Rob's Blob » Justice for All

Your new PPL Associate

Robert Coss — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 00:00:09 +0000

—–Original Message—–

Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2012 8:00 AM

Congratulations, you have a new Associate in your Pre-Paid Legal
TEAM! This means you can earn overrides on his or her sales!
Imagine . . . your business is growing even when you are not the one
doing the recruiting!

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Unreal

Robert Coss — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:50:03 +0000

—–Original Message—–
From: Fight For The Future [mailto:info@fightforthefuture.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 201210:58 PM
To: Robert Coss
Subject: Unreal

Today was nuts, right?

Google launched a petition. Wikipedia voted to shut itself off. Senators’ websites went down just from the sheer surge of voters trying to write them. NYC and SF geeks had protests that packed city blocks.

You made history today: nothing like this has ever happened before. Tech companies and users teamed up. Tens of millions of people who make the internet what it is joined together to defend their freedoms. The free network defended itself. Whatever you call it, the bottom line is clear: from today forward, it will be much harder to mess up the internet.

The really crazy part? We might even win.

Approaching Monday’s crucial Senate vote there are now 35 Senators publicly opposing PIPA. Last week there were 5. And it just takes just 41 solid “no” votes to permanently stall PIPA (and SOPA) in the Senate. What seemed like miles away a few weeks ago is now within reach.

But don’t trust predictions. The forces behind SOPA & PIPA (mostly movie companies) can make small changes to these bills until they know they have the votes to pass. Members of Congress know SOPA & PIPA are unpopular, but they don’t understand why–so they’re easily duped by superficial changes. The Senate returns next week, and the next few days are critical. Here are two things to think about:

1. Plan on calling your Senator every day next week. Pick up the phone each morning and call your Senators’ offices, until they vote “no” on cloture. If your site participated today, consider running a “Call the Senate” link all next week.

2. Tomorrow, drop in at your Senators’ district offices. We don’t have a cool map widget to show you the offices nearest you (we’re too exhausted! any takers?). So do it the old fashioned way: use Google, or the phonebook to find the address, and just walk in, say you oppose PIPA, and urge the Senator to vote “no” on cloture. These drop-in visits make our spectacular online protests more tangible and credible.

That’s it for now. Be proud and stay on it!

–Holmes, Tiffiniy, and the whole Fight for the Future team.

___

P.S. Huge credit goes to participants in the 11/16 American Censorship Day protest: Mozilla, 4chan, BoingBoing, Tumblr, TGWTG, and thousands of others. That’s what got this ball rolling! Reddit, both the community and the team behind it, you’re amazing. And of course, thanks to the Wikimedians whose patient and inexorable pursuit of the right answer brought them to take world-changing action. Thanks to David S, David K, Cory D, and E Stark for bold action at critical times.

P.P.S. If you haven’t already, show this video to as many people as you can. It works! http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/

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Your new PPL Associate

Robert Coss — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:00:07 +0000

—–Original Message—–
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 8:00 AM

Congratulations, you have a new Associate in your Pre-Paid Legal

TEAM! This means you can earn overrides on his or her sales!

Imagine . . . your business is growing even when you are not the one

doing the recruiting!

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Your new PPL Associate

Robert Coss — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:28:48 +0000

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Sent: Sunday, January 08, 2012 8:00 AM

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Your new PPL Associate

Robert Coss — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:00:47 +0000

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Sent: Friday, January 06, 2012 8:00 AM

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Your new PPL Associate

Robert Coss — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:00:26 +0000

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Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2012 8:00 AM

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Your new PPL Associate

Robert Coss — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 02:00:44 +0000

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Sent: Monday, January 02, 2012 8:00 AM

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Your new PPL Associate

Robert Coss — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:08:18 +0000

—–Original Message—–
Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2011 8:00 AM

Congratulations, you have a new Associate in your Pre-Paid Legal TEAM! This means you can earn overrides on his or her sales! Imagine . . . your business is growing even when you are not the one doing the recruiting!

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Balancing the Scales of Justice with Debt Collectors

Robert Coss — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 03:40:35 +0000

clipped from www.pplmediaroom.com

Wolves at the Door

by M. Scott Carter
Published: December 15th, 2010

ADA – Debt-laden consumers are now being forced rapidly into court by collection firms as the U.S. debt collection industry increases its use of litigation as a debt collection tool.

Legal experts say the practice is widespread and it’s growing.

According to a report by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the system for resolving consumer debts is broken and major industry debt buyers – using data-driven debt processing tools – are now focusing on litigation and the justice system as means of collecting those debts.

This system, attorneys said, lets the corporate debt buyers skip some consumer communication and proceed directly to litigation.

“We’re seeing much more of it now than we ever did,” said Michael Fiffk, an attorney with the Pennsylvania law firm of Welch, Gold and Siegel, P.C. Those lawsuits, he said, highlight the weaknesses in this aspect of the justice system.

