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2004 Suit (credit limits, credit reporting - on appeal)

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Capital One extraordinary incompetence - failed to send balance transfer check!

On 1/10/08 I called Capital One and asked whether they could send a check directly to my bank account, as I recently had been told several times.

The guy barely spoke English, I had to spell out every letter for the Compass Bank name and address and I was worried right then.

On the 15th I called Cap One to make sure that everything was going ok.  I was told no problem, it just takes a few days to process everything.

Checked my account balance today, no record of the deposit, called the bank, no record of receiving the check, called Capital One again.

Of course the first person knew nothing, transferred me to Becky, employee ID IRS818. She started talking about the transfer being cancelled.

I have a letter from Cap One stating that the transfer request was approved, dated 1/10/08.

The she said the transfer was stopped on the 15th.  I didn’t stop it, I called in on the 15th to ensure that everything was going ok.  After putting me on hold several times, Becky couldn’t provide further details and had to transfer me again.

Then spoke to Eric, employee ID VRF848.  He finally told me that on the 18th the “address verification” failed.  I wasn’t too surprised.

I asked Eric why NOBODY informed me that the transfer was cancelled and he replied:

We don’t have the manpower for that.

Can you believe that?  They send out a letter stating that the transfer was APPROVED, and then don’t bother to notify you that they didn’t send out the check. Notably, the address was NOT on the letter, it only referenced “Compass Bank”.

So I asked what Capital One could do for me and Eric suggested that we submit ANOTHER request for the check.  I asked whether he could verify the address instantly, but they don’t have that capability.

Why on earth would I do this AGAIN, what reason is there to believe that the address would be verified this time?

Eric thought it wouldn’t be a problem.  So I asked him to look up why the address wasn’t verified and it turns out that they had ARKANSAS instead of ARIZONA.

It would REALLY help if they had people with half a clue and basic English skills.  Not to mention, that the idiots in the “verification department” could have figured out that the ZIP CODE is in Arizona and that my billing address happens to be in Kingman ARIZONA and is even on the SAME street as my bank!—DUH!

What kind of an IQ does it take to determine that their employee made a mistake?

Is it really too much to expect that they call me, as they FREQUENTLY do when I use a Capital One card more than 3 times in one day?

Is it really too much to expect to at least get a letter?

And why was the transfer APPROVED on the 10th and they didn’t even verify the address until the 18th?

I asked Eric whether I could just get a cash advance and they put it on a promo with the $50 max fee.  But of course that was not an option.  The checks I have already expired.

Eventually, Eric figured out that it was not even possible to send a check to my bank!

They can ONLY process requests to CREDIT CARD accounts. 

So why do their employees continually suggest having Cap One send a check to my bank directly when I say that my bank won’t accept their promotional checks sent to me?

This is as bizarre as it gets.

Finally Eric suggested that they send a check to ME.  Not having any other options, I agreed to that and supposedly they’ll now send a check to my billing address, he told me that the request was approved.

45 minutes on the phone today and my total time wasted is at least 3 hours - so far.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Capital One fantastic balance transfer offers—1.99% for life of the debt—watch for the TRAPS

I thought I wasn’t seeing right when I saw the Cap One offer online today for 1.99% interest credit card balance transfers with NO expiration date.  A few weeks ago it was still 4-6% or so. 

1-15-08--CapOne-1-99-offer.pdf

Where’s the legalese?  Just about anybody ought to be able to understand this.  What worries me is what’s missing.

It’s very cool that this rate is good until you paid the debt and the maximum fee is $50.  It’s a fantastic offer for those with plenty of cash to pay off the full balance and then take advantage of this great deal and NOT use the card again.

It’s also NICE that you can be late up to 2 days TWICE in 12 billing periods and they won’t raise your rate.  That’s much better than most other cards.

The screwees are the people who do NOT have a lot of cash and just borrow a SMALL amount.

GREAT deal:

LARGE credit line - pay it off and then pay $50 for a b/t (which can be in the form of a check to your bank) and don’t use the card again.  If you do, you’ll have a BLENDED interest rate and in order to get rid of the balance with the purchase rate you have to pay the ENTIRE balance off.

BAD deal:

You’re unable to pay off the full balance and you have only a few hundred dollars available.

Let’s say your balance is $6,000 and you transfer only $500.  The 3% fee is $15.

Because just about all banks apply most of your payment towards LOW rate balances, you don’t get much out of this deal.  Your payment is around $200 and depending on the interest rate on the original balance, let’s say $80 goes to interest.  So $120 is principal reduction for the LOW rate balance and it’ll be paid off in just a few months.  And since you paid the 3% upfront fee you really paid more like a 10% or so APR.

