tortuous interference with my business
Last night I filed my amended complaint with my NEW claim:
TORTUOUS INTERFERENCE WITH CONTRACTUAL RELATIONS
86) Baker contracts with consumers to analyze their credit reports and FICO credit scores, draft disputes to credit bureaus and/or to recommend specific actions to improve FICO credit scores.
87) Trans Union was aware of Baker’s contractual relations with her clients at all times relevant hereto.
88) Baker’s clients expect that their FICO credit scores will increase after they send their factual disputes to Trans Union according to Baker’s instructions or after Baker directly contacts Trans Union on behalf of her clients.
89) Trans Union at all times knew that it is required by law to correct disputed consumer credit data.
90) TransUnion knowingly, intentionally and maliciously failed to correct the disputed data on numerous occasions in violation of the FCRA.
91) TransUnion knowingly, intentionally and maliciously interfered with Baker’s contractual relations with her clients.
92) As a proximate result of the foregoing intentional interference by TransUnion, Baker has suffered and will continue to suffer financial damages, emotional distress and mental anguish.
93) The actions of Trans Union were malicious, reckless and/or oppressive and were undertaken to injure Baker and her clients. Accordingly, Trans Union is liable to Baker for punitive and exemplary damages in an amount proven at trial.
I already scanned the TU discovery responses, will post those later. As usually, they did NOT provide a single substantive answer. Don’t I wish I could depose them, but the $350 in litigation donations won’t even pay for the transportation to get to the depositions, not to mention the thousands of dollars required to pay for the court reporter, transcripts, hotel, etc.
I don’t know what to do next.
Hope for them to throw me a few bucks for a settlement?
Waste endless hours on more written discovery that won’t get me anywhere?
Maybe I’ll file a motion for summary judgment. They didn’t respond to my requests for admission within 30 days.
At least I got to say how it is. Since I’m the only credit professional in the country, there won’t be any big suits to build on this as with Cap One and their refusal to report the credit limits.
BTW, my client just got her new myFICO TU report, Trans Union CONTINUED to report without the date closed despite this litigation.
The credit bureaus have absolute power.
The corporations and their scumbag management and lawyers can do whatever they want, destroy lives and kill human beings without any repercussions.
Also from my complaint:
IV. INTRODUCTION
13) This Complaint is about the fact that thousands of consumers are in foreclosure (the subprime crisis) because credit reporting agencies (“CRAs”) willfully disregard the FCRA requirement to provide consumer credit reports only to persons with a permissible purpose and the regulators refuse to investigate complaints of illegal activities and false mortgage advertising.
14) The CRAs’ motives are obvious, they get paid for every consumer credit report provided to lenders and profits are far more important to CRAs than protecting consumers’ personal and financial data and complying with the FCRA.
15) The CRAs and reseller NCO ignored Baker’s written and well documented complaints in 2004 and 2005 about mortgage banker Dana Capital’s illegal activities, including obtaining Baker’s consumer credit report for unlicensed marketers in 2004.
16) When Baker applied with “Trinity Financial” for a mortgage in 3/07, she was shocked to see that again Dana Capital’s account was utilized to obtain her credit reports from reseller NCO – Baker did NOT apply for anything with Dana Capital.
17) The California and Arizona mortgage licensing departments also had failed to act on Baker’s complaints and allowed Dana Capital to continue to establish often unlicensed branches for the purpose of engaging in illegal telephone and fax advertising of mortgages with entirely false terms.
18) Regulators with the mandate to protect consumers instead protected mortgage companies engaging in false advertising of interest rates as low as 1%, as Baker documented at her website http://creditsuit.org/credit.php?/blog/comments/housing_sales_slowdown_californians_house_poor_mortgage_fraud_rampant/.
19) Baker suspects that the licensing agencies decided to ignore complaints to sustain economic growth, as much of the cash obtained from refinances was used to pay
off credit cards and to purchase more products the borrowers could not afford.20) No amount of money can adequately compensate the people who lost their homes, end up divorced, depressed and/or ill due to financial problems and some no doubt
die because the economy and corporate profits are more important than compliance with consumer protection laws.21) Because Baker does not have the legal skills and cash to sue the government, she plans to write a book about her credit work, research and litigation and the corruption throughout American government and business, hopefully encouraging more qualified people or organizations to seek justice and to put the responsible persons into prison.
