I think you should check this out "Bumblebee" http://www.classactionamerica.com/cases/case.asp?cid=730
You two are both incredible. I don't know how you find all this stuff. The class action suit is interesting, but doesn't really have any effect on us that I can see at this point. Too late to get in on it, anyway. I'm still trying to digest all the rest of this. My brain is definitely on overload! OK... I'm getting back to work now.
It may be too late to get in on the class action suit, however, if you obtain the i formation from the website I posted, and add that to the BBB information on the CA who is suing you, you have an excellent defense -both the original creditor and collection agency have a record of illegal and fraudulent activity and therefore any claim against you is not valid.
OK... Thanks, Why Chat. I have the BBB report printed out. I will print out the info on the class action as well.
Been doing a lot of research and reading today! LOTS of stuff on the web about Direct Merchants. They even received ConsumerAffairs.com's "Turkey of the Year" award! LOL Here's the link: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/credit_cards/direct_merchants.htm But I have a question. Do I really want to put anything with my answer to the court that pertains to Direct Merchants? Colorado Capital, yes... no problem there, but at this point, it seems to me that it would be better not to make any mention of Direct Merchants since the Summons and Petition makes no mention of them and this has not been validated yet (still need to send the letter). I had some things that pertain to DM in the Answer when I was working on it last night, but then realized when I woke up this morning that it might not be such a good idea. Even though I am reasonably sure that is the account we are dealing with... and there certainly is plenty to show that their business practices are a bit on the shady side... I'm thinking I might be shooting myself (or DH!) in the foot if I include anything about them at this point. I will also be asking my SIL about it tomorrow. I didn't hear from the NACA attorney today.
If you do not raise the issue as an affirmative defense from the start, you may have difficulty entering it later. The validity of the original debt is a VERY strong point that should be raised.
Following is the validation letter. I copied it from the files here, modified the first sentence since this is in response to a Summons. Questions: 1. Do I address it to the attorneys or Colorado Capital c/o attorneys? 2. Do I need the third paragraph? It's sort of amusing, actually. 3. Anything else I need to change or modify? On the disclosure statement that is to go with the letter, I added number 2. Is that going to cause me problems? Do I even need it? Do they have to provide the name of the original creditor even if I don't specifically ask? I'm so new to all this that I feel like I am flying blind.
OK, thanks, Why Chat. I was wondering about that. I did talk to a guy that I used to work with that practiced law for many years... had to give it up for health reasons, but still dabbles in it. He says he's got a friend that might be able to help us out. He said he is going to the court house tomorrow and will take a look at the papers that were filed with the court, then give me a call.
Fischl v. Metris Companies Direct Merchants Credit Card Bank's Credit Card Holders Receive Wide-Ranging Relief On February 1, 2002, the court granted preliminary approval to a proposed settlement of a national class action against Direct Merchants Credit Card Bank and its parent company, Metris Companies, by persons who hold credit cards issued by the bank. The class action challenges the legality of a wide variety of the bank's practices in servicing its credit card accounts. Under the proposed settlement, the defendants agree to modify or cease certain business practices; offer certain free products, services or benefits to former cardholders or ServiceEdge members who are not current cardholders; and offer participation in a "Customer Satisfaction Guarantee Program" to current cardholders, in which the cardholders may resolve complaints they have with the bank and receive credits in an amount between $10 and $70. The class action is brought on behalf of all people who reside in the United States and who, from January 1, 1995, through February 1, 2002, inclusive, experienced any of the following: 1. were assessed a fee, charge, finance charge, or interest for the purchase of a fee-based service or product in connection with a credit card issued by the bank. 2. were assessed a late fee, charge, finance charge, or interest with respect to a "late payment" in connection with a credit card issued by the bank. 3. were assessed an overlimit fee, charge, finance charge, or interest with respect to an account that the defendants placed in an overlimit status in connection with a credit card issued by the bank. 4. were assessed a fee, charge, finance charge, or interest in connection with an account where the cardholder did not activate the credit card issued by the bank. 5. were assessed a fee, charge, finance charge, or interest in connection with an account after the cardholder requested closure of the credit card issued by the bank. 6. were assessed a fee, charge, finance charge, or interest in connection with any balance transfer, convenience check or cash advance issued by the defendants to a holder of a credit card issued by the bank. 7. were assessed a fee for the purchase of ServiceEdge and made a claim to the defendants for ServiceEdge benefits. 8. had their credit card account from PNC Bank or GE Select purchased by the defendants, and later had the APR on the credit card issued by the bank increased either without their having received a written notice from the defendants explicitly stating that the APR would be increased and the amount of the increase or new APR, or as a result of penalty pricing for their failure to make payments. The settlement will not be effective until the court grants it final approval. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for May 30, 2002. These people screw everybody they can get their hands on. Stockholders v. Metris Companies, Inc. Metris Companies Allegedly Hid Adverse Federal Report Several class actions have been filed against credit card issuer Metris Companies, Inc. (NYSE: MXT) and certain of its officers and directors by stockholders who purchased the company's common stock between November 5, 2001, and July 17, 2002. The actions claim that the defendants violated federal securities laws by issuing a series of material misrepresentations to the market over this time period, thereby artificially inflating the price of the company's securities. The stockholders seek to recover compensatory damages for the loss of value of their stock. Specifically, the actions claim that the defendants misled the investing community concerning the existence of a Report of Examination (ROE) released by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the primary federal regulator of Metris subsidiary Direct Merchants Credit Card Bank. The actions also charge that the defendants misled the investing community regarding the adverse material effect the ROE would have on Metris' financial condition. The stockholders allege that the OCC released the ROE to the defendants on November 5, 2001, but the defendants failed to reveal the existence of the ROE to the public until April 17, 2002, and thereafter misrepresented the effect it would have on Metris. The findings of the ROE were ultimately addressed in a consent agreement between Direct Merchants and the OCC, and this agreement obligated Direct Merchants to restructure significant parts of its operations, including its credit policies, credit risk assessment, debt forbearance, allowance for loan and lease losses and internal controls.
Credit Card Holders v. Direct Merchants Credit Card Bank Bank Agrees to Repay Cardholders Direct Merchants Credit Card Bank, the 11th-largest US credit card issuer, has agreed to repay around $3.2 million to some 62,000 customers who responded to the bank's solicitations to apply for a credit card but did not receive what they applied for.The bank agreed to compensate customers who were billed application or processing fees that were not properly disclosed or who were 'downsold' to credit cards with less favorable terms than those the customers thought they were applying for. The bank agreed to the repayment in order to settle an investigation into its solicitation practices by a federal agency, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. The settlement relates to test marketing campaigns conducted by the bank between March 1, 1999, and June 1, 2000. During that period, the bank mailed 84 million credit card offers, some 13.5 million of which involved the practices under investigation. According to the bank, around 87 percent of those who responded received the same credit cards as were featured in the promotional materials.
Oohhhh, very good, Butch! I missed the second and third ones. Maybe I'm just not persistent enough! Everything I was finding pertained to Fischl v. Metris Companies, which has been settled, btw. The following is from http://www.creditclaims.com/ Settlement Summary This website provides you with certain information regarding the settlement of three class action lawsuits against Direct Merchants Credit Card Bank, N.A., Metris Companies, Inc. and Metris Direct, Inc. ("Defendants") that were filed in Minnesota, California and Arizona. On February 1, 2002, the Judge in the Minnesota suit preliminarily approved the settlement resolving these class actions. On May 30, 2002, the Judge issued an Order granting final approval of the settlement. There was no appeal of this Order. On September 4, 2002, the terms of the settlement were implemented. The settlement called for a variety of benefits to be provided to Class Members, including access for current cardholders to a special customer satisfaction guarantee program to address issues or concerns (including agents who are authorized to provide credits to accounts), free product offerings and an application for a low-interest rate credit card to persons who are not cardholders of Direct Merchants Credit Card Bank, and actions to be taken by Defendants to address certain credit card practices.
Including their employees and/or anyone else that is a participant in/beneficiary of their 401K plan! Check this out: Metris Companies, Inc. (NYSE:MXT) Keller Rohrback L.L.P. is currently investigating Metris Companies, Inc. (â??Metrisâ?) for 401(k) ERISA fraud. Metris and its plan administrators may have breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty and prudence. This breach may have occurred if the fiduciaries withheld or concealed material information from the Metris 401(k) plan participants and beneficiaries with respect to the Companyâ??s business, financial results and operations, thereby encouraging participants and beneficiaries to continue to make and maintain substantial investments of company stock in their Metris 401(k) plan. Specifically, it has been alleged that Metris failed to disclose for several months the negative impact on the Companyâ??s earnings of changes imposed upon the company by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the â??OCCâ?), the rise in delinquencies and the downturn of the economy. The OCC findings alone, which were ultimately addressed in a consent agreement between Metrisâ?? subsidiary Direct Merchants and the OCC, obligated Direct Merchants to restructure significant parts of its operations including its credit policies, credit risk assessment, debt forbearance, allowance for loan and lease losses and internal controls. Recently, Metris shocked the market when it disclosed a second quarter 2002 net loss of $36.4 million. If you are a current participant or beneficiary of a Metris Companies, Inc. 401(k) retirement plan, please contact paralegal Jennifer Tuato'o, or any member of our team (Erin Riley, Derek Loeser, Elizabeth Leland or Lynn Sarko) toll free at 800/776-6044, or via e-mail at: investor@kellerrohrback.com
Metris has a date with destiny tomorrow. They release their earning prior to the market opening. If the default rate is still running double digits, they'll be joining NextCard soon enough.
How does this look? XXXXXXXX IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF OKLAHOMA COUNTY STATE OF OKLAHOMA COLORADO CAPITAL INVESTMENTS, INC., ) ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) vs. ) No. XXXXXXXX ) BUMBLEBEEâ??S DH ) ) Defendant. ) ANSWER 1. Defendant has disputed the validity of Plaintiffâ??s claim in its entirety on 10/15/02 by separate correspondence. Defendant has requested complete validation and the name/address of the original creditor. 2. Defendant does not know if this statement is true or not. Defendant requests proof of Plaintiffâ??s bond as a Texas collection agency. 3. Defendant denies having any known contract with Plaintiff or Plaintiffâ??s assignor. 4. Defendant denies owing any amount of money to Plaintiff since there is no known contract with Plaintiff. Further, Defendant alleges and states: 5. Employee for Plaintiffâ??s attorney violated § 807 (3) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. 6. Plaintiff and/or Plaintiffâ??s attorney violated § 809 (a) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. 7. Plaintiff misled defendant regarding the time frame for filing an Answer with the court. Not stated in Summons that answer had to be filed within 20 days, although 30/35 days allowed for validation. BumbleBeeâ??s DH P.O. Box xxxxxx Oklahoma City, OK xxxxx Telephone: xxxxxxxxxx I'm going to call the court clerk about the time frame for the Answer. My lawyer friend that I talked to last night said the 35 days could be right, in which case I will delete #7. He is going to let me know after he looks at the documents today, but I thought I'd double-check with the clerk, anyway. I'm off to have lunch with DH. I'll check back in when I return.
Stupid computer doesn't want to cooperate this afternoon! One of these days, I'm gonna get rid of all this debt and get me a new one! LOL OK... I can breathe a little easier. Talked to the court clerk who really couldn't tell me anything except she didn't think I had to serve Attorneys, P.C. with the Answer... just file it with the court and have my copy certified. I'll double-check that with SIL... we are supposed to have lunch tomorrow since she couldn't do it today. My attorney friend called back, but had to go out of town and didn't make it back in time to go to the court house. He kept trying to talk me into offering settlement. I explained to him that's what we did on the Cap1 account only to have them get a default judgment (hopefully was vacated per the attorney's agreement) after we had made 3 payments. Told him settlement was in the plans but we want validation first. He agreed that was appropriate. He admits that he has been out of law too long to really be up on the current laws and procedures. Also talked to the NACA attorney. He sounds awfully young. :-( He assured me that the 35 days on the Summons is correct since a federal law is involved and that supersedes the state law that says 20 days. Should I be bothered that he asked me if we owe this debt? I told him we were requesting validation, which he agreed we should proceed with. He charges $50 for an initial consultation, but he didn't act much like he really wanted to do it. Wouldn't give me any info in regards to how to file the answer because he was afraid I might do it wrong and come back on him! I did schedule an appointment for Monday morning so DH doesn't have to take off work. So, here's my plan at this point... 1. Send validation letter. 2. File answer with the court so we don't get knocked up the side of the head with a default judgment like with Cap1! 3. If validated, offer settlement of maybe $300 to start with and work our way up from there. We should be able to scrape together that much in the next couple of months with the holiday buying season approaching. 4. If insufficient validation... I'm gonna need some more help from you guys! 5. If not validated, they go to the bottom of the list and we will worry about paying that one when everything else, including paying off my cc's and paying back DH's parents for all they've been out the last couple of years, gets taken care of! Making sure, of course, that the TL gets deleted from all 3 CRA's! What do you all think?
LOL BBee, You ought to charge that attorney $50 bucks -- now he'll be wiser and copy your strategy ;-) and the next clients will get better representation. You have come a long way in a few weeks -- go to the head of the class!!!!!!!!!! I replied to your email, btw, it came from a different address, so don't delete me as a viagra ad or spam. wooooooooo hoooooooooo! Sassy