I really don’t understand WHY Capital One offers these low rate deals, other than to keep customers from defaulting.

Last week I decided on the 0% for 6 months for the $50 max fee.  I did 2 transfers and it’s costing me $100 to borrow almost $15,000 for 6 months.  Can it get any better?

I suppose they could pay us to take the money.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Ameriquest spent $20 million to lobby against subprime legislation

Subprime lenders spread lobbyists, cash, tickets around government Nick Juliano

Published: Monday December 31, 2007

Rolling Stones tix among gifts spread to lawmakers

As state governments around the country were trying to regulate subprime lending practices that critics say were responsible for this year’s mortgage meltdown, the subprime industry was spreading cash and gifts to lawmakers in a dozen states.

The Wall Street Journal’s Glenn Simpson details the case of Ameriquest Mortgage Co., reporting the company worked with a married pair of DC lobbyists to spread more than $20 million in political donations in states considering subprime regulations. Ameriquest also handed out stacks of Rolling Stones tickets to lawmakers in eight states as well as to the campaign of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“Home loans made by Ameriquest and other subprime lenders are defaulting now in large numbers, roiling global credit markets and sparking debate about whether regulators and lawmakers should have anticipated the mess and taken action,” Simpson reports. “A close look at Ameriquest’s lobbying and political donations shows how the subprime industry maneuvered to defeat legislation that might have contained some of the damage.”

The industry lobbying focused on state governments since at least 2001. At the federal level, members of the until-recently GOP Congress—who had received $645,00 in donations from subprime lenders—didn’t seem too interested in enacting new oversight of the industry.

“What seemed to be developing in the states was that there was going to be a wave of legislation,” lobbyist Wright Andrews, who coordinated the industry’s lobbying operation with his wife, Lisa, told Simpson.

Although Andrews didn’t directly lobby for Ameriquest, according to Simpson, he “ran three different subprime-industry trade groups: the National Home Equity Mortgage Association, of which Ameriquest was a member; the Coalition for Fair and Affordable Lending, which spent $6.3 million lobbying against state laws before it dissolved earlier this year, according to federal filings; and the Responsible Mortgage Lending Coalition.” Lisa Andrews was a senior vice president in Ameriquest’s lobbying division from 2003 to 2005.

Ameriquest’s state-level lobbying focused on Georgia after the state passed its Fair Lending Act in 2001. The act required lenders to provide a “tangible net benefit” to borrowers when it refinances loans less than five years old.

Ameriquest became “very, very engaged,” in working, along with other banks and mortgage houses, to get the law changed, Georgia state Sen. Vincent Fort told Simon. Fort, the author of the law, said he accused an Ameriquest lawyer of victimizing poor minorities, who made up the bulk of subprime borrowers.

After the law was passed, Ameriquest and other lenders began spreading campaign donations and tickets to lawmakers there. Less than a year later, in October 2002, Ameriquest announced it would state doing business in the state unless the law changed; the ratings house Standard & Poor’s Corp. said it would stop rating mortgages there.

The subprime industry essentially said it would no longer do business in the state until the law changed, Simon reports. Georgia’s state House and Senate voted within months to remove the “net benefit” provision Ameriquest objected to.

The industry worked together to roll back a similar effort in New Jersey. Simon reports that two of the recipients—Republican Gerald Cardinale and Democrat John Adler—introduced a bill “to make changes sought by the industry,” in December 2003, less than two months after receiving Ameriquest donations. The company gave Cardinale $2,200 in October 2003 and Adler $1,200 the next month.

The lawmakers recollections of the time period was far fuzzier when Simon asked them about the proposal’s genesis.

“I don’t remember ever being lobbied by Ameriquest,” says Mr. Cardinale. “I do recall that we were trying to make it easier for folks to be able to access funds. And, in general, I feel it is a good thing for us to remove barriers to people being able to buy homes.” He says he doesn’t remember receiving any contributions from Ameriquest. “You guys think we know all of our contributors, but that’s usually on a staff level. I don’t frankly know who Ameriquest is.”

Adler also didn’t “recall” ever meeting with Andrews firm.

As the Wall Street Journal documented how industry-influenced governments failed to head-off the negative impacts of the subprime lending crisis, new market data revealed that sales of new homes plummeted to their lowest level in more than 12 years.

“I think you can classify what we are seeing in the housing market as a crash,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Economy.com. “Sales and home prices are in a free fall. The downturn is intensifying.”

If you google “Ameriquest, lobbying, subprime” you’ll get a ton of links. 

I’m not in favor of the legislation enacted or discussed, it’s mostly BS.  These legislators are either dimwitted or corrupt.  I propose only ONE new law, to be applied to ALL companies doing business with consumers. 