Judge Teilborg denied the TU motion to strike this part of my complaint and the 12(c) motion for judgment as moot, since I was amending the complaint. So now TU can file their motions again and I’ll have to waste my time responding again.
Is it time I let it go, write my book, remove myself from this agony and do something more enjoyable?
As much as I’d like to make a difference for all, it’s rather obvious that I’m not a lawyer, I’m not superwoman, NO politician gives a damn, NOBODY else is DOING anything to put the credit bureaus in their place and very few people are sending donations.
My grapes and potatoes are looking good and being 50 years old, I’m looking forward to more rewarding activities and PAID work.
Helping people NOT pay their credit cards is very rewarding. There’s absolutely NOTHING wrong with not paying as promised.
It’s by far the easiest way to find justice in America. We have absolutely NO moral obligation to pay the bankers, if anything, we have a moral obligation NOT to pay.
2007 Inquiry suit • Trans Union • (4) Comments • Permalink
Bear Stearns hedge fund managers may face criminal charges
By KATE KELLY
June 16, 2008; Page A1
Federal prosecutors, capping a yearlong investigation, are preparing to file criminal charges against managers of two Bear Stearns Cos. hedge funds whose collapse helped mark the start of the credit crisis.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn is slated to complete interviews of witnesses and other key people in the case this week, and has indicated to lawyers with interest in the case that indictments could be imminent, according to people familiar with the matter.
[Ralph Cioffi]
The former Bear Stearns managers, Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, managed two high-profile bond portfolios for the securities firm’s asset-management unit. They could be charged with securities fraud within the next week, says one of the people familiar with the matter, though evidence could emerge that would change that.
Rosy Picture
At issue is whether the managers intentionally misled investors by presenting a rosy picture of the funds at a time when they were privately communicating with colleagues about their worries over how the investment vehicles would ride out weakness in the mortgage market. Any indictments would be the first criminal charges against Wall Street executives arising from the credit crisis that swept the financial world last year.
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney for New York’s Eastern District declined to comment, as did a lawyer for Mr. Tannin, 46 years old. A lawyer for Mr. Cioffi, 52, didn’t return a call for comment. During the investigation, Mr. Cioffi has told people that he and Mr. Tannin were grappling with the fast-changing dynamics in mortgage markets just as the rest of the financial world was, and didn’t mislead anyone.
There has been no indication that broader charges are being contemplated against Bear Stearns, now part of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., or its executives. But any indictments over the two hedge funds could set a chilling precedent for other companies and executives now under investigation for alleged criminal missteps related to the mortgage-market meltdown.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn are investigating whether the Swiss bank UBS AG improperly valued its holdings and whether the collapsed mortgage lender American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. of Melville, N.Y., engaged in accounting fraud, people familiar with the matters have said. Prosecutors in Manhattan and Los Angeles are respectively probing whether mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp. engaged in securities fraud or loan fraud. None of the companies have commented.
The collapse of the Bear Stearns funds, which cost investors $1.6 billion, rang early alarm bells about the imprecise valuations Wall Street firms were putting on their holdings of mortgage securities. Since then, financial firms world-wide have written down $387 billion in mortgage and other holdings, according to the Institute of International Finance Inc., a Washington-based banking group.
The funds’ implosion in June 2007 came weeks after Messrs. Cioffi and Tannin had given a positive outlook to investors. The carnage caused other financial firms to begin to recalculate their valuations of mortgage securities, which are traded off exchanges without publicly available price information.
Pulling Money Out
The shuttering of the funds also represented the beginning of problems at Bear Stearns, raising questions about its managerial oversight and risk controls. Bear Stearns’s woes extended far beyond the two hedge funds, however. Worries over its own large mortgage portfolio and overreliance on short-term funding came to a head in March. Clients panicked and pulled money out of the securities firm, triggering its collapse and a shotgun sale orchestrated by the Federal Reserve.
[photo]
Using substantial amounts of borrowed cash and securities, the High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund and a riskier sister fund invested, among other things, in pools of bonds backed by low-end “subprime” mortgages. Mr. Cioffi, a former mortgage salesman at a firm known for its prowess in mortgage-bond trading, was well regarded by investors. From late 2006, when the riskier fund was launched, investor money rolled in, some of it from sophisticated professional investors and corporate titans.
