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The following are claims that people commonly have, but don't realize. If any of these things apply to you, please call or
send us copies of your papers. You may be entitled to recover substantial amounts of money.
Collection Letters and Practices
Please send us copies of any collection letters. Many debt collectors and collection lawyers routinely violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices
Act. This is a Federal law which gives you certain rights and prohibits certain methods of attempting to collect debts. This may entitle you to recover money (up to $1,000).
Typical violations include:
(i) Adding unauthorized collection charges;
(ii) Threatening to report a debtor to the Internal Revenue Service if payment is not forthcoming;
(iii)
Threatening criminal prosecution (mainly on bad checks); (iv) Getting the debtor's bank account number and debiting it through various devices;
(v) Initial demand letters which insist on payment within less than 30 days;
(vi) Sending large numbers of letters purporting to come from attorneys or collection agencies when that is not the
case;
(vii) Names suggesting that the debt collector is connected with the government or a credit bureau;
(viii) Buying up bad debts and offering misleading "credit
rebuilding" plans, generally involving issuing a credit card and putting the bad debt on it;
(ix) Buying up
debts that have been discharged in bankruptcy or are past the statute of limitations and trying to collect them; (x) Collection notices on student loans which misstate your legal rights;
(xi) Any
collection letters sent to you after you have filed a bankruptcy proceeding seeking to collect debts that arose prior to the filing are illegal. (xi) Demands for attorney's fees prior to suit when contracts provide for fees only if suit is filed.
Another common violation is changing the default date used to compute the seven year period a bad debt can remain on your credit report. A collection agency or bad debt buyer is
required to use the same
date as the original creditor. Often, they use a newer date, which allows the entry to remain on your credit report longer. If NCO Financial Services has tried to collect money from you, check for this violation.
We have recently seen many attempts to collect checks dishonored more than 3
years ago, which is the applicable statute of limitations. Collecting time-barred debts is a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act violation.
Payday and Title Loans
We are interested in looking at any loan at more than 100% interest, such as
"payday loan" and "title loan" transactions. We believe that at least half of the loan documents used by payday lenders and title lenders violate the Truth in Lending Act or other laws, entitling the borrower to twice the finance charges, not less than $100 nor more than $1000 per loan.
Many collection letters sent in connection with "payday loans" are also illegal.
Also, any threat to bring a criminal bad check charge on a payday loan check is illegal.
Mortgages
Mortgage companies have a statutory obligation to respond to complaints and requests for explanations of accounts. Often, they don't. This failure may entitle you to
$1,000.
In a sale of real estate, the seller's lender charges a fee for recording the release of the mortgage, shown on the payoff statement. The title company also charges a fee for recording
the release of the mortgage, shown on the HUD-1. One of the fees is fictitious, probably that charged by the lender.
You pay off a mortgage and a charged a fee for a statement showing how much you owe the mortgage company.
You have a mortgage at more than 10% interest.
You have a mortgage loan on a 2-4 unit building in which you reside.
Credit Cards
We are interested in cases in which a credit card issuer promised a low rate
on balance transfers and then raised the rate. We are also, looking at companies that delay the application of payments causing consumers to incur different charges.
Insurance
We are looking for people that bought "industrial" life or accident insurance. The life product is sometimes called "burial" insurance. These are
small-balance policies for which the premiums are collected by door-to-door salesman, and are especially prevalent among minorities. We are interested in challenging discrepancies between this product and more conventional products under the Civil Rights Acts.
We are looking for insureds of "substandard" carriers whose vehicles were involved in accidents and were repaired by their own insurance companies in a shoddy manner.
We are also looking for minority plaintiffs whose auto theft loss claims were arbitrarily denied by substandard insurers.
We are interested in insurance premium finance contracts. Many do not conform to Truth in Lending.
Autos
Minority purchasers who sign retail installment contracts at more than about
12% that were purchased by one of the major auto credit companies (GMAC, Ford Motor Credit) may have discrimination claims.
You were given a choice between a rebate and below-cost financing and took the financing (not the rebate).
You bought a car, signed financing papers, and the dealer later told you to come up with a larger down payment or sign a contract with different financing terms. This is a very common
practice. It is often illegal. It is known as the Yo-Yo sale.
You had a car repaired at a shop selected by a "substandard" insurance company and the repairs were shoddy.
You purchased a car after responding to an ad seeking people who wanted a car and had bad credit or no credit.
You purchased insurance supplements as part of car rental transactions. These do not include loss damage waiver.
You rented a car and were charged a higher price based on where you live.
You have a good driving record but pay a lot for car insurance because of where you live.
You bought a car with significant prior accident damage, or that was a rental car, and it was not disclosed to you. (We have seen many such cases; with
increasing demand for used cars, dealers are tempted to do this.)
You had insurance premiums added to your balance because the bank claimed you didn't have insurance.
You were charged for "VSI Insurance" or "Vendor's Single Interest" insurance on a car loan.
Medical Bills
You are being dunned for a balance allegedly remaining after an insurer or
benefit plan paid the entire "reasonable and customary" charge (and the bill is for more than a deductible or copayment amount).
Other Loans and Installment Contracts
You were turned down for a loan or other credit without being issued a written statement of the reasons. This is a violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
We are interested in looking at recent small loan transactions in which (i) a security interest was taken in personal property, (ii) the security interest is
very vague (e.g., "household goods," "television" (without make or serial number)), and (iii) either the customer was sold property insurance or there is a charge for filing fees or nonfiling insurance. These may involve Truth in Lending or other violations.
A finance company solicited you to borrow more money, and then refinanced your loan instead of making a second loan. The refinancing may have been much more expensive than a second loan.
You were charged a "nonfiling fee" or for "nonfiling insurance" on a loan or installment contract.
Banking
We are interested in situations where banks force customers' checking accounts into overdraft status by paying the largest checks first when multiple
checks on the account arrive at the bank on the same day and there's not enough money in the account to pay all of them. As a result, if there are insufficient funds to cover the largest check, then all other checks, which would otherwise be covered, are also sent back for insufficient funds. The bank thereby generates several overdraft fees instead of just one.
Junk Faxes
We are interested in cases where you have received junk faxes from companies with which you did not have a previous relationship.
Other
We are interested in locating anyone who was supplied bad water by Citizens Utility Company/ Citizens Lake Water Company.
Uncompensated overtime is a major source of complaints. Another is the failure to extend benefits to long-term "temporary" employees.
We are looking for a case where a beneficiary other than a spouse received a
substantial distribution from an IRA upon the death of the account holder, and the beneficiary was not given the option of taking distributions over their expected life.
We are looking for unauthorized charges for insurance, service contracts on credit accounts.
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