I want to let everyone here know that you CAN hold collection agencies accountable if they violate the fdcpa! I just successfully sued them for multiple violations in the 9th District Court in San Francisco.
Like many others, I was the victim of harassing phone calls and voicemails during the summer of 2005. 1st Credit of America said I owed money from an account I had at MyPrefectCredit.com. I checked my account, and it was still current, so I refused to pay up since 1st Credit of America could not explain why I owed the amount they said I owed. They also refused to send me a statement in writing.
I told them I didn’t owe anybody anything and not to call me, but that didn’t stop them from calling. I told them only to communicate with me via the postal service, but that didn’t stop them from calling. I told them that the calls were waking me up and that it was inconvenient to contact me during the day (I worked nights at the time), but that didn’t stop them from calling. I even demanded that they not contact me AT ALL, and still they called me 28 times in 28 days.
The calls finally stopped when I hired a lawyer and filed a lawsuit against them for several FDCPA violations.
It turns out that MyPerfectCredit had experienced an issue with their computer systems, resulting in many current accounts (including mine) being sent to another company called Vindicia, who gave them to 1st Credit of America for collection. 1st Credit then added $50 to my account and tried to collect from me. No wonder the number never made sense when I tried to reconcile it against my own numbers!
I filed a Better Business Bureau complaint against 1st Credit of America in 2005, but they never responded.
I should also mention that a lot of their collectors in other countries (specifically India) are paid only $3 per hour and the size of their paycheck depends on the commissions that they earn by getting people to pay up. This explains why so many of the calls that I received were so aggressive in nature.
On February 12th, 2007, I finally got my day in court. I sued them for violating 4 sections of the Fair debt collectors Practices Act, and a jury ruled in my favor after a two-day trial and a few hours of jury deliberation. I feel vindicated that there are, in fact, consequences and repercussions for these companies that try to strong-arm people into paying a random amount of money just because they say you owe it.
My lawyer, Eric Fagan, leveraged his extensive trial experience to put together an open-and-shut case. Being new to the court process (my first lawsuit), he kept me calm even when 1st Credit was telling outright lies on the witness stand. For anyone out there who went through the same thing as I did with 1st Credit of America, I suggest you contact him if you want to stand up for yourself. You can Google him, his office is in Chula Vista (the San Diego area), and his website is www (dot) efaganlaw (dot) com. He handles cases all over the country by teaming up with other attorneys.
The process wasn’t easy, but I feel it was well worth the stress and time to stand up for myself. I went through a lot of pain and stress at the hands of these people and it feels good to have this thing resolved.
I’ll be happy to discuss my case with anyone who wants the specifics; you can get me at civitellochris (at) hotmail (dot) com.
Good luck in dealing with this unscrupulous company, and remember, the TRUTH comes out in court!
During the course of my lawsuit, I decided to look up 1st Credit of America on Google. Here’s what I found, along with my sources cited:
1. Someone by the name of Elie Mellul, who shares the same name as the CEO/Owner of 1st Credit of America, was fined by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD). See below, taken from the NASD website:
Elie Mellul (CRD #2126020, Registered Principal, Great Neck, New York) submitted a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver, and Consent pursuant to which he was censured, fined $50,000, barred from association with any NASD member in any capacity, and ordered to pay $39,192 in restitution to public customers. Without admitting or denying the allegations, Mellul consented to the described sanctions and to the entry of findings that he effected transactions in the accounts of public customers without their knowledge, consent, or authorization. The findings also stated that Mellul refused to cooperate with the NASD's request for information and/or documentation. (NASD Case #C10990143)
Source: nasd.complinet.com/nasd/display/display.html?rbid=1189&element_id=1159002030
2. 1st Credit of America uses IP-telephony to connect their call centers, located in India and other countries. They use a predictive dialer, which is an automated device that dials your phone number, and when you answer the phone you are connected to a collector in one of their call centers. So if any of you ever received a call from them and no one was on the other end of the line, it means that they simply didn’t have someone in their call center available to talk to you. They don’t feel too bad about the crank call, though.
Source: nasd.complinet.com/nasd/display/display.html?rbid=1189&element_id=1159002030
3. A significant portion of 1st Credit’s account portfolio is comprised of Adult-oriented (
****membership sites. I found an article on AVN (Adult Video News) Online, a trade magazine for the
**** industry in the United States, which mentions this industry as an important part of 1st Credit’s business.
Source: avnonline.com/index.php?Primary_Navigation=Editorial&Action=View _Article&Content_ID=238254
****Adult term removed - Jason
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