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Reader mail

Monday, October 27, 2008

Reader mail: phone number and address for American Agencies CEO

When searching the web for American Agencies, I encountered your every interesting website.  I could not find the information I was seeking, and hoped you would have that information or could point me in the right direction.

I am looking for the names, street addresses and telephone numbers for the president/ceo/owner, etc. of American Agencies regarding collection activities in California.

I appreciate any help you can give me.

Thank you,

...

You don’t sue by making phone calls or serving a corporation at the CEO’s address.  There’s some free info on litigation and the registered agents at http://creditlitigation.org/resources/messages/5/5.html

And while there is lots of info here about the Slagles, (search for “Slagle"), I don’t recommend making harassment calls.  I’ve already posted the link to the Fight Back info so many times.  Please SEARCH here and READ the posts and FOLLOW the links.  Unfortunately, I can’t provide private consultations free of charge.

If you need help, please subscribe to CreditFactors at http://creditfactors.com/subscription-and-services/

I still would like a picture of the Slagles for my memorial site.  Gotta give credit where credit is due.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Reader mail:  how to charge off accounts

What paper forms or process do I take to reduce my payments to “charge off” my credit cards? I assume by taking this route my credit will be damaged for years to come.

There are no forms.  Creditors make it surprisingly easy, you don’t have to do anything.  If you don’t pay, your credit cards will be charged off.

And yes, your credit will be damaged, they can sue you and clean out your bank accounts.  State law governs whether they can garnish your wages.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Reader mail:  WaMu credit card interest rate increased to 31% despite NO late payments

I was fascinated by your interactions with WaMu. Whatever happened after you refused to pay? I ask this because last month they raised my APR to 31 percent and I had never missed a payment and my FICO score was 680.

After one hour, I finally spoke with a supervisor and told her that if my APR was not reduced I would default or file bankruptcy. She refused to help. What a scam. My balance with WaMu is @ 6,500. I closed the account. I may not pay at all unless they work with me. Comments?

WaMu made daily harassment collection calls until the account was charged off.  As of last month, the WaMu bank accounts and credit cards were sold to Chase. 

I can’t give any advice to others on whether to pay when I know nothing about their situation.  Generally speaking, if you’re near judgment-proof and especially if you have large unsecured debts, don’t pay.

Chase, BofA and Citi are the major beneficiaries of the bank bailout.

They are actually WORSE than WaMu and if everything goes according to their plans, they will buy up many banks and they will finance the deals for the people behind the curtain, takeovers of public utilities and many corporations who are forced into bankruptcy by the banks. 

The banks are trying hard to get debtors to pay on delinquent accounts, offering matching payments, waiving fees and interest, etc.  Don’t be a sucker and pay UNLESS they will delete all recent derogatory data.

GENERAL comments on credit (there are exceptions):

That they will report the account as “current” once it is current will NOT help with the extremely important RECENT lates. 

Even a 60 day late is a MAJOR derogatory for FICO scores.  If that’s what’s reported, you might as well let the account charge off.

Unless you can get ALL delinquent accounts reported without recent lates, your credit is SHOT.

IMPORTANT:  They will NOT hesitate to LIE to you.  Record all calls and agreements.
An interesting article on credit card debt.

UPDATE: I couldn’t send the URL to the reader because his email address on the contact form resulted in a “malformed DNS server reply.” Hopefully he’ll find this post as he continues to research WaMu.  If he or anyone else negotiates WaMu accounts with Chase, please let me know how it works out.

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Reader mail:  wants to put up site for Compass Bank haters

I plan on putting up a website for compass haters, is your forum / site dead (other than the main page) or is there somewhere I can voice my distaste for the bank. I have a scanned statement and a scanned deposit (cash deposit) backing up my argument.

Compassbanksucks.com expires in Nov of 2008 which still wouldn’t make it available for some time after that. Tried compassbank-sucks.com that is taken until next year. I like your domain name, but it seems like no activity.

Let me know,
Thanks,

...

I’m always interested in DOCUMENTED complaints, especially if the efforts to resolve the issues are included. The reader should put together his documentation on a free web page and if it looks good, I’ll be glad to repost it.

Of course the activity is here and at my new sites:

http://creditsuit.org/credit.php/blog/contact/

I just noticed that the newest sites aren’t even listed yet:

http://newdebtcollectionlaw.info/ is my latest project along with http://credit-crisis.info/ How the banks screw people is definitely a reason for the credit crisis.

And then there’s the Fight Back closed forum, I could post it there too: http://fight-back.us/forum/index.php?showforum=1

http://newdebtcollectionlaw.info/ is going to be much broader, I just installed a members only forum to discuss issues such as starting a credit union and TAKING ACTION instead of just whining and complaining.  I need a logo.

Why be a HATER instead of a DOER?

Sure, I hate the banks, the credit bureaus, their lying lawyers ...  But I’m not going to waste my time hating.  There’s way too much to DO.

