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2008 - 2009 FCRA - FDCPA violations

Monday, October 19, 2009

The TRANSCRIPT of my phone call to Allison, LHR, Mediation Department

I’m still working on the FTC / AG complaint.

Allison in the LHR “Mediation Department” had left a VM for me after we hadn’t heard from LHR for months and I had no idea why she was calling.  It is important to note that LHR’s Robert Hanny later acted as if I was an idiot for adding up statement balances while in fact Allison kept talking about the statements.

The statements were for around $2,500 and LHR claimed to have validated a $6,500 original balance and it is now demanding about $7,900.  Nobody in their right mind would expect the $4,000 difference to be INTEREST as Mr. Hanny finally disclosed.  I’ve seen my share of charge-offs, but Bank of America ought to be the dictionary definition of a greedy vile bank that ought to be shut down.

B of A CREATED the money out of NOTHING and didn’t pay one penny of interest.

PLEASE watch the free online documentary The Money Masters if you don’t understand how the banks exploit ALL of us.

Here’s the transcript of my call to Allison:

Friday, October 16, 2009

My email to TU attorney Cox regarding refusal to investigate disputes10/20/09 up

It is unbelievable that Trans Union refused to investigate DESPITE the fact that my client mailed a copy of his drivers license and bank statement to Trans Union.

Ms. Cox,

Since I didn’t receive a response to my 9/22/09 email below, I’m filing another lawsuit against Trans Union and Verifacts today.

In other matters, Trans Union failed to investigate my client’s disputes TWICE, claiming that he needed to document his address. 

Attached are:
* my client’s power of attorney
* the Trans Union 8/6/09 refusal to investigate his disputes of the AFNI and Kenneth Eisen accounts.
* the copy of the drivers license provided to Trans Union
* the copy of the bank statement provided to Trans Union
* the Trans Union 9/22/09 acknowledgement of receipt of his documentation, but again refusing to investigate for unspecified reasons.

I certainly would like to know WHICH document was not a “qualified” document as per the Trans Union 9/22/09 notice:

Re: Proof of Address Unacceptable - Reason # 3

We have received the documents you supplied for proof of your current mailing address: however. the document(s) were
unacceptable due to one or more of the following reasons:

Reason #1: One or more of the documents provided was too old. Refer to the time frames listed below.
Reason #2 : One or more of the documents provided was illegible.
Reason #3 : One or more of the documents provided was not a qualifying document. Refer to the list below.
Reason #4 : Only one form of proof was provided. Two (2) qualifying documents are required .

The other credit bureaus investigated my client’s disputes without the delay tactics Trans Union implemented to ensure maximum inaccuracy of credit reports and subsequent increased profits.

While AFNI should be deleted by now as per their notice, my client received no response to his dispute with Kenneth Eisen.

We need to ensure that both collections have been deleted as my client needs to finance a new vehicle.

I will greatly appreciate a response and hope that it doesn’t take another lawsuit to get our questions answered and this matter resolved.

Sincerely,

Christine Baker

c: posted at http://creditsuit.org/ and other websites

Interestingly, Trans Union also sent a notice refusing to investigate Afni because it was previously verified.  Unfortunately, my client had signed up with a credit repair service and as usually, they refused to provide the disputes they sent out on his behalf.  That the regulators allow credit repair scammers like Lexington to often PERMANENTLY damage consumers’ credit ratings is just so vile.

Afni was going to be my next FTC complaint (for another client) and you can read my email to Experian attorney Chang about the Afni reporting.  I never received a response from Experian, but since Afni promised to delete, LHR will be the next FTC complaint.  Have some updates on LHR too and hopefully have time to post tomorrow.

I was going to file the lawsuit against Verifacts and Trans Union last time I was in town, but forgot the original signature page in my copier.

10/20/09 UPDATE:

Ms. Baker,

Since this is pertaining to another consumer, you need to contact Trans Union directly.

That was the entire response!  I’m sure glad I filed my lawsuit last Friday.

