The other day I warned you about a company that has all the hallmarks of a scam debt relief con -- much like this one in NC (bolded points emphasis is mine):

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A bogus Florida law firm, which claimed it would reduce consumers’ debts by more than half, has been barred from debt-relief work in North Carolina.   Attorney General Roy Cooper announced Tuesday that under a consent judgment approved by Wake County Superior Court Judge Howard Manning,

The Consumer Law Group of Boca Raton has agreed to pay $600,000 in refunds to North Carolina customers who paid the company for help getting out of debt.   “Debt relief scams take advantage of struggling consumers, adding to their burden instead of helping them get out of debt,” Cooper said.   “I’m pleased that we’ve been able to win money back for these
consumers, money that can hopefully help them pay off bills and get on better financial footing.”
 
The $600,000 payout is on top of approximately $600,000 worth of charges the company agreed not to collect from North Carolina customers. An additional $50,000 will help cover the state's costs for work on the case.  The judgment bars CLG from marketing, soliciting or offering a debt-settlement or debt-negotiation services in North Carolina. CLG is also prohibited from claiming that its services are government-sponsored, performed by attorneys, or provide legal representation for consumers.

 Cooper’s office filed suit against CLG in October 2010 after a probe determined that more than 650 North Carolina consumers had paid CLG for debt-relief work but gotten little or no help in return.  People can continue to file complaints about CLG or other debt-relief  companies by calling the attorney general’s Consumer Protection Division at  1-877-5-NO-SCAM toll-free within North Carolina, or filling out a consumer complaint form at www.ncdoj.gov.

 “Don’t pay an upfront fee for help getting out of debt,” Cooper said.
“For real help getting your debts under control, meet with a qualified non-profit credit counselor in your local community, who won’t charge you a big fee.”

 For help finding an accredited, non-profit credit counselor, contact the National Foundation for Credit Counseling at 1-800-388-2227  or www.nfcc.org.

An important FYI for you:

The limit on the amount you can seek in a case filed in an Oregon small claims court is now $10,000, up from $7,500. 

If you have been wronged by a person or a company, do not automatically assume that there is nothing you can do about it.  Small claims courts are reasonably fast, and often produce good results when the dispute is fairly straightforward.  The new, higher limit means that fewer cases will be impossible to bring because of the economics (such as when the amount of legal work that would be required would drive the attorney fees up to where they would likely be almost as big or bigger than the amount at stake).

In small claims court, you represent yourself, and there is a minimal amount of procedural mumbo-jumbo or hoops to jump through.  That's not to say you can't get yourself in a lot of trouble -- if you sue someone, they are likely to counter-claim against you, and you might find you really stepped in it.

I am happy to see people to discuss the law(s) that they think have been violated, and the wisdom of proceeding via the small claims route, and to help you think through the pros and cons of heading that way.  For an hour or less, this consult is just $100, less than the small claims filing fee.  I'm also happy to review your draft complaint.

On top of that, for an hourly fee, then I'm happy to offer hourly-rate coaching to help you do your own research to find the law, investigate your case, and present your evidence most effectively and efficiently.

If you want to discuss a possible small claims action, just give me a call to set up an appointment to discuss the problem and your alternatives for getting a resolution you can live with. 

And, of course, if you have already filed an action under the old limits, I'd be happy to speak with you about things you can do to maximize your chances of prevailing as well.  And while it should go without saying, if you have been sued in small claims court, DON'T IGNORE IT -- and you might want to consult an attorney as well.  It's probably even more important for small-claims defendants to consult an attorney than it is for plaintiffs.

Here is a link to an Oregon State Bar online brochure (giving the old, $7500 limit) that explains a little about small claims court.

_   I have been working for months now on a project that has the potential to provide ample, sustainable, non-general-revenue funding for legal aid services so desperately needed by ordinary folks in Oregon these days, as Oregon and the feds keep cutting their support, and more and more people are ground up by the legal system simply because there is nowhere for them to turn.  Imagine if the $13 BILLION that the big banks made reinvesting money lent to them at near-zero interest by the Feds had gone to support legal aid services.

   (That's right, banks got huge piles of free money from the Feds at the Federal Reserve discount windows and then turned around and LENT that same money back to the federal government at interest, using the profits to pay bonuses that already exceed the pre-crash-year bonuses of 2007 and 2008.  Whoever said there is no free lunch meant "for real people" -- because the banks sure as hell have enjoyed a lavish free endless banquet at our expense.) 

