Hello all love the board. Anyway, I hate to be a bother but I have just been dealing with what I have learned is the ANFI Verizion bill scam. At first I thought it was just a billing error or that they had been sold some bad debt-but now I know that they are scammers and that the whole thing is fraud. Needless to say, I am planning on suing them and getting legal representation. What they are doing is wrong and I'm angry that they are attempting to basically extort money from people. Does anyone have any advice on how to proceed with this matter? Do I have to go the FDCP route or can I sue based on some other law? I have looked into state laws regarding this matter in small claims court-but I am curious what others think of addressing this an identity theft or Phishing case.
First of all, FDCPA isn't the way to build a large case against a debt collector or an attorney. If you want to get into the big bucks with a lawsuit you have to get some FCRA violations as well. Thinking of getting some legal representation as well? Think again! Getting competent legal help is a daunting task at best. Before I'd hire a lawyer to do anything I'd want to know what his record has been when dealing with my type of case. Just because a lawyer advertises that s/he handles a certain type of case don't tell us how good they might be in getting results. The way to find that out is to go to your local courthouse and pull their public record. All the cases they have ever been involved in and their outcome can easily be researched. If you can do your research on line so much the better. For any given lawyer you might research you will be in for some surprises which may or may not be good for the lawyer. Lawyers are like doctors. They specialize in certain types of cases. You certainly wouldn't want to hire a proctologist to cure an ear ache. There are very few good consumer advocacy attorneys anywhere in the country. Those who are good won't take cases unless they can see big bucks for them in the settlement. They often want to go for class action lawsuits which means big bucks for them and little for the members of the class. You are far better off to learn to do it yourself.
Thanks Cap1sucks, I'll check out the courthouse and look for resources on learning how to do it myself. I'm a newbie here but I am going to search the forum about pursuing the matter. I am amazed how blatantly illegal their efforts at collecting are with these imaginary Verizon bills. I'm pulling my credit reports, but to my knowledge it has not been listed on my report. A fact that I find odd. On the other hand, pulling my report for a fraudulent reason should be a violation of the FCRA if not some other identity theft or pretexting law. I would like to punish them for these illegal activities and since money seems to be the only concern for these individuals I'll go for the big cash. BTW thanks for the links page!