“Neither the consumer nor the collection agency are properly served by this approach,” Fiffk said. “Poorly gathered collection data from collection agencies and uninformed, under-represented consumers equals a recipe for injustice: It’s garbage in and it’s garbage out. This is not justice under the law.”

Though the telephone was originally the main tool utilized by collection agencies, many debt buyers have now turned their efforts to the courts to collect funds.

In a report entitled “The Debt Machine,” the National Consumer Law Center, a consumer advocacy organization, said debt buyers and other creditors have learned how to use small claims and other low-level courts “as a low-cost machine for turning claims into judgments against consumers who have fallen behind on payments.”

Officials at Ada-based Pre-Paid Legal Services said the lawsuits are often used to frighten consumers.

“This approach is flawed because it taxes the court system with an overabundance of collection suits and because it’s often utilized as a ‘scare tactic’ against consumers,” said Harland C. Stonecipher, Pre-Paid’s founder and chairman of the board.

Fiffk, whose firm provides services for Pre-Paid, agreed.

“The market for selling default accounts has probably heated up,” he said. “Now companies are more willing to sell – or buy – collection accounts.”

Debt buyers, he said, have more resources than consumers and they have exploited the weakness of the judicial system.

“It’s really a perversion of the way the justice system is supposed to work,” he said. “And the justice system hasn’t recognized that the system isn’t working.”

As an example, Fiffk cited statistics showing that during the first half of 2010, Pre-Paid’s independent provider law firms responded to more than 79,000 legal service requests from their member-customers on collection-related issues. That figure, he said, represents about 7 percent of Pre-Paid’s 1.1 million requests during the six-month period.

In 2009, the Federal Trade Commission reported it had received more than 88,000 consumer complaints about third-party debt collectors. Those complaints, coupled with in-house debt collector complaints, make up about one out of five FTC complaints about the industry.

Because many consumers don’t understand their legal rights – and because they don’t exercise them by going to court – Fiffk said that as many as 85 to 90 percent of the lawsuits result in a default judgment against the consumer.

“There’s a profitable business there,” he said. “And there’s lots of fuel for the fire. Whenever you can file these lawsuits, you’ve figured out that 85 to 90 percent of the time you get a default judgment. It’s an unfair game. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.”

Credit counselors say industry collection practices became more aggressive as the economy turned sour.

“They are much more aggressive,” said Margo Mitchell, president and CEO of Tulsa’s Credit Counseling Centers of Oklahoma. “That may mean that many creditors are calling customers every day, some of them actually after-hours when they should not be calling and yes, some of them are suing much more quickly than in the past.”

Many consumers, she said, don’t go to court, which results in a default judgment.

“If they would go and make their case, then the collection agency may not automatically get that garnishment, or they may not be on the line for as much, if they go in front of the judge,” she said.

Fighting the process, Fiffk said, is a question of knowing the language and procedures involved in such litigation.

“Many times a customer was never properly notified about the lawsuit,” he said. “There’s a huge disparity on one side of the ‘V.’”

Other times, Fiffk said, debt collection agencies can’t produce proof of the debt.

“In many instances, these debt buyers are counting on uninformed consumers to simply pay up whether the debt is authentic or not,” he said.

In Oklahoma, like many parts of the country, attorneys say the number of collection actions is on the rise.

“We first saw a rise in collection efforts following changes in the bankruptcy laws of 2005,” said Mark Nelms, a shareholder with Riggs, Abney, Neal, Turpen, Orbison and Lewis. “I think there’s been a significant rise, certainly since we’ve had economic issues. And we’ve seen a huge rise in lawsuits filed in general consumer debts and foreclosures.”

Nelms said many consumers don’t understand their rights or lack the resources to take advantage of those rights.

“There is a lot of confusion,” he said. “Then you add on top of that, litigation. Going to court, for most individuals, is complicated and expensive, and what I’ve found over time, when individuals don’t have representation, they don’t respond or appear and then they have a default judgment against.”

Once the judgment is issued, he said, consumers face leans or garnishments or negative credit bureau reports.

Jeff Lippman, an attorney with the Maryland-based law firm of Weinstock, Friedman and Friedman, P.A. believes the problems for consumers are threefold: fear, ignorance and inaction.

“People get nervous when they receive a collection letter,” Lippman said. “This can quickly turn to fear when they are confronted with the prospect of a lawsuit. This may lead to paralysis and inaction. If they would only face the problem, armed with the right information and assistance, they would have a much better chance of resolving or challenging the issue.”

The best defense, Pre-Paid’s Stonecipher said, was legal.

“Talk to your attorney before you talk to theirs,” he said.

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Family On Camping Outing Pulled Over On Freeway, Handcuffed On Ground

Robert Coss — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:20:37 +0000

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com

MISSION HILLS — A case of mistaken identity led to a family of five, headed on a camping trip, being frisked on the 405 Freeway and placed in handcuffs.

Los Angeles Police Department officials came across the family’s white van around 5:45 a.m. Friday, which came back as a stolen vehicle.

Watch the video and click here for the rest of the story

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