Class actions
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Progressive FCRA class action settlement - attorneys James, Hoyer, Newcomer & Smiljanich sold out!
The amended settlement agreement
Unfortunately, I can’t find the complaint at the site, but a reader sent me the notice he received and it states that Progressive did not provide the adverse action letter when they charged a higher than the best rate or declined the application due to information contained on credit reports.
I’m not thrilled with the settlement in general, which provides only a $75 reimbursement per policy term with a max of $225 if a corrected report had resulted in a lower premium.
Progressive DENIES the charges, but seems to now send out adverse action letters.
To put this settlement in perspective, Target offered me the $2,500 judgment for failing to provide me with the adverse action letter and I’m not even a lawyer.
Lead counsel James, Hoyer, Newcomer & Smiljanich, P.A. out of Florida gets $3,000,000 in costs and fees. I think that the failure to provide adverse action letters is one of the most important FCRA violations and this should be litigated.
Why did they settle for these worthless reports and the fraudulent Experian PLUS scores?
Just a few weeks ago I met my ex and he proudly told me that he got his credit report at one of the advertised sites for free credit reports (ConsumerInfo.com) and that his score was pretty good. He filed for bankruptcy over 10 years ago and didn’t think it was a problem that discharged accounts were STILL being reported because his PLUS score was high. He did NOT dispute anything!
Obviously, the discharged accounts were re-aged, should have been deleted no later than 7 years after the bk. He carries balances on his credit cards and certainly pays more interest than he should. He doesn’t get the 0% balance transfers offers with preapprovals for new accounts.
Consumers read that scores over 700 are very good and they ARE, if those are the Fair Isaac scores.
I’ve had 700+ PLUS scores when my real Fair Isaac score was below 650.
He also didn’t realize that he had signed up for the monitoring service when he ordered the “free” report and he didn’t know that he needed to cancel, that’s another pending or settled class action.
James, Hoyer KNOWS that these scores are not only worthless, but deceiving consumers and causing enormous damages to consumers.
A few years ago they even wanted to sue Fair Isaac - ignorance is not an excuse here.
It is ABSURD to litigate that consumers weren’t informed of their negative credit rating and in the settlement they actively DECEIVE the victims!!!
So with this settlement a few people get a few bucks, not nearly what they SHOULD get, and many people are once again deceived. After all, consumers expect that a settlement by a CONSUMER law firm would not cause them to suffer MORE damages due to the settlement than they originally had.
Consumers are paying literally THOUSANDS of dollars in interest because they don’t know how bad their credit really is - because their attorney sold them out.
A percentage of the consumers who receive the free reports and PLUS scores (which will no doubt contain advertisements for the Experian monitoring services and scores) will ORDER and PAY for these products.
This is MALPRACTICE.
I really wonder how Experian shows its appreciation to James, Hoyer.
And here’s another kicker:
PUBLICITY
No Plaintiff nor any Class Counsel shall make or distribute any press release or initiate any public statement intended to be disseminated through the press or other media about this Settlement, the merits of any Party’s position in the Action, or the conduct of the Defendants.
James, Hoyer SO sold out.
Freaking unbelievable. If a reader hadn’t sent me the settlement notice, I wouldn’t even know about this. James, Hoyer doesn’t want people to know about this settlement as it so clearly shows the corruption of the lawyers.
And of course they don’t publish any of the filings or depositions and discovery. They’re lawyers, only in it for THEIR profits, just like the CRAs.
I sent James, Hoyer the URL to this posting:
“Your comments will be greatly appreciated!”
If they don’t contact me, they’re admitting that my allegations are true. If I hear from them, which I doubt, I’ll of course publish all communications here.
I am so totally fed up with corrupt attorneys.
If there were any HONEST attorneys with sufficient funds to battle a huge firm like James, Hoyer, they really should sue them on behalf of this class.
And I don’t understand why nobody objected to this settlement. It only takes a few hours to write an objection and explain to the court how horrible this settlement is.
Friday, March 25, 2005
Equifax first creates the ID theft problems, then exploits consumers’ fears
Selling ‘insurance’ after the ID theft flood
“Credit bureau’s marketing tactics irk privacy advocates
By Bob Sullivan
Technology correspondent
MSNBC
Updated: 3:46 p.m. ET March 21, 2005
When the massive data leak at ChoicePoint Inc. became widely known last month, reactions varied: Consumers worried about identity theft. Lawmakers called for hearings. Other data brokers began looking at their own files.