The ONE new law we really need:

1) impose statutory damages of $1,000 for each lie or deception by businesses dealing with consumers and treble damages for willful violations.

2) allow the recording of calls by all consumers for business calls, preempting state laws.

3) revocation of a company’s business license for frequent violations, from temporary to permanent license revocation.

This would take care of MOST problems with mortgages AND anything else. 

Arizona passed a law revoking the business license of companies who employ illegal aliens for up to 10 days for the first violation, effective 1/1/08.  Already many companies have laid off their undocumented employees.  Notably, some fast food chain already announced that they would stop expanding in Arizona and instead expand in Texas.  And that’s why you need a FEDERAL law.

The possibility of losing the license would stop the lies real fast and any employees acting against corporate policy would be fired.  And instead of battling consumers in litigation, the corporations would quickly SETTLE.  Of course they can take the settlement out of the employee’s salary or final pay check or even sue the lying employee for any deficiency.

Collector Focus did NOT fire James Hurd.  Instead they DEFEND him and claim that it was legal to extort the $250 I didn’t owe by threating to report the disputed bogus debt to the credit bureaus.  You bet they would change their training manual if they could lose their license.  I can’t wait to post the pretrial order with their arguments, due this Friday.

Having observed how PRO SE consumer litigants have successfully sued thousands of junk faxers, I know that MILLIONS would start recording the calls and SUE for being deceived or lied to.

The only “problem” with this law is that it would seriously impact on the economy.

If people aren’t lied to and deceived, they won’t buy the crap.

I’ve sued Ameriquest for lying to me and federal judge Neil Wake saw nothing wrong with lies, whether by Ameriquest, Capital One or anyone else.  Fortunately, I was able to prevail on some TILA or FCRA claim, something technical and complicated, that consumers normally don’t even know about and I got $5k in a settlement with Ameriquest.

The legislators do NOT think that it’s wrong to lie.  That’s of course because they lie all the time.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Capital One AGAIN deletes date closed with TU - FICO score down to 617

Apparently Capital One DELIBERATELY removes the date closed from the TU reports for discharged or charged off accounts occasionally.  The impact is devastating:

Capital One deleted date closed and current status: FICO TU score drops 65 points

My client just had major surgery and starts her 2nd chemo treatment this week, they have to move and when she checked her FICO scores, she was shocked to see the 617 TU score.

On 7/1/07, the score was 690 and Capital One reported:

Date Closed July, 2001

On 10/1/07, the score was 617.

There is no reference to the “date closed”, it’s the NEW myFICO format and Fair Isaac decided to simply ignore the data fields with no reported data.  Obviously, the inexperienced consumer wouldn’t even notice that the date closed is missing, as no reference to it is made on the new myFICO report format.  So clever!

Also, when I first looked at the 10/1 report yesterday, I got the OLD format.  Since my client had posted the score factors, she obviously had looked at the NEW format.  A few hours later, I logged in again and also got the new format.  I suppose Fair Isaac just wants to ensure that consumers are confused.  I saved both reports and on a slow day I might get around to posting the differences.

I really wish I could refer my client to an attorney.

She is in VA and we’ve already gone through the frustrating exercise of trying to get a lawyer to sue last year.  It’s incredible how many problems we’ve had just getting the discharged accounts reported correctly.

I really don’t understand why TU doesn’t implement procedures to PREVENT the deletion of such vital data, ESPECIALLY since I already had to contact them with a power of attorney to get it fixed last year.

Why do people who’ve done NOTHING wrong have to pay me again and again, just to get the credit they deserve?

Why can’t people just live in peace and focus on staying alive?

Monday, October 01, 2007

Equifax - debt collection services include continual monitoring

I just noticed the Equifax ad in the Netbank article and decided to have a look.

Solutions

Skip Locate Solutions

NEW! FirstSearch with Portfolio Monitoring continuously monitors your collections portfolio for name changes, new addresses and/or telephone numbers on those consumers who are hard to find due to unavailable, inaccurate or outdated information.

...

The million dollar question:  will the consumer be informed that credit report data has been provided to a collector?  Could somebody please find out?

And as I’ve been recommending for years, never provide your physical address on any applications.  Get a post-office or private mailbox, use a virtual telephone/fax number.  You have to do that BEFORE you lose your job, get cancer, or have whatever other emergency preventing you from paying your bills.

Credit Report Solutions

...

Better determine a consumer’s ability to pay with information on open credit, the presence of mortgage trades and other credit data reflective of liquidity.

If you have large collections, do NOT settle anything unless you have to.  Make your report look as bad as possible.  Don’t open accounts, play dead.