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RNB (Target) - FINALLY reporting credit limits

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Collection attorney Kaplan request for consent to verify employment?????

I’ve NEVER seen anything like this.

Collection law firm Kaplan sent the following on 7/14/08:

Please sign and return the consent below to our office so that we may further process the above entitled matter.

JEROLD KAPLAN LAW OFFICE, PC

CONSENT:

I CHRISTINE BAKER hereby give my consent to my employer to verify my employment information as requested by Jerold Kaplan Law Office, PC.

Signature — Date

[mini miranda]

Huh?

Are they trying to verify employment to see whether they can garnish wages if they get a judgment? 

I’m HOPING they’ll sue me, but also on 7/14/08, they sent a letter stating that no attorney has reviewed my file.  However, the request for consent is signed by “Attorney for Creditor” and the signature is unreadable.

BTW, I have already disputed with Kaplan on the phone and in writing and I provided the link to my Open Letter to Target and they keep collecting.  Kaplan is the firm that dismissed the suit against Kok for an old Palisades debt as I recently posted.

I hope that nobody gives consent to verify employment, but then again, many people are so afraid of lawyers, they might actually sign it.  I consider it a combination of harassment and intimidation tactics. 

And I’m thoroughly confused.

Did an attorney review my file or not?

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Chase Buys Half Of Target Card Portfolio for $3.6 Billion

Chase Buys Half Of Target Card Portfolio for $3.6 Billion
May 6, 2008

by Burney Simpson
insideARM
May 6, 2008 Email This Article Print

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) reported yesterday it would sell about 47 percent of its credit card receivables for nearly $3.6 billion in cash to JPMorgan Chase.

The two will share profits from the portfolio up to a cap of 3.4 percent of the annualized yield. Profits over that amount will go to Target. The Minneapolis-based retailer will control its financial services strategy, according to a press release.

The deal represents a 7 percent discount to the value of the receivables, in line with Target’s allowance for “doubtful accounts as a percentage of accounts receivables,” according to the release.

Receivables on Target’s REDCard and Target Visa cards totaled about $8.3 billion at the end of March, according to Target’s monthly filings on its card master trust with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Target reported charge offs of 6.83 percent in February and 8.12 percent in March (“Target Card Charge Offs Rise to More than 8 Percent,” April 23).

Target said it expected 2008 charge offs of 7 percent to 8 percent and delinquencies of 4 percent.

Target said the sale would provide liquidity, spread the risk of the portfolio to Chase, and allow cardholders to continue to use their Target cards.

In March, Target reported it had sold about half the card portfolio to an unnamed investor for about $4 billion ("Target to Sell Half of Card Portfolio,” March 13). The sale of the card portfolio has been pushed by investor William Ackman who bought 9.6 percent of Target last July.

I wonder who owns my accounts now.

Is Target still issuing new cards or are they getting out of the credit card business?  Wonder what the current underwriting criteria for the Target store card are.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Target Card Charge Offs Rise to More than 8 Percent - selling portfolio

Target Card Charge Offs Rise to More than 8 Percent

April 23, 2008
Target Corp.’s credit cards saw higher charge offs in March as the mega-merchant proceeds with its sale of half of the $8.3 billion portfolio.
by Burney Simpson
insideARM

Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) reported yesterday that its credit card portfolio in March had net charge offs of $55.4 million, for an annualized rate of 8.12 percent, according to the retailer’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Target reported net charge offs of $47.5 million in February, for an annualized rate of 6.83 percent.

Receivables on the portfolio declined to $8.3 billion at the end of March from $8.4 billion. Target announced in March it planned to sell half the portfolio for about $4 billion to an unnamed investor (“Target to Sell Half of Card Portfolio,” March 13). Target issues the card through its Retailers National Bank.

The portfolio generated total revenues of nearly $1.5 billion, including interest, payments on purchases, finance charges, interchange and other fees. Total delinquencies tallied $517.2 million. For its delinquencies total, Target combines two missed payments, three missed payments and four or more missed payments. 

The portfolio had gross charge offs of $63.3 million, and recoveries of $7.8 million, leading to net charge offs of $55.4 million.

Target files a monthly update on its Target Credit Card Master Trust with the SEC.

Target this week also renewed its card processing agreement with TSYS, according to an announcement from the Columbus, Ga.-based payments processor. TSYS cited reports that Target was one of the top-five Visa credit card issuers, with more than 21.4 million accounts on file.

Target always charged me about 20% interest on my Visa.  I didn’t matter how perfect my credit rating was.  Several times I requested a lower rate and they declined.

Over 8% in chargeoffs is pretty high!  Well, their greed finally paid off. I suppose my play money didn’t help with the delinquencies:

Open Letter to Target: Why I stopped paying my Target Visa card

Friday, April 04, 2008

Open Letter to Target: Why I stopped paying my Target Visa card

Christine Baker
[address redacted]

ATTN: Terrence J Scully
President, Target Financial Services
Target National Bank
1000 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN 55403-2542

Via Priority Mail

April 3, 2008

Re: Dispute of my Target VISA card # 435237XXXX

Dear Mr. Scully:

I am hereby informing you that you can STOP having your collection employees hound me as I will not pay this account.

1) I initially stopped paying my $8,000 Target VISA card because my polite request to lower the over 18% interest rate was declined.

