WV Schoolteacher Who Was a Victim of Morgan Drexen Debt Settlement Scam Receives National Attention
CHARLESTON – As part of their ongoing “Debt Deception” investigative series, the Center for Public Integrity is telling the story of Mary Linville of Lincoln County, a victim of a debt settlement scam perpetrated by Morgan Drexen, a Nevada company based in greater Los Angeles. Attorney General Darrell McGraw sued the company in May in response to complaints filed by the retired schoolteacher and other West Virginia consumers who paid exorbitant up-front fees for debt settlement, did not receive the promised services, and in several cases were forced to declare bankruptcy.
Published under the headline “Borrower Nightmares: Small town teacher seeks help for big debt, ends up in bankruptcy” on the Center’s iwatchnews.org website, Mrs. Linville’s tale is part of a series to mark the July 21 launch of the new federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The article notes how Mrs. Linville, a resident of Alkol, WV, was scammed out of thousands of dollars that she paid to Morgan Drexen. The company promised to cut her $72,000 debt in half and pay off her creditors. Instead, Morgan Drexen took approximately $7,000 from her checking account for itself while providing no relief from the creditors. Linville was not aware that there was a problem until she was served with a summons for her credit card debt by a friend of her son, a county sheriff’s deputy. She was forced to file for bankruptcy a few months later. The article can be found here.
On May 19, Attorney General McGraw filed suit in the Circuit Court of Kanawha County to ban Morgan Drexen from doing business in West Virginia. McGraw’s suit maintained that Morgan Drexen attempts to avoid state debt collection laws and charge higher fees than allowed by linking its operations to licensed lawyers, who supposedly attempt to get creditors to accept less than what is owed on outstanding debts. McGraw contends that these “enrollment lawyers” do no substantive work and are merely renting out their licenses to Morgan Drexen. A hearing to enjoin Morgan Drexen from engaging in its debt settlement activities is scheduled for July 29 in Circuit Court.
“I must again caution consumers, especially those who, like Mrs. Linville, are already facing dire financial circumstances, that paying excessive fees for supposed debt relief services may in fact leave them in worse financial shape,” Attorney General McGraw said.
More than 500,000 Americans with about $15 billion of debt are currently enrolled in debt settlement programs. – Source
You are not alone. I'm here to help. There is no need to suffer in silence. We can get through this. Tomorrow can be better than today. Don't give up.
Do you have a question you'd like to ask me for free? Go ahead and click here.
- Who Knew TitleMax Sucked This Bad? - February 23, 2023
- Litigation Practice Group Lawsuit by Business Partner All Service Financial – We Want Our Money - January 24, 2023
- HomeAdvisor and Angi to Pay Up To $7.2 Million and Stop Deceptively Marketing its Leads for Home Improvement Projects - January 23, 2023
This is unfortunate. Here we have an Attorney General who UNDERSTANDS that this company is NOT REALLY A LAW FIRM. And what happens? A story gets national publicity on a website. That’s a great start. But did she get her money back? It doesnt sound like it. Morgan Drexen is owned by Walter Ledda, who used to own, co own or hide behind Harvey Warren’s name at The National Consumer Council, National Consumer Debt Council, United Consumer Law Group, JP Landis, Solidium, Financial Rescue Services, London Financial Group, etc. ALL SHUT DOWN BY THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION for acting as a NON PROFIT : See here http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/05…
How does this guy keep staying out of jail?
Ok, great. So now they are not allowed to do business in that ONE state because of this. There are 49 more states with millions of people buying their scam right now, as I type. And court proceedings/investigations will take months, if not years. Meanwhile, there is probably 50 million dollars sitting in the trust account (sound exaggerated? try 50,000 customers with 1k in their account. This woman paid 7 times that!) and when push comes to shove, you will never see this guy. He will be on a jet and disappear back to columbia or brazil or wherever he is really from and live like a king on these poor peoiple’s money.
And the owner, Walter, he doesnt really care about doing good, regardless of how many blogs or charities he contributes to. He only did that to knock the bad articles about him down in the search engines from the last time he got an 88 million dollar judgment against him. In fact, there was just recently an article put out about how Morgan Drexen raises money for cancer. REALLY? Let me tell you, it’s really easy to give away OPM (other people’s money) to make yourself look good. Want a decent argument? How many consumers enrolled in his company have cancer, or lost a loved one to cancer? Or had medical collections because of cancer, or were dying of cancer, trying to pay their debt through Morgan Drexens services and were forced into BK? Nice philanthropist you are, Mr. Ledda.
Morgan Drexen also uses the name “Allied Services” and they STILL USE automated dialers (off shore) to get new customers. People need to wake up and stop buying into the same old scams.
All this is very public information. Just gotta know where to find it.
For the record, if anyone else has been scammed by Morgan Drexen, or any other Debt Settlement Company, Consumer Mediation Services would love the opportunity to HELP YOU GET YOUR MONEY BACK FROM CROOKS like this.
This is unfortunate. Here we have an Attorney General who UNDERSTANDS that this company is NOT REALLY A LAW FIRM. And what happens? A story gets national publicity on a website. That’s a great start. But did she get her money back? It doesnt sound like it. Morgan Drexen is owned by Walter Ledda, who used to own, co own or hide behind Harvey Warren’s name at The National Consumer Council, National Consumer Debt Council, United Consumer Law Group, JP Landis, Solidium, Financial Rescue Services, London Financial Group, etc. ALL SHUT DOWN BY THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION for acting as a NON PROFIT : See here http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/05/ncc.shtm
How does this guy keep staying out of jail?
Ok, great. So now they are not allowed to do business in that ONE state because of this. There are 49 more states with millions of people buying their scam right now, as I type. And court proceedings/investigations will take months, if not years. Meanwhile, there is probably 50 million dollars sitting in the trust account (sound exaggerated? try 50,000 customers with 1k in their account. This woman paid 7 times that!) and when push comes to shove, you will never see this guy. He will be on a jet and disappear back to columbia or brazil or wherever he is really from and live like a king on these poor peoiple’s money.
And the owner, Walter, he doesnt really care about doing good, regardless of how many blogs or charities he contributes to. He only did that to knock the bad articles about him down in the search engines from the last time he got an 88 million dollar judgment against him. In fact, there was just recently an article put out about how Morgan Drexen raises money for cancer. REALLY? Let me tell you, it’s really easy to give away OPM (other people’s money) to make yourself look good. Want a decent argument? How many consumers enrolled in his company have cancer, or lost a loved one to cancer? Or had medical collections because of cancer, or were dying of cancer, trying to pay their debt through Morgan Drexens services and were forced into BK? Nice philanthropist you are, Mr. Ledda.
Morgan Drexen also uses the name “Allied Services” and they STILL USE automated dialers (off shore) to get new customers. People need to wake up and stop buying into the same old scams.
All this is very public information. Just gotta know where to find it.
For the record, if anyone else has been scammed by Morgan Drexen, or any other Debt Settlement Company, Consumer Mediation Services would love the opportunity to HELP YOU GET YOUR MONEY BACK FROM CROOKS like this.