I wonder if the reader watched the common good bank slideshow? http://creditsuit.org/credit.php/blog/comments/watch_the_common_good_bank_slideshow_and_sign_up/

Once the new sites are all up and running, I’ll try to get to updating all my “dead” sites with links. 

That’s if there are any people who actually want to DO something, DOCUMENT what’s wrong and actively work on creating an alternative banking/credit system.

I noticed this strange advertisement in the reader’s email.  First I thought it was just your normal hotmail / yahoo ad.  But it’s a cox email and looks like the ad was put there deliberately. 

The ad is for the “Best Credit Card Interest Rates” with links to Citibank, Bank of America, American Express, Discover and Chase

It’s a credit card advertisement site, the type that has no content but ads for credit cards and you get about $20 - $60 for each signup.  Maybe this reader is one of the morons who make hate sites for money.

I hope that this reader doesn’t think that any of these banks are BETTER than Compass Bank.  I’ve actually been quite happy with Compass Bank.  Absolutely NO fees, one free overdraft per year and a few months ago they deposited $25 in my account for customer appreciation.  Knock on wood, I haven’t had to bitch at them in years.  The last problem was NSF fees due to a hold on a check and they apologized, refunded my NSF fee and I think they also paid the credit card NSF/late fees.

Of course I realize that I’ve just been lucky (and extremely diligent) to avoid NSF fees and not so lucky that I didn’t have any more checks to deposit that could cause problems with holds.

If you think that Chase, Citi, BofA etc. are better banks, you’re delusional.  Why advertise THEM?

I really wish the Common Good Bank had an easier time coming up with the initial funding, but it’s not the end of time.  Let’s find a good CU that’s looking for members or start our own.

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Debt buyer LVNV incorrect credit reporting of collection

Christine,

There is a listing of LVNV funding on my account, this is scheduled to drop off in Feb 2009, however they have recently changed this listing to installments and have the last date of activity as 9/2008.  I disputed this in August only to see something on my reports that they have re-aged this and made it installments.  My score dropped 88 points on one and over a 100 on another.  What letter did you write to the CRA’s to have this removed?  This seems ILLEGAL and is killing my score.  I have read SO much about this on searches, but I just want a VERY strongly worded letter to write the CRAs….could you provide some examples of what worked for you?

...

I never had an LVNV account and it takes three things to get deletions:

Luck, persistence and the BEST way, filing a lawsuit.

This reader needs to dispute FACTUALLY with the CRAs before he has a legal claim, UNLESS he previously submitted a FACTUAL dispute.  I’m guessing that it was a frivolous dispute.

This is also a typical example of what can happen when you fail to educate yourself and to analyze your FICO scores and you dispute legit accounts.

If you’re NOT ready to sue, don’t mess with accounts that do NOT significantly lower your scores.

In this case, this account apparently was not at all impacting on the scores until disputed.

There is no need to send a “strong” letter.

You’ll only make yourself look like a posturing turkey.  Many thousands of consumers have sent “strong” letters posted all over the web and the CRAs will NOT be shaking in fear, regardless of what you write. 

Quite likely, at least some of the people who keep posting their “system” and “proven” letters are industry plants to keep consumers from suing and/or to make it easy to get their cases dismissed if they actually do sue. It’s simply inconceivable that any “expert” still thinks that submitting legal threats or playing lawyer will increase the chances of deletions or correction.

Submit factual and polite disputes.

Additionally, the debt should be disputed with LVNV. 

Since the reader’s account it “scheduled to drop off in Feb 2009”, I don’t even understand why he is concerned UNLESS he is willing to sue if he has significant amount of outstanding debt and the interest rates might be increased or there is some other reason why the scores are important for those few months.  If that’s the case, dispute and sue as soon incorrect info is verified.

LVNV has sued hundreds, possibly thousands of debtors this year and usually gets default judgments.

LVNV also has been sued (search works) and last year a lawyer wrote that they filed a class action against the LVNV lawyers.  However, he never gave me a case number or name and didn’t reply to my last mail about a month ago.

He had provided me with contact info to provide potential class member info, but since I didn’t even have the case info, I wasn’t sure that he wasn’t working for LVNV.

So despite years of litigation and many complaints, LVNV has not changed its illegal credit reporting and collection practices.  And that’s of course due to the corruption of the courts AND the consumer lawyers who sell out their clients and settle mostly for legal fees.

If you want to change that, join the new site at The NEW Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. 

YOUR choice.

I’ve dedicated the last 7 years of my life to changing credit reporting.  It’s time the people put their money where their mouth is and start DOING something or shut up and put up.

And I don’t know where this reader found my LVNV post and I suppose I have to apologize for not using a signature with each post with the CreditFactors link.  I have to pay for the server and other costs, the legal fees, the thousands of hours litigating, posting, writing open letters to banks and regulators ... 

So if you want my professional advice, please subscribe to CreditFactors and/or join the new still nameless consumer association and understand that I could tell this reader exactly WHAT to dispute without reviewing the reported account.

It really doesn’t make any sense to say that the DLA was changed, which contradicts the 2/09 deletion date.  For Equifax, the DLA is used to calculate the deletion date.