About Wolpoff and Abramson

Once again, I thank you all for your continued support, patience and understanding. Every one of you have been so wonderful and I cannot thank you enough. I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

I am almost done filling it out the forms I need for court. I am going to fax it up to Hartford tomorrow morning since Centralized Small Claims said I could do that. I found the name of a consumer attorney through National Association of Consumer Advocates and have sent her an email. Anyone who is dealing with this sort of situation in Connecticut should contact Connecticut Legal Aid. I also e-mailed Budd Hibbs and he said that I should contact her as well. Her name is Joanne Faulkner. She looked up my case on the judicial website and told me that the dates throughout the case are dated from 2005...which is incorrect since I took the loan out in oct, 2006. Ms. Faulkner also told me that Great Seneca can not garnish my wages since they do not own the debt since it was sold off to Wolpoff and Abramson. Here is a copy of her email:

Quote:

"According to the judicial department web site, you signed a paper agreeing to the judgment in 2005. This must have nothing to do with the payday loan, which was much later. Of course you can still do the wage modification form. You can also say, Great Seneca has no right to enforce the judgment, since it does not own it or does not exist. (public documents filed with the SEC shows that GS sold all its assets) Or you could consult a bankruptcy attorney. Why do you think they are after you for the payday loan? I might be interested in collection efforts on that account. 10/14/2005 Hearing Notice 11/7/2005 - 9:00 AM for Hearing Re: Payments/balance 2 11/18/2005 Disposition Notice - Stipulated Judgment for the Plaintiff on 11/7/2005 3 11/03/2006 EXECUTION - FINANCIAL INSTITUTION ISSUED (NATURAL PERSON) 01/29/2007 EXECUTION RETURNED UNSATISFIED 4 03/19/2007 EXECUTION - WAGE ISSUED J Faulkner New Haven CT"

I am wondering if I can send the following information to Ms. Faulkner no matter how pestering it may seem. I'm wondering if this would be appropriate to send to the AG.

I know I keep going back to the not being served thing....I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but one thing I do know is that the fact that my old address on the court documents is irrelevant because A) The address was from when I lived in the New Haven are back in June B)I moved to Hamden from the address stated on the documents and when I took out the loan I used that address in Hamden. C) when I moved for the 3rd time back to the new haven area I left a forwarding address to my current one now. Any court official would understand that I have a forwarding address. Not to mention if they could not serve me as my previous address is no longer inhabited by me, then I do believe that they can and will serve you at your place of employment....which Great Seneca does have and also the court could find that information as well since it is very important that a summons be served (in person) to ensure that the Defendant is aware of what is going on. The Marshal cannot say that he tried to serve me because I never met him. It's just the simple fact that they had the information necesarry to send papers to my job.....but not serve me a summons there? Like I said I know I keep going back to it and it's really getting redundant.

I'm getting frustrated because I called the courts, I emailed an attorney....I keep telling these people: "Hey...I was not served in person....I had no idea what was going on. I have proof that I made payments to these people so how can they get me for $1,700 on a $140.00 bill? This company is a PAYDAY lender....they cannot garnish my damn check because they are not allowed to do business in the state of Connecticut!" I am crying to these guys and it's like.....it goes in one ear and out the other. Ms. Faulker seems like she may be interested. And CT Legal Aid does provide services to those that are low income or otherwise cannot afford an attorney. I still have to mail a copy of the documents to my payroll dept.

What I want is justice. I want the court to prove to me that they attempted to serve me. I have been in Housing court 3 times in the past year for circumstances beyond my control and have never missed a summons or a court date. I understand that I have 10 days from receipt of a summons to file an Answer to Complaint...which I have also done many times on various cases. I understand court proceedings to that extent.

