Do I have cause to report this CA?

Unless they honestly are planning litigation, it is a violation. As to "a judgment will be obtained", they don't know that. A judgment is not automatic unless you don't show up, and it is granted by default.

From what I have seen, the fact that they say "a judgment will be obtained, your goods will be sold at public auction...", etc etc, that is actually against the fdcpa. It is threatening something that they cannot positively do. Stating that you will lose like it is a guaranteed outcome is a scare tactic, as far as I recall. you may want to run this by an attorney on that one. They actually used the following phrase in that letter:

"if you wish to avoid litigationand its certain outcome...."

Certain outcome?? HMMM....seems like a scare tactic to me. I would keep this one handy, as I believe it is a violation of the FDCPA.

As for your RRR receipt....take my advice, I am now about to file suit against a company for just this thing. The little green card, when you get it back, compare the date on it to the date of this letter that you just got. Also, compare it to the POST MARK on the envelope as well. I sent out the DV letter, got the receipt back stating that they got my letter on the third. They sent a letter that arrived later, the date on the letter itself was the 2nd, but the postmark from when they turned it into the post office was the EIGHTH. To me, that proves that they sent it after they got my DV letter, since that postmark is put on the envelope when you drop it off and they process it in. If this company did the same to you, then you should be able to use that as evidence.

By the way, would you be so kind as to list the dates and amounts on these three letters you received? I have a suspicion that I want to see about...something else that you may be able to have in your favor.

The first letter was dated May 2, 2007 and asked for 4,933.30.

I also received a phone call from a "Kenya in early May (don't have the exact date) that stated I owed 2,933.30.

Received another vm from the first letter writer on June 5th asking that I contact him.

I called the letter writer and spoke to him and told them that I had arranged with the law firm (Rider Bennet) to make payment and stated what the payment amount was and was told that wasn't acceptable and that I needed to pay more. I told the writer that I wouldn't send a payment to them w/out a statement and some sort of documentation. I also mentioned that I had this call from another employee name Kenya - he claimed that they didn't have anyone working there by that name. After speaking to him, I called the number Kenya left and got her voicemail - I left her a message asking for a return call, but she didn't.

I then received another letter (don't have the exact date right in front of me) stating that I needed to pay 500.00 every two weeks. I think this was early June (I will have to track that letter down).

After that I received another letter from a new person, back on July 6th, stating I needed to pay 4927.74. Then I sent the request for documentation via email and received a letter with the "proof" that is nothing more then a copy of a May 31, 2007 statement from the Law Firm and what is titled as a Claim Placement Form w/only my name and address dated 6/27/07 (hey that's AFTER the first few letters). I then followed up with the certified RRR letter (mailed on Friday, July 13th)per the advise of this forum.

Now I receive this letter dated July 12th and postmarked 7-13 (same day as my letter)from yet another person! stating I owe 4,520.86 and it must be in their office by July 19.

Hope this answers everything.

I spoke to the law firm today and per them they'll call Euler Hermes off. They (the law firm) requested copies of the communications sent by them and proposed a final payment of 2500 to close the account. Apparently the law firm has filed bankruptcy, not sure how this would affect my account with them.

I did ask for a full accounting of charges - per the law firm I spent 25,800 - this seems very low to me, but I didnt' keep the best records when going through that year of hell trying to get my divorce. I could have sworn it was much more. I don't have 2500 laying around, so that's still an issue. But they also said if I could pay them 800 per month for 3 month's they'd stop everything - don't know if I could swing that much either.

Not sure if this is a good thing or not. Comments?

hi jobb--

sorry it took so long for me to get back to you. lets see what we have here.

First, did you have anything in the agreement with the law firm concerning any interest or additional charges? If you did not, then the CA broke the law by continually increasing the amount they claimed you owed. They can only charge amounts that were agreed upon in the original agreement or contract.

Second, this is very important--you need to review your records. How did you pay the law firm each time? If you paid by check, for example, you dont need to have kept perfect records because your bank did it for you. This is very important--if you have paid significantly more than they are saying, then they might just call it even now. But you need to be able to prove it to them. If you find that you have paid more, I would then recommend that you write a proposal along these lines:

"In your recent communication with me regarding this matter, you informed me that to date I have paid $25,800.00 to you. At the same time, you offered to close the accound if I paid an additional sum of $2,500.00. This would bring the total to $28,300.00.

However, my records indicate that I have paid a total of (for example) $31,900.00 to date. I have included copies of the receipts for your review. Since you are willing to accept the total sum of $29,300.00 to close this account, I would like to propose that, since I have already paid more than this amount, that we consider it closed as it stands."

Here's the thing--they are in bankruptcy, and they have just learned that they are going to cause more problems by hiring a dishonest CA than they want at this point. This may be your best position of leverage to get the best possible settlement here. That is why it is so important that you check your records. You may not have to pay them anything else at all. They are in BK, they know that they will be lucky to get much of anything right now.

as for the letters and calls, they dont seem to have a clue at all about this mess. You probably would have them on a couple violations, but in all honesty you would probably be better off just taking care of the law firm issue. Now, you are aware that they are no longer on the case, so if they continue to contact you, my opinion will have changed completely, and I would recommend that you go after them with all guns blazing, so to speak. At that point, they will have left "dishonest" in the dust and gone right to theft...