By: Ibeatdebtlawsuits

Ibeatdebtlawsuits — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 04:54:00 +0000

This “panel” was disappointing. A sitting judge doesn’t understand when revolving accounts are charged off (180 days with no payment) nor when the SOL is measured? (from date of last payment) The moderator from the FTC at the end doesn’t seem to think that there’s any value in disclosing to consumers that making a payment of any kind on a time-barred debt waives their statutory rights by re-setting the SOL and is detrimental to them? (btw all codes of ethics prohibit lawyers from engaging in deceptive acts. doesn’t duping folks into re-upping the SOL come under the term “deceptive”?) Ms. Gagnon of the Peroutka”law firm” (I went up against them 5 times and they could not prevail against me) says that nothing is really needed in tems of SOL disclosure because the FDCPA is “out there” and they don’t want to break the law, and besides the SOL is an affirmative defense… Uh huh. What Ms. Gagnon fails to tell the FTC is that her firm files dozens of these cases each week in MD, and that 90% are awarded affidavit judgment because the defendant fails to appear. So how can a defendant use the FDCPA or the SOL defense if they don’t even show? She knows they can’t. And she knows that if they were forced to tell the defendants that a debt was time-barred it would increase the defendant’s odds of winning, put the law firm in jeopardy of FDCPA, and probably more folks would appear… all of which ultimately lowers the firm’s revenue… a lot. Think about it- Her claim, as was the claim of all the collection attorneys there, was that they don’t file suit on debts that are time-barred, aka outside the SOL. So if they don’t file suit on time-barred debts, why would they be opposed to a statutory disclosure requirement telling the borrower that the debt is time-barred? Yet, they all objected to including such a notice. The truth is most folks don’t understand things like SOL, FDCPA, and TILA (in fact all the judges I had did not understand TILA either!), and on top of that they are intimidated by going to trial. My last case was a third-party debt buyer, closely “affiliated” with the Peroutka firm. I pulled all their cases for the third-party plaintiff they were representing that year from the clerk’s office. What I found was about 90% were granted affidavit judgment (the defendant didn’t show). The rest agreed to either settle or enter into a payment plan, some clearly detrimental- For instance, one had a $25/mo payment on a $3000 balance. That won’t even cover the post-judgment interest accruing; it will never get paid off. But what struck me most was that not one single case had one shred of proof that the plaintiff actually owned the debt- No clear chain of title from the original creditor. One case even showed the plaintiff allegedly buying the “bad debt” several months before it became delinquent. At best it’s absurd; at worst (in my unprofessional opinion), it looked like a fraud upon the court. That the portfolio sale was before the account was delinquent means either they never bought the account- no one sells a current credit card account to a junk-debt buyer – or they could not prove they owned it. The point is, this is a highly questionable industry in terms of the veracity of their claims in court, and from what I heard from this “panel” we can expect little help from the govt. If all defendants would just take the time to learn the rules of their court, understand the laws like the SOL, FDCPA, and TILA, and SHOW UP for court, these debt-collection law firms that are “affidavit judgment mills” would grind to a halt. In my cases I found numerous TILA violations on past statements (I kept all my statements) and filed counterclaims based on those TILA violations. Those violations totaled more than the plaintiff’s suit, so they gave up and dismissed, with prejudice. In the third-party case, they had no proof they actually owned my specific account, so I demanded they provide proof of their capacity to sue. They couldn’t, and the judge ruled in my favor.

Comments on: Statute of Limitations Talk at FTC. Tricks of Collecting on Out of SOL Debt Described.

By: Ibeatdebtlawsuits