My client is going to meet with his credit union later this week and if there is a problem or he doesn’t get the best rate, he can file suit and he’ll have serious damages.  Having to contact Trans Union directly is quite time consuming and I’m not going to do it free of charge.  Trans Union seems to enjoy the publicity—I’ll post my complaint ASAP.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

LHR update: the $5000 difference is INTEREST!

Today I received a call from LHR’s Robert Hanny.  He is a typical collector, offensive and threatening and he won’t admit to any wrong doing.  He stated that the over $5,000 difference between the statements and the LHR demand is INTEREST.

He emailed me my client’s “application”, the Prequalified Acceptance Certificate.  I see NOTHING about interest on it and I just sent this email to Mr. Hanny:

Mr. Hanny,

Thank you for the “Prequalified Acceptance Certificate.” Since it has been scanned and it is hard to read, could you please point out to us where the document discloses that interest will be charged?

What interest rate is legally permissible?

What gives LHR the right to charge interest?

What gives LHR the right to not disclose how much interest it charges even after numerous disputes?

What gives LHR the right to demand “documentation” from my client in response to her dispute?

I’m not a lawyer, but I thought that collectors are to validate the debt upon receipt of consumer disputes and I’ve seen nothing in the FDCPA requiring consumers to document their disputes. 

Also, since you stated during our telephone call that you don’t want me to publish anything inaccurate, I once again offer LHR the opportunity to review my DRAFT complaint prior to submission to regulators.  It will be published at http://credit-reporting-collection-ftc-complaints.info/ and I will be sending MY complaint and documentation to the FTC and my client will be sending copies of my complaint to the WA and NY AGs.

I take great pride in my publications and I ensure that the subjects of my documentaries have the opportunity to review my publications and complaints.  However, my previous offers to LHR were declined and Allison specifically stated last Monday that she did NOT want to review the complaint draft.  As I previously stated, the complaint will also be provided to consumer attorneys.

Please let me know whether you want to review my DRAFT complaint and of course advise of any inaccuracies in my publications to date at http://creditsuit.org/credit.php/blog/C188/

I have already wasted countless hours on this matter because LHR refused to comply with the FDCPA and FCRA (reporting the original loan amount and loan type incorrectly) and refused to disclose how it arrived at the balance.  As previously stated, my client disputed the account with Bank of America and maybe LHR ought to pursue Bank of America for selling the account without disclosure of my client’s dispute.

It is my opinion that the sale of consumer debts to debt buyers ought to be illegal and I hope that my LHR documentary will serve this purpose.

Sincerely,

Christine Baker

There are so many FCRA and FDCPA violations, it’ll take many hours to get that complaint ready for publication.  But it’ll be worth the effort because I really feel that the sale of debts to scummy debt buyers must be prohibited and ALREADY violates privacy laws. Please see my recent post:

Why can banks SELL your personal information (with the debt) to ANY criminal willing to pay?

The LHR collectors are a typical example of the kind of thugs that lie, lie and lie again, while cheerfully ignoring every law on the book.  If you haven’t watched the Dateline documentary about LHR yet:

Video:  Dateline debt collection expose features LHR

Does the company ever get sued, though, like, for ... ?

Oh yeah, we bring in a lot of money, so it’s like, it’s worth it for people still to be illegal and collect money

And that’s the truth.  They make SO MUCH MONCY, the occasional lawsuit doesn’t make any difference. It’s a cost of doing business as a debt buyer.

I just hope that MY approach with the PUBLISHED complaints will get the legislators’ and class action lawyers’ attention.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

LHR adds up statements to arrive at the total owed?

The saga continues and here are my previous posts regarding this Lewis Hastings Receivables (LHR) collection.

The brief summary:

In March my client first contacted me about her two BofA charge-offs.  LHR reported that my client owed over $7,500 and that the original amount was $6,500.  She had originally disputed with BofA because she had been unable to make her payments online from overseas—contrary to their promises. She also thought that she settled the BofA accounts in 2006 with another collector.

My client lost her job in April and then had emergency surgery and she just came back from her stay with family.