     Stay tuned here this year, I hope to have good news on this front in 2012.  Meanwhile, a good essay by a top consumer lawyer. 

Equal Justice under the Law
An Essay by O. Max Gardner III

• As consumer lawyers, we are trained to believe that our legal system should be fair - equal justice under the law - yes, the same law and the same order for all of us.  But, for those of us in the trenches doing mortgage defense litigation or representing consumers in bankruptcy cases, we all know that there has been one set of rules for us and another set of rules for the banks and the law licenses they rent. . . .
  
  The truth of the matter is that we have been playing on a field that has been tilted about 90 degrees in favor of the financial institutions for decades.  But, the truly astounding fact is that we are still playing.  We are still in the game.  And, somehow, someway, we score a few touchdowns now and then, hit a few field goals once in a while and sack the quarterback once in a while.  In fact, we have scored more points in the last year than in the last five years combined.  So, the bottom line for us as this year comes to a close is that there is hope.  We have made some real progress.  We have opened the eyes of many judges and many more trustees.  We have taken our true facts to the media and many reporters have seen the true light and have written about it.  David J. Stern is no longer in business and a lawyer by the name of Baum no longer has his truly scary foreclosure mill in New York.  And, we have accomplished all this while running either uphill or downhill on every single play.
  
  But the truly sad and indeed bad news for our system of justice is not directly related to us but to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who do not have any level of legal representation.  It is not fair and there is really no hope when an untrained and non-represented consumer must go into court alone.  As hard as the battle is for us, the trained lawyers, what about the family that goes before a judge alone in an effort to avoid a foreclosure on their home?  I mean these folks don't have chance in hell of winning.  I have a better chance of winning the Mega Millions or the Powerball lottery than these consumers have of avoiding the demurrer or the motion to dismiss.  The bottom line is that the right to have your day in court should not depend on whether those in need can afford to retain an attorney.  But this is how it is in our America.  Money talks and the rest of us walk right out of the courtroom with a signed dismissal order.  Civil legal assistance to low-income people has been available in the United States since 1967 but always with shoestring resources. 
  
  For many years, any mode of representation for the less affluent has fallen on our legal services programs.  But, the second Great Depression has hit beyond the families that legal aid organizations serve - it has also struck a severe blow to the organizations themselves and the funding they must have to do their work. On November 15, 2011, the United States Congress cut $56 million from the Federal Legal Services Corporation for next year.  As a result, federal support for the specific purpose of providing legal services to low-income people will drop by 15 percent in 2012.  But, the full picture is even worse. Federal legal services funds for all programs were already cut by hundreds of thousands of dollars this year....
  
  And, remember, this is not just about the unrepresented consumers or about the judges and trustees we deal with every day but about saving our system of justice and due process from the unprecedented level of fraud and the endless lies of the creditors and their lawyers.  In short, it is time for us to clean up the biggest national crime scene in the history of these United States of America.  Law and Order must be restored and our system of just must be preserved.  The torch is in the air and like it or not we are the only ones left to catch it!

How sad -- the Legislature couldn't muster the courage needed to stand up to the debt collector lobby.  Anyone know how to photoshop the Golden Man to show him kow-towing? 

Story from Bloomberg:

    A wave of U.S. state laws that require debt collectors to document exactly who owes what has triggered a state-by-state lobbying battle over rules of evidence that the industry says could slice into profitability.

     A 2009 law in North Carolina requiring collectors to provide original contracts and imposing penalties for erroneous litigation has slowed the industry’s work in that state. Other states, including Massachusetts, Florida,  California and Oregon, have followed North Carolina’s law with similar proposals. Consumer advocates say the laws are necessary to curb abuses.

Sounds great, right?  Sounds like Oregon is going to follow a law that has worked to stop abuses in debt collecting. 

Er, um ... not so fast:

    The law’s effect in North Carolina emboldened consumer groups and their legislative allies to push ahead in other states, and mobilized industry opposition as well. In December 2010, a similar bill in Oregon faced organized industry opposition at a hearing, and died in committee.

     “I was surprised at the degree of lobbying to stop this,” said Angela Martin, executive director of Economic Fairness Oregon, a consumer group. “We thought we had a consensus bill.”