Also, I was sued by an Oral Surgeon back in 2005 for failure to pay because the wisdom tooth extraction I had done was a necesarry procedure but my insurance ran out when I left the job I had and wasn't making the money at the time to pay the bill......for that case, I was served a proper summons (in person). I was not home at the time, my mother was and the Marshal handed the summons to her. I received the writ to Suit that stated in bold letters "YOU ARE BEING SUED". I filed an answer to complaint and showed up for my hearing. I knew I owed them money and didnt' fight it when the surgeon was granted a judgement and I have since worked with them. They never tried to garnish my check. So, I do understand my rights to that effect. Somthing about this is not kosher and as God as my witness I'm going to pester the hell out of any attorney, or consumer advocate who knows about these things until I get a straight answer as to what to do about this situation.

If I knew good and well that I owed Great Seneca that much money then I would have worked things out with them and I have talked to them about payment arrangements many times....that's how I got the bill down from $600 to $140 in the first place. If I was in the wrong that much I would have accepted my responsibility. But they are trying to get me for 100 times the origional amount and I am NOT okay with that. If I have problems paying my bills I call the company. I have a car note that I pay every month. Somtimes I fall behind but I call them regularly and they work with me. Same goes for my Electric bill, cable bill, cell phone bill and other things. I feel like I'm being taken advantage of in the worst possible way. Because of Great Seneca and Westbury Ventures and Bass and Associates (currently under a different name) I have experience financial hardships that is taking a lifetime to bounce back from.

Budd Hibbs had mentioned somthing about Wolpoff and Abramson having in-house folk who are allowed to bypass the rules of the court because they control the NAF. They are able to get papers notarized and signed without ever having to appear in court because they know people who do that all day long and make somthing like $250/hour for it. This is how default judgements get passed without the "defendant" having their day in court. Bud Hibbs says of W and A on his site:

"

[quote]Bud Says...

ONE OF AMERICA'S WORST COLLECTION AGENCYS!



Can you say BILLIONAIRES?? Yes, Wolpoff & Abramson are on target o become the first BILLIONAIRES of the collection industry.

They have an incredible network of law firms across the country who sue on debt that were purchased for pennies, then many have arbitration claims files and/or sue upon. They buy themselves whatever they want and sometime, whomever they want to achieve their goals. To put this empire of scam in perspective here are some of the players:

First, one false rumor is that Wolpoff & Abramson (W&A) own the National Arbitration Forum (NAF); that is FALSE! They are the single largest supplier of claims to the NAF and at $ 250.00/per claim, it’s easy to see why they win approximately 95-98% of all claims filed. This is further bolstered by the fact that NAF pays their arbitrators (attorneys, retired judges) a fee of $250/hour to handle claims. The rules state they must handle six claims per hour for this $250, so you can understand that any claimant would be lucky for even a cursory review of documents.

Buying bad debts for 2-3¢on the dollar (many for a lot less), paying the NAF $250 with an almost guaranteed award in your favor and a network of lawyers filing suits spells money on the level of a South American drug cartel to Wolpoff & Abramson.

W&A pulls the strings for NCAN; the National Collection Attorney Network which is comprised of over 100 law offices across the U.S. of attorneys who sue on debts. A few of these attorneys are good, honest, hard working, many more are inept, have very little understanding of the fdcpa, have no knowledge of any material facts other than what they are told to say and do. They get paid a contingency fee to show up in court, many never do, hoping to take default judgments.

Thank goodness for NACA attorneys who have the skills and experience to litigate against them, I recommend you always contact one at: www.naca.net

Think your going to beat an arbitration claim? Not when the arbitrator is being paid $250/hour and can be fed claims all day long. Think your rights under the law mean anything? Think again! I have been contacted on hundreds, perhaps thousands of arbitration claims and only one attorney from Texas had the guts to stand up and say…”Hey! This is wrong!” The good news is he took his job seriously; the bad news is he is no longer an arbitrator for the NAF. Many of these arbitrators would feel very comfortable performing their jobs in a Nevada brothel as the two jobs perform similar services.

