Tag Archives: texas
- Return-A-Pet Scam Preys On Victims Of Lost Pets
It’s annual pet scammer week! That’s a lie. But it sure feels like it. Eric Stein was charged with running an investment scam through Return-A-Pet LLC. Return-A-Pet was a New York company that allegedly facilitated the return of lost pets to their owners. Stein was out on supervised release for a previous investment fraud scheme [...]
- Whole Bakers’ Bread And Butter Is Fraud
Whole Bakers owner, Patricia “Patty” Stewart, was sentenced yesterday to the statutory maximum of 60 months in federal prison for running an investment fraud scheme. The scheme defrauded investors, including elderly Texas citizens, of more than $2 million. According to documents filed in the case, from December 2005 through May 2010, Stewart, who owned and [...]
- Friday The 13th: Unlucky For Fraudsters, Lucky For Potential Victims
Those that are superstitious often view Friday the 13th as an unlucky day. This past friday, January 13th, members of an identity theft ring received some unlucky news when they were sentenced to prison. Contrary to superstition, this was a very lucky day for future victims that could have fallen into their web of lies [...]
- Houston Physician Gets 11 Years In Prison – AGAIN
Dr. Ira Klein, a physician in Houston, Texas, was sentenced in 2007 to federal prison for defrauding insurance companies of more than $10 million. He, like so many criminals before him, has appeared in federal court again for a re-sentencing hearing. A federal jury convicted Klein in November 2006 of 18 counts of mail fraud [...]
- Heartless Criminal Activity In Foreclosure-Related Scam
Last week a man whom operated a foreclosure-rescue scam agreed to plead guilty after collecting $1.6 million from 1,100 distressed homeowners. The man, Frederic Alan Gladle, of Austin, Texas, ran his scam in Los Angeles and elsewhere where he falsely promised the owners of more than a thousand distressed properties that they could indefinitely postpone [...]
- Thousands Of Texans Scammed In Credit Card Fraud
Both Nathan Michael and Elizabeth Pickrell were sentenced to federal prison for federal violations in Texas after committing a huge credit card scam. Earlier this year the two plead guilty to device fraud and last week Michael was sentenced to 51 months in prison while Pickrell faces a shorter, 24 month, prison sentence. Both have [...]
- 135 Month Sentence For $45 Million Medicare Fraud
Houston, Texas doctor, Christina Joy Clardy, was sentenced to just over 11 years (135 months) in federal prison for a monumental health care fraud conspiracy the resulted in Medicare and Texas Medicaid programs to be billed $45,039,230 over a 30 month period. Clardy is the third defendant to be sentenced in this matter. Last week [...]
- I Have an Old Judgment Against Me That Has Come Back Up. – James
“Dear Steve, I have a judgement against me from a credit card . I had considered bankruptcy at the time but never did. One credit company sued me and won a default judgement. For 10 years nothing happened, then it was bought by junk debt buyers and they renewed it. I live in Texas and [...]
- True Cradle Robbers – Stealing Credit From The Cradle
It’s often not a parent’s first thought to check the credit report of their minor child, however, it may now become a necessity. Not because a child may fraudulently be using credit without their parents’ knowledge but because scammers may have stolen their unused Social Security number and identity. The Better Business Bureau (BBB) put [...]
- Texas Attorney General Office Speaks Up to FTC to Please Ban Advance Fees
In a recent article I covered how debt settlement trade associations had returned to the FTC to make their pitch that banning advance fees for debt settlement services was a rotten idea. You can read that article here. A couple of weeks after the trade associations had slogged up to the FTC offices, and after [...]
- I Paid “The Credit Card Solution” and Bob Lindsey to Eliminate My Debt. Turns Out They Were a Scam. – Walter
“Dear Steve, My name is Walter and I’m currently a senior psychology major at [XXXX] College. I have amassed over $10,000 in credit card debt from buying everything from a computer, Playstation 3, and even a High Def Television. As you can see, I really didn’t need any of the things that I bought and [...]
- Abilene, Texas Uses Tax Money to Help Debt Settlement Company Credit-Advisors.com to Grow
In what seems like the most out of touch move by any government entity, the city of Abilene, Texas is voting on “offering up to $172,500 in job creation incentives for the company, which would be affiliated with Credit-Advisors.com and create 12 jobs (not including management positions), each paying at least $30,000 per year, without [...]
- Will We Be Evicted or Have to Still Pay Our Rent if We Go Bankrupt? – Lizzy
Lizzy wrote to me through the GetOutOfDebt.org site and asked the following question. If you have a credit or debt question you’d like to ask just use the online form. I’m happy to help you totally for free. Income from the GetOutOfDebt.org site advertising is used to help alleviate poverty. If you would like to [...]
- I Lived in California and Had a Debt I Did Not Pay. I Now Live in New Jersey. – Monika
Monika wrote to me through the GetOutOfDebt.org site and asked the following question. If you have a credit or debt question you’d like to ask just use the online form. I’m happy to help you totally for free. Income from the GetOutOfDebt.org site advertising is used to help alleviate poverty. If you would like to [...]
- We Are Expecting Our First Child and Want to Get Out of Debt. – Michelle
“Dear Steve, My husband and I are expecting our first child in April. We have been married for nearly 8 years and were trying to pay off our debt before starting a family but after this long it seems as though it would never happen. We currently owe $89k ($850 monthly) on our home that [...]