But in February 2007, the feverish activity in the subprime-mortgage market began to slow, and securities tied to the mortgages swooned. Still, Mr. Cioffi and a number of his colleagues remained upbeat about the subprime market, and Mr. Cioffi told investors at a conference late that month that a meltdown in the sector was “unlikely to occur.”
On Feb. 27, 2007, a warning signal came from a closely watched slice of the ABX, an index that tracks subprime-mortgage securities. The indicator slid to a low of 63 from well north of 90 at the beginning of the year, stoking investor fears.
In March, the ABX recovered some ground. That’s when Mr. Cioffi, who had worked at Bear Stearns for 22 years, sought and received permission from the firm’s compliance officials to move $2 million of the $6 million he personally had invested in the riskier hedge fund into a separate internal fund called Structured Risk Partners, people familiar with the matter said.
It is unclear what Mr. Cioffi’s expectations for the mortgage market were at the time. During the investigation, he has said that a shift of that size would have had no material impact on his substantial net worth at the time. He told colleagues that it was an effort to use money gained from his investment in the High-Grade fund to give a boost to a neighboring hedge fund at the firm. To bring charges, prosecutors would have to allege that Messrs. Cioffi and Tannin deliberately misled investors.
In April 2007, Mr. Cioffi exchanged emails with colleagues in which he expressed concerns about the credit markets, and wondered how a downturn might affect his investors, according to people familiar with the matter. In an April 25 call with fund investors, however, he sounded an upbeat note, telling participants he was “cautiously optimistic” about his and Mr. Tannin’s ability to hedge their portfolio.
‘Quite Comfortable’
“The market will stabilize,” Mr. Cioffi said, adding: “We have a plan in place that will get the funds back on track to generate positive returns,” according to a review of the transcript of the call. The two funds had solid financing from lenders, he said, and “significant” cash on hand. It is unclear how much money the funds actually had at the time. Mr. Tannin echoed Mr. Cioffi’s reassurances, counseling investors not to be alarmed by “articles daily about how the world is coming to an end.” He added, “We’re quite comfortable with where we sit.”
The swoon wasn’t reported to investors until early June, partly because of the standard delays in calculating monthly returns. But in May, the fund managers began selling billions of dollars in bonds to raise cash for the struggling funds. As the bad news leaked out, some investor rushed for the exits, demanding that Messrs. Cioffi and Tannin return their money.
But the fund managers didn’t have enough cash handy to repay investors and meet “margin calls”—demands from lenders for additional cash or collateral—so they refused the redemption requests. This created further investor anxiety.
By late June, the riskier fund, which faced unmet margin calls and notices of default, essentially was left to die. To salvage the less-risky High-Grade fund, Bear Stearns officials agreed to lend it as much as $3.2 billion to meet its immediate needs. (Bear Stearns ultimately lent just half that; the loan was never fully repaid.) On July 31, the funds filed for bankruptcy protection in a New York federal court.
Bear Stearns never quite recovered. Following additional losses from its overall bond business and an investor panic, the 85-year-old securities firm, one of Wall Street’s best-known, was subsumed into J.P. Morgan last month.
Write to Kate Kelly at
This is a timely article since I spent a lot of time in recent days discussing options for FDRS ex employees who didn’t get paid and what to do about Mark Cella at http://creditsuit.org/credit.php?/blog/comments/frds_victims_sue_mark_cella_asap_anyone_near_san_gabriel_cal/
So the Bear Stearns hedge fund managers lied to their clients.
What about the criminals like Mark Cella and his employees who lie to consumers about being able to “eliminate” their debts when in fact, they just take their money, do NOTHING to settle the debts, have NO intention of ever doing anything for the clients and contrary to their promises RUIN their credit rating, forcing many into bankruptcy?
How about THAT?
I sure hope it’s not going to take a YEAR until they shut down FDRS, once somebody FINALLY files the complaint with the AG—giving them time to ruin many more lives.
FDRS - Federal Debt Relief SCAM • Subprime mortgage crisis SCAM • (0) Comments • Permalink