Audit of Massachusetts foreclosures finds massive bank fraud
     Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds, Salem MA - Yesterday at the Annual Conference of The International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials and Treasurers , Register John O'Brien revealed the results of an independent audit of his registry.  The audit, which is released as a legal affidavit was performed by McDonnell Property Analytics, examined assignments of mortgage recorded in the Essex Southern District Registry of Deeds issued to and from JPMorgan Chase Bank, Wells Fargo Bank, and Bank of America during 2010.  In total, 565 assignments related to 473 unique mortgages were analyzed.  McDonnell's Report includes the following key findings:

     - Only 16% of assignments of mortgage are valid

     - 75% of assignments of mortgage are invalid.

     - 9% of assignments of mortgage are questionable

     - 27% of the invalid assignments are fraudulent, 35% are "robo-signed" and 10% violate the Massachusetts Mortgage Fraud Statute.

     - The identity of financial institutions that are current owners of the mortgages could only be determined for 287 out of 473 (60%)

     - There are 683 missing assignments for the 287 traced mortgages, representing approximately $180,000 in lost recording fees per 1,000 mortgages whose current ownership can be traced.

     Marie McDonnell told O'Brien, "I have been auditing residential mortgage loans for the past twenty years on a one-by-one basis.  In the process, I have been cataloging the ramp up in predatory lending and mortgage fraud for all of those years, but I was not prepared for the shocking results of my audit.  What this means is that the degradation in standards of commerce by which the banks originated, sold and securitized these mortgages are so fatally flawed that the institutions, including many pension funds, that purchased these mortgages don't actually own them because the assignments of mortgage were never prepared, executed and delivered to them in the normal course of business at the time of the transaction.  In a blatant attempt to engineer a 'fix' to the problem, the banks set up in-house document execution teams, or outsourced the preparation of their assignments to third parties who manufactured them out of thin air without researching who really owns the mortgage."

     O'Brien asked McDonnell what this means for his constituents.  "It is vitally important for your constituents to know that if they are in foreclosure now or if their homes have been foreclosed upon, they can stop the foreclosure from proceeding, or institute a court action to vacate a completed foreclosure. . . .  I can tell you that every single assignment of mortgage that was recorded for the purpose of foreclosing the homeowner is invalid, overtly fraudulent, or criminally fraudulent.  My findings also show that your constituents who are not in foreclosure, and have never been delinquent in their payments also have clouds on title due to the recording of defective and invalid discharges and assignments of mortgage."

Not many people realize, until it's too late, that there is essentially ZERO regulation or consumer protection out there for interstate moves, where your goods will be carried across state or international borders. 

To protect yourself, before selecting a mover,

    A) Research the movers you might call on MovingScam.com.

    B) Research the AG Consumer protection complaints file in both the sending and receiving states -- CALL the AG's office in the destination state, AND the sending state.

    C) Ignore the BBB -- the "Better Business Bureau" is a bought-and-paid for marketing gimmick.  In other words, they are not neutral or objective in any sense of the word.

    D) Do a search for all court claims filed against the company.  In every state.

    E) Reject out of hand any bid that is significantly lower than the rest NO MATTER WHAT PLAUSIBLE-SOUNDING LIE THEY TELL YOU ABOUT WHY THEY CAN BE SO MUCH CHEAPER.

    F) Do not, do not, DO NOT schedule your move to coincide with a deadline like a trip to Paris, brain surgery, childbirth, or a sale of a house so that you have no ability to send the movers away when you get a gut feeling that, yes, they are indeed criminals out to rip you off.  Really, don't. 

      This is where they victimize people -- you set up the move, arrange a lot of stuff around it, and then on that morning, you realize that Trusty Truthful Terrific Movers is actually Satan, and there's still nothing you can do about it because you have a schedule to keep.

    G) It bears repeating again.  DO NOT put your own neck into the noose by hiring the cheapest mover you can find and shoehorning the move into your schedule so tightly that you can't say "You know what, put my stuff back and get the hell out of here."  Remember.  Once they have your stuff on the truck, if they are the bad guys . . . .  And the industry is full of bad guys.

    H) Of course, there are wonderful reputable movers too.  The problem is that the bad guys know how to look like good guys, and it's only after you have locked yourself into a tight schedule and they have your stuff that you learn that they are the bad guys.

    I) And, on the glorious morning of the move, if you have the slightest hesitation about the people you hired when they show up (or fail to show up) DO NOT LET THEM PICK UP YOUR STUFF --- unless you like the thought of being blackmailed for it.  Far better to be sued by a mover for breach than to try to sue a mover in the state you just left.  You have to go to federal court and the deadlines are absurdly short, and these people are professionals at the hold-up game.  Do not play their game.