On Thursday 21 February 2008, jonathon wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 8:00 AM, Angel help wrote:
> > and thousands he has made by "gifting".
>
> These are bona fide pyramid schemes, and are illegal.
>
> > Now comes along a new angle. This time with credit card debt.
>
> Most of these schemes involve filing suit against a third party debt
> collector. Whilst collection agencies violate the Fair Debt
> Collection Practices Act nearly every time they contact somebody for
> a debt, getting a court to award you damages is not trivial. The
> violation has to be something that is not technical, and not a matter
> of human interpretation.
>
> The one's that don't involve FDCPA violations, revolve around the
> issue of whether or not money was lent to the debtor. Typically proof
> of indebtedness is requested, as a preliminary step to establishing
> that no money was lent to the consumer. The usual ending point of
> this strategy is the person filing an FDCPA violation, and ignoring
> the issue of whether or not money was lent.
I wasn't originally going to get into this point, but one of the lawyer
friends I mentioned does this. For example, if Chase is suing someone
locally (in Richmond, VA), they hire a local law firm to do it
(actually that firm is contracted to sue all their local customers).
The simple way to put this is that when it comes to court, my friend
goes in and says, "Does this person owe the plaintiff money?" They
say, "Yes, he does," then he asks them to prove it. Again, I'm
simplifying what he told me, which was a simplification in itself, but
basically the law firm, if questioned properly, will have to reveal
they do not have the authority to state the defendant owes them money.
Only specific people that are employees of, in this case, Chase, have
the legal standing to state whether or not the defendant owes money.
Since they're not there and can't make the statement, the result is the
defendant (my friend's client) not only can't be sued, but the debt is
voided.
Again, as I've said twice, this is an oversimplification and not
something any of us could do on our own. In most cases when my friend
would start that line of questioning, the plaintiff's attorney would
see where it's going and drop the case immediately, before the
questioning can reach a conclusion. They could still re-sue at any
time. There are ways to avoid this, such as filing the proper counter
suit. Then there are other issues. I have a good technical mind and
he had to dumb it down for me when he's explained it in the past.
As Jon pointed out, usually the ending point is a FDCP violation filing
and not going this way because, as I understand it, there are still
only a limited number of lawyers who have been practicing with this
kind of case.
Along with the FDCPA, there is also the Fair Credit Reporting Act, FCRA,
and many times collection agencies or firms violate this and can be
taken to court as well. Right now we're about to check my credit
report since I got a call from a telemarketer (violation #1, since I'm
on the FCC's Do Not Call list) who claimed to know my credit score. If
we find the info by finding a credit check on my record, then (I am
told), it's almost a slam-dunk to win the case and the question is not
if but how much.
I doubt, though, that they checked my credit score or anything else,
since I've been debt free for over a year. (They were saying they
could reduce my credit card interest rate on what I owe.) Thanks to my
own business (the one my gf in QS didn't consider successful since it
wasn't part of QS) I was able to pay off a large amount of debt in
under a year. I mention that not so much for bragging rights, but as a
point that MLMs are not the only way an individual can succeed. I'm
debt free and doing well and I have yet to hear from mutual friends of
her making any progress in QS.
Hal
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