Officials at the credit bureau Equifax spotted a great marketing opportunity.
Equifax is one of many companies that sell credit monitoring services, aimed at letting consumers know when there’s unusual activity in their credit reports. Credit Watch, the Equifax product, costs consumers $100 a year.
Days after the ChoicePoint break-in was first reported by MSNBC.com, Equifax sent an e-mail to its Internet marketing affiliates. They were told to quickly jump at the opportunity:
“Attention Link Partners: Credit Watch Sales Opportunity
Identity theft is prevalent in the news right now, especially with the high profile case of stolen consumer information. Thousands of identities may have been compromised. In order to help consumers understand this threat and how this crime can affect them, Equifax created an Identity Theft Awareness campaign that we want to share with you. Starting on Friday 2/18 our home page began to highlight the news articles and the growing threat to consumers.”
The e-mail went to say that the credit bureau planned to purchase additional Internet advertisements for about two weeks to take advantage of the sales opportunity.
...”
It sure is cool that some affiliate sent that obnoxious marketing pitch to MSNBC!
Kudos to Bob Sullivan, good article and well worth reading. It really shows what morons those Equifax marketers are.
ID Theft - demand your PIN! • Class actions • (0) Comments • Permalink
Thursday, February 03, 2005
The FTC, IRS, SSA and CRAs are determined NOT to inform ID theft victims
This is the best article on SSN ID theft yet:
The secret list of ID theft victims
Consumers could be warned, but US government isn’t talking
It is a very long article, but worth reading - Bob Sullivan did some good research. He quotes Melody (creditmonitoringsucks) extensively:
“… Melody Millet’s husband Steve was the victim of immigrant identity theft. None of the agencies involved are trying to tackle the problem because they all benefit from it, as does corporate America, she said. The IRS and Social Security collect extra taxes, lenders sell more loans and employers get inexpensive workers. Fixing the problem and telling all the victimized consumers would upset the delicate apple cart that is America’s immigration policy, she said.
“The government is forcing people to share identities because they want to provide cheap labor to corporate America,” Melody Millet said.
An undocumented immigrant worker managed to use Steve Millet’s Social Security number for more than 10 years before the incident was discovered. Millet said the imposter managed to obtain a dozen credit cards, buy a car, and even a house using the stolen number and his own name. All the while, that imposter paid taxes, paid into Social Security, and took out loans using the stolen Social Security Number. All of those agencies had a record of the abused SSN; none bothered to tell Steve Millet. ...”
Did I miss the part about the class action? Here are the links to the 3 class action complaints
The Social Security Administration is of course fully aware of the problem.
“… With every paycheck, U.S. workers pay FICA taxes, destined for Social Security funds. But each year, millions of payments are made to the agency with mismatched names and numbers. The Social Security Administration has no idea who deserves credit for the taxes paid by those wage earnings—so no one gets it. The amount of uncredited Social Security wages is now an enormous $420 billion, an amount that sits in what’s called the Earnings Suspense File, an accounting limbo. ...”
The IRS is also in on the take.
“… The IRS also receives payments from mismatched names and numbers, and has access to the same no-match list created by Social Security. But according to IRS spokesman Anthony Burke, the agency doesn’t check for number-name mismatches until it processes tax returns. And it does not have a mechanism for informing the rightful Social Security number holder that someone else has filed a return using that number. ...”
The morons at the FTC:
“… Betsy Broder, the attorney in charge of the Federal Trade Commission’s efforts to combat identity theft, said more government coordination is surely needed, but she sympathized with the challenge facing the IRS and SSA.
“Of course consumers are always better off if they know how their information is being misused. But having said that, it’s really complex with federal agencies,” she said. “There are restrictions under the Privacy Act. You can’t release to one person another person’s information. And the agencies are often not in a position to know with any certainty who was the right person and who was the imposter, leading to possible problems with unauthorized disclosure of information.” ...”
I still have a tough time accepting that anyone could say anything so stupid. With morons like Broder in charge of the FTC efforts, nothing will ever change. Of course, she’s not really stupid. She is doing EXACTLY what needs to be done to make sure that nothing changes. That’s her job and if she didn’t do it she’d be fired - the FTC works for the government and the corporations - NOT the consumers.
The CRAs (who are regulated by the FTC) take great care to inflict maximum damages on consumers by withholding the complete credit files from the consumers, but disclosing ALL accounts to creditors.
