Sued the big three for various FCRA violations. Today I get a phone call from an attorney REPRESENTING Equifax. The spirit of his call was to intimidate me into dropping the lawsuit and working with him on investigating the entries in question. I stated that the time for investigations had past and asked him if he saw my settlement offer. He said no he hadnâ??t. He asked me to state what was in it. I told him deletions for dropping everything and no cash. The joker balked!! He said his client would never go for that and proceeded to give me his take on the FCRA. He said..."Well if I have to come for the preliminary hearing, we will be in for a fight". I asked him for his fax number for faxing the settlement offer and promptly hung up. Have some questions for anybody who sued Equifax. 1. Does Equifax farm out their legal defense work? I researched the attorney who called and found out he is a 29 year old associate with some civil trial firm. 2. Should I contact the General Counsel directly? I have heard of the General Defense counsel for Equifax, but somehow my lawsuit found up with this bottom feeder. I suspect he got my settlement offer and threw it in the trash because he wants to bill some hours. Any suggestions
This lawyer has absolutely no motivation to settle this suit with you. All he is interested in is his billable hours! Send all your communications to your contact at corporate headquarters or to the registered agent. I hope you donâ??t mind, but I did a look up on your ip and it came back as WPB. This got my attention since I will probably be filling on EQ in Broward soon. Could you name the firm, or at least where they are from?
Going into litigation against the credit bureaus is like fighting iraqi's. You don't know when they will lay down and surrender or fight to the death. Don't go into battle unless you know how to force them into submission. I see you have found out how easy is is to get "sidetracked" when doing negotiations over the telephone. All future communications should be done in writing. I'd contact corporate and let them know you offerred to settle this matter amicably, and that you are willing to accept deletions in lieu of cash damages, but their attorney only seems to be interested in running up EQ's legal tab.
I had this exact same situation when I filed a suit against MBNA. I was contacted by an atty representing them locally. After 13 months of many many motions, requests for depositions, discovery, interrogatories, etc, this attorney would not even consider a settlement offer. By the way, I offered to settle this suit on day 1 for deletion alone. 13 months of legal fees, 4 court appearances, sworn depositions, and I finally dropped it. The account had been deleted from 2 of the 3 bureaus by then through general disputes. The attorney promised that she would email me an agreement that would protect me from any of their legal fees in return for dropping the suit. Guess what? She never did it. I have called her 3 times. I dropped the suit, that was all they wanted. The attorney told me that they would appeal and continue to drag this thing out if I won. Like someone else said, the attorney you are dealing with has ZERO incentive to settle. Their motivation is billing. They are going to bill this suit as long as they can get away with it. DId I mention that this whole fiasco was over no permissible purpose on an inquiry and that it was filed in small claims court? Be ready for a fight!
I have a similar situation. the lawyer said he forwarded informatio to eq, but i wasn't sure, so i sent eveything bc to maynard bryant and robin holland I postponed the court date while we discussed settlement..... he has not contacted me since the continuance.... please email me .. we can share strategies!
This is a long shot, but has anyone made a deal with the CRA that if they delete the info you'll drop the suit and together you and the CRA can sue the attorney for intentionally running up the bill.
Bigmon, EXCELLENT idea. I would LOVE to know what the atty in my case billed MBNA. I feel 100% sure that it was in excess of $5,000, probably more like $10,000! That is a very, very conservative estimate. There were 4 court appearances. There was over $100 worth of certified letters, UPS, etc. This was all over a hard inquiry pulled with no PP. I said I would settle for deletion of the inquiry and CORRECTION of the tradeline (not deletion). AFter it drug out for so long I wanted deletion of both. I finally got deletion of the inquiry by MBNA, deletion of the tradeline from TU and EQ (no thanks to MBNA, and MBNA got a bill from the atty for $5K - 10K. Who won?
Well I sent CRRR my settlement proposal to the General Counsel at Equifax and my very sneaky wife has the name and number of his secretary. I guess by some of the horror stories that my suspicions were correct, this attorney is trying to bill. He sees Equifax as cash cow. This maybe Law 101 but by speaking with an attorney relative of mine(Real estate law). Their counsel does NOT have to show their client any settlement proposal. He is given latitude to accept or reject proposals out of hand. That puzzled me. That is why he didnâ??t care about my proposal. He suggested that if this joker attorney gets too cute just dismiss and refile again in 30 days and have the General Counsel served. But he said if the guy gets all puffy and confrontational at the preliminary hearing start preparing discovery right away and give him 30 days then file a Motion for Summary judgment. Attorneys hate to be rushed. Fight every continuance and Motion. Generally be a pain in the as* and continue to send everything to the General counsel. Put timeframes and deadlines on them. Play hardball!! Sounds good to me. Anyways after I faxed him I didnâ??t get a call right back so I guess I can take that as a positive. I can keep this up for 6-9 months. Most of the negs are due to fall off by 1st Qtr of 2004 and that is my timeframe for a home purchse anyway.