To make things more complicated, some moron tried to serve her right after she got out of the hospital and to make a long story short, I found out that ANOTHER debt buyer was sueing her for a BofA account.  Apparently they decided not to pursue the lawsuit as I didn’t get a response to my last fax to the attorney and my client was not served.  The process server told the building manager that he was trying to serve a collection lawsuit and I had an interesting “chat” with his boss about that—will post the transcript in a new entry.  Obviously, it is an FDCPA violation to disclose to 3rd parties that the lawsuit is for debt collection.

So we disputed with LHR and the credit bureaus and they VERIFIED without dispute notation in April. After some correspondence, they finally provided 3 BofA statements for one of the BofA accounts in June.  It’s truly INCREDIBLE that LHR refused to inform us when and from who they purchased the account so that we could research what exactly my client settled.

In July LHR sent another collection letter, pretending that they just purchased the account and acting as if there was NO dispute.  Since my client was out of the country while recovering from surgery, we had put everything on hold until she came back a few weeks ago.  Just as I was getting ready to work on the FTC complaint, Allison from the LHR “Mediation Department” left a voicemail for me on Monday. 

When I finally got to talk to Allison, I thought I wasn’t hearing right.  She is adding up the statements for about $2,500 each to arrive at the insane $6,500 they claim was the amount of the original debt.  I’ve never seen anything so crazy and she assured me that it was for ONE account.  Since the statements they mailed to me seem to be DIFFERENT statements, I asked her to fax what she was looking at and she promised to do so.  However, I haven’t received anything.

Here is my fax to Allison, requesting the statements:

Dear Allison:

Last Monday, 10/12/09, you promised to fax me the Bank of America statements adding up to $6,499.81.  I really don’t have any idea how you come up with this amount. 

We did receive the 6/8/09 letter demanding $7,738.25 from J. P. Michael, Department Manager, LHR.  Enclosed were three B of A statements:

4/9/04 balance: $2,551.33
5/9/04 balance: $2,661.37
6/9/04 balance: $2,487.27

I asked you on Monday how you arrived at the total owed and you stated that the statements add up to $6,499.81 and that the rest was interest.

When I add up the statements, I get a total of $7,699.97.  I asked you several times WHY you are adding up the statements, but you did not provide a coherent answer.  Obviously, you must be looking at DIFFERENT statements and you promised to fax the documentation.  However, I received no fax from you.

You also stated that you do not wish to receive the draft of my regulatory complaint with the FTC and state AGs.  However, I will wait until Friday to send the complaints to give you a chance to fax to me the statements I’m apparently missing. 

Providing all documentation for this alleged debt by 10/16/09 is especially important because our regulatory complaints are published and will be provided to consumer attorneys and to Dateline for a followup on its collection documentary.

Please see http://creditsuit.org/credit.php/blog/C188/ for details.

Sincerely,

Christine Baker

I will update with either the LHR response or the FTC / AG complaints.

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Video:  Dateline debt collection expose features LHR

We’re getting ready to file the FTC complaint about LHR and my client found this March 2009 Dateline documentary on illegal debt collection practices.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29921188/ns/dateline_nbc-the_hansen_files_with_chris_hansen/

Prominently featured is Lewis Hastings Receivables aka LHR.

If you click on the video link, you can start with the first video “Debt Trap” (worth watching) or go directly to part 4 with the LHR collectors.  They got several LHR collectors on hidden camera to admit how they knowingly engage in illegal practices.  The best part:

A debt collector admits that breaking the law pays off.

Does the company ever get sued, though, like, for ... ?

Oh yeah, we bring in a lot of money, so it’s like, it’s worth it for people still to be illegal and collect money

Of course that’s true.  The $1,000 FDCPA statutory damages were effective when the FDCPA was created in the 70s.  The damages have never been increased.

So LHR then fired all the collectors in the video.  However, as you can see by the subsequent LHR continued collection of my client’s disputed debt, nothing changed.  They are demanding about 3 times the amount of the charged off account and report the account incorrectly to the credit bureaus.

It’s time for the FTC / AG complaint.