“… In fact, consumer credit reports obtained from the credit bureaus expressly leave off this kind of fraud. If an imposter is using a consumer’s Social Security number but his own name and address to open up fraudulent accounts, a consumer-disclosed credit report won’t include that information. The rightful number holder will never know.
A lender, however, might find out—even see all the accounts an imposter has opened using a victim’s Social Security number. ...”
So the victims get the creditors’ letters, advising of a decline or rate increase due to the credit, the consumers review the credit report and see some old late payments. They conclude that the old late payments were the reason for the adverse action and they have NO idea that the creditor based the decision on the report containing another person’s derogatory accounts.
Consider the idiotic “privacy” argument. The CRAs KNOW that the *other* person using the SSN has NOT applied for credit and therefore there is NO permissible purpose to provide this data to the creditors.
The illegal aliens should all sue the CRAs for their $1,000 for every time their data was disclosed without their permission.
The CRAs KNOW that these accounts do not belong to the consumer who DID apply for credit and they maliciously report the accounts to the creditors anyway.
The CRAs’ comments:
“… Privacy concerns prevent consumers from seeing a Social Security number-only report, said Equifax’s David Rubinger.
“Companies that have signed agreements with us can access data like that. But we can’t let every consumer see it,” he said. It would be difficult for the firm to establish definitively who the rightful Social Security number holder is, he said. And there would still be potentially sticky privacy issues related to revealing the imposter’s information.
Don Girard, a spokesman for Experian, acknowledged his firm had seen the problem, but said it was extremely rare.
“I can tell you we have quite a few people looking into this,” he said.
Trans Union did not respond to requests for interview for this report. ...”
The winners in this scam:
1) the employers - cheap labor
2) the government - lots of $$$ for the IRS and SSA
3) the CRAs - sell incomplete credit reports and worthless ID theft monitoring services to the victims and the *complete* reports to creditors
4) the creditors - windfall profits by increasing rates and fees for no valid reason at all
Don’t you admire the geniuses who run this country?
ID Theft - demand your PIN! • Class actions • Regulators - legislators • (0) Comments • Permalink
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
ID theft and credit monitoring CRA class actions article in the Kansas City Star
This is a pretty good article:
Stolen identities and lives: Area couple fights back (Registration required)
Unfortunately, I didn’t see any comments by the CRAs. And I find it amazing that they managed to put it on the front page, but had I read just the front page, I would NOT have read the rest of the story.
There’s no mention of the class actions and it reads to me like a story that I’ve already read literally hundreds of times.
This link takes a while to load due to the pictures. Well, I give them credit for running the story, I’m sure the CRAs are advertisers.
ID Theft - demand your PIN! • Class actions • (0) Comments • Permalink
Monday, July 05, 2004
RICO class action suit (ID theft) filed against CRAs, Fair Isaac, BofA, Ford Motor …
Melody and her husband Steve were denied credit because apparently Steve’s SSN was used by an illegal alien and the CRAs created “subfiles” and did NOTHING to correct the problem.
At Melody’s web site you can see the Trans Union Go to Hell!!!! letter.
The implications of this type of SSN ONLY ID theft are far beyond what I had ever considered. I’ve actually never seen a case like this, yet, if you look at the # of illegal aliens, you can imagine how many “extra” files there are. Not to mention the many citizens who transpose numbers on applications or deliberately apply with fictitious SSNs.
The CRAs deliberatly designed their databases to allow for MULTIPLE names attached to the UNIQUE SSNs.
They chose to focus on PROFITS, selling MORE credit reports, selling MORE promo leads, selling FRAUD detection services to creditors and of course selling the worthless credit monitoring services to us suckers. That’s the RICO claim.
Melody not only spent years battling CRAs and creditors, but she also conducted an intense investigation, located the individual who used the SSN and found the “subfiles.” Unlike most people, she decided to try to CHANGE credit reporting through a class action and she is even paying the legal fees.
This is the lawsuit I’ve been waiting for!
You can read a lot more at Melody’s website and we both posted additional info at the new Fight Back!!! Identity Theft topic.
Prior to the class certification, no additional plaintiffs can be accepted, but please read or post at the Fight Back!! forum for more details.
Update 9/13/04: The RICO claim was dismissed, unfortunately, and the suit was refiled as a class action against Equifax.
ID Theft - demand your PIN! • Class actions • (2) Comments • Permalink
