This is stupid.

The purpose of HAMP is to give people who are struggling to keep up with their mortgage a break.  It is not to give every person who feels like they should get a better rate a better rate.

HAMP is completely voluntary.  Your bank isn’t required to do anything for you.

If you deliberately fall behind on your mortgage and then do not get a modification, you are left with wrecked credit, a mortgage that is severely past due, and a huge payment owed to your mortgage lender rife with late fees and attorney fees… and if you are like this person, Chapter 13 will be your only option to save your home.

If you are struggling with your mortgage payment or other bills and you don’t know where to turn, call me at 484-661-2891 or email me at jim@padebt911.com and we can find a way out, together.

Kenneth Besser wrote Collections 101: A Training Manual for Entry Level Debt Collectors.

The Fair