As per the 2/27/08 Target letter, it declined my request for a lower rate due to my Experian credit report and for the following reasons:

Number Of Accounts With High Balance To Limit Ratios
Ratio Of Balance To Limit On Open Revolving Accounts

It takes a lot of guts and bad judgment to charge a “valued” customer over 18% interest.  Obviously, I cannot reward Target for this usury with further payments.

The high balances were primarily incurred due to my litigation against credit bureaus and banks like Target and Capital One and to build my new house. 

It is not MY fault that the banks changed their underwriting guidelines and that I no longer qualify for a mortgage as when I started building.

For 1.5 years I made the payments on my credit cards, planning to refinance my credit card debt into a mortgage once the house was finished. 

Greedy bankers screwed up the entire credit market and I no longer qualify for a mortgage.

2) I recently discovered that Target didn’t actually lend me its own money.

In First National Bank of Montgomery v. Jerome Daly, MN 1969, judge Mahoney wrote:

Plaintiff admitted that it, in combination with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, which are for all practical purposes, because of their interlocking activity and practices, and both being Banking Institutions Incorporated under the laws of the United States, are in law to be treated as one and the same bank, did create the entire $14,000 in money or credit upon its own books by bookkeeping entry. That this was the Consideration used to support the Note dated May 8, 1964 and the Mortgage of the same date. The money and credit first came into existence when they created It. Mr. Morgan admitted that no United States Law or Statute existed which gave him the right to do this. A lawful consideration must exist and be tendered to support the Note . . . [Emphasis added]

And:

The sole consideration paid for the One Dollar Federal Reserve Notes is in the neighbourhood of nine-tenths of one cent, and therefore, there is no lawful consideration behind said Notes.

Unjust Enrichment.

The debt I allegedly owe was apparently created by accounting entries and Target had the audacity to charge over 18% interest.

As judge Mahoney wrote:

Slavery and all its incidents, including Peonage, thralldom and debt created by fraud is universally prohibited in the United States. This case represents but another form of Slavery by the Bankers.

I could not agree more.

I believe that Target PROFITED from the alleged debt created by fraud and you failed to share your profits with me.

These concepts are explained in the free online film Money as Debt at http://creditfactors.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2 and in Ellen Brown’s eye-opening book Web of Debt, available at http://www.webofdebt.com/

Money should be created by the government so that it can stop incurring new government debt and start buying back the national debt, maintain bridges and highways, provide medical care and education, ensure that social security funds will be there when I retire, etc.

3) The cost of my litigation against Target regarding its refusals to report the credit limits for its Guest Card by far exceeded the amount I allegedly owe to Target. 

I never understood why Target continued to litigate this lost cause even on appeal instead of supporting me, especially since it started to report the credit limits.  I don’t get paid for working on legal filings and Target chose to waste a lot of my time.

4) Target’s handing of disputes has not been satisfactory.

Most recently, the disputed Dish Network unauthorized charges caused serious problems and I really don’t understand why Dish was able to charge my account again after my disputes and specific instructions NOT to allow any further Dish charges.

Please immediately delete this fraudulent Target account from my credit reports.

Enclosed are $10,000 Stelojs (I can create money too) and Target is not going to get one more penny from me unless the government bails me out as it bails out banks and corporations.

I am sick and tired of corrupt governments ran by greedy bankers all over the world.  There is no place to go, the bankers infested every country with any kind of economy worth exploiting.

I decided to vote with my money and to publicize this Open Letter.

I hope to inspire many millions of judgment-proof consumers to stop paying their unsecured debt.

Sincerely,

Christine Baker

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

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Collection letter from FirstSource looks like check and Target can take a hike

It looked like a check!

As I opened my mail and scheduled payments, I wondered what that check was.

So I see FirstSource, thinking it’s a bank and then I read:

“Your account has been listed with our office for collection.”

Huh?  What?  It’s for over $7k.  WaMu?  No.  American Honda. 

Finally I noticed some guy’s name on it.  It’s my correct address.  I’ll send it back to FirstSource.  It’s a very professional looking collection letter, polite, no threats, no violations.

TARGET had a change in terms, changing the definition of the prime rate.

The “Prime Rate means the highest U.S. Prime Rate published .... For each billing period we look at the Prime Rate onf the first business day of the month previous calendar month and the last business day of the previous calendar month.  The Prime Rate used to determine ..... is the higher of those two Prime Rates. ... [emphasis added]

I had just scheduled my payment, the rate is 18.24% and reading this, I feel like deleting the payment and moving them to the WaMu file.

I have paid Target SO much interest.  Well, no time like the present to call for a lower rate.  The feds lower rates every few days and Target RAISES my rate.

The first time I called, I couldn’t get to a person and the system disconnected me when I pushed zero. 

The second time, I finally got to talk to an Indian guy.  He was very polite, requested a lower rate and while waiting for his system to respond, was talking about some Kodak stuff.  Then he politely told me that my request for a lower rate was declined. 

He was at a loss for words when I told him that it’s ok, I’ll just stop making my payments.  He assured me I’d get a letter with the reason for the decline.  And I CANCELED my $226.35 payment online.

So there.

Considering that I’ve wasted endless hours on litigation to try to get them to report the credit limits, I really have no idea why I didn’t stop paying them a long time ago.