Think your going to get satisfaction from the Montgomery County, MD or Maryland State Bar for ethics complaints against W&A? NOPE! Seems Daddy sits on both boards and not many complaints ever go very far. Here is a partial list of collectors owned/used by W&A:

Alegis Group, Sherman Acquisitions, LVNV Funding, LLC

arrow financial services

Asta Funding

Colonial Credit Corporation

Palisades Collections, LLC

Preferred Platinum Plan aka The ****

[color=Red]****Adult term removed - Jason[/color]


Collectors

Great Seneca Financial

Centurion Capital

Sage Financial

Monarch Financial

Hawker Financial

W&A cannot purchase debts as a law firm, so they apparently use these shell organizations to accomplish that goal.

Some of their largest NCAN Attorneys include:

Cohen & Slamowitz, LLP

Hosto & Buchan

Javitz, Block, & Rathbone, LLP

Mitchell N. Kay, P.C.

Love, Beal & Nixon, P.C.

Mel S. Harris & Associates

Messerli & Kramer

Johnson, Riddle & Mark fka/Riddle & Associates

Trauner, Cohen & Thomas

Weltman, Weinberg & Reis

W&A also has offices in many cities where the phones and faxes all ring in at Rockville, MD. They use an auto dialer that calls some consumers as many as 20 times daily (according to complaints I received) and make it near impossible to get wrong persons removed.

They file cases by the hundreds every day and reportedly even supply court clerks to work side by side with real court clerks to get the filings done.

Want to validate a debt? Fuggettaboutit! …Won’t happen! Slows them down, who gives a damn about the law and consumer rights? They have daily, weekly, monthly goals to hit. Besides, they will manufacture most documents in-house for court filings; even notarize them by employees attesting to hearsay facts that are not admissible in most courts.

Some smart consumer attorney may one day put W&A employees under oath and learn that Affidavits that are legally supposed to be signed in the presence of the person attesting to the truthfulness (?) of the documents, have instead taken them home to be stamped and signed because of the work load. Again, the law and consumer rights are not the issue at W&A, profits are!

NOTE TO EMPLOYEES AT W&A:

THINK YOU HAVE PRIVACY WORKING THERE? THE NEW SECURITY PEOPLE (former CIA?) HAVE CAMERAS EVERYWHERE INCLUDING SEVERAL IN AREAS YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ABOUT. THINK YOUR COMPUTER ISN’T BEING MONITORED? THINK AGAIN! THERE ARE EYES EVERYWHERE, WATCHING YOU, CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY, THIS IS SECURITY ‘CIA STYLE’… NOTHING IS SECRET AT WORK!

W&A will go to no end to protect their Niagara Falls of cash flowing into their coffers. Nobody is protected, nothing is sacred, whatever it takes. Money rules this organization, EVERYTHING else is secondary. They don’t own the NAF but they damn sure control them. My advice is to make them spend as much money as possible on each and every account they collect. Send them validation notices and tie up their collectors for as long as possible. NEVER fail to show up in court-- they miss a lot more court dates than they keep. Make the NAF work, send them validation notices, and force them to prove you are party to any arbitration agreement. Many, many courts are moving closer to consumers, and attitudes are changing, W&A has lost several BIG court decisions; keep as much pressure on them as you can. Each and every consumer fighting at the grass roots level will help, as well as making their illegal deeds known to your Congressman, Senators, and Judges. Use the experts at NACA www.naca.net

This is a struggle Americans can win, one account, one consumer at a time.

After you get over getting mad, GET EVEN! Make it costly to come after every account, it adds up quickly, a phone call, a stamp, a collector who can’t collect; dispute, validate, make them pay with time and money at EVERY step."[/quote]

And as soon as I get through this war...I will help others do the same. Together we can shut down these dirtbags and put an end to the madness they cause in hardworking people's lives.

I apologize for the length of this. Forgive me. I have graduated from being in mild denial to outright furious. I want to help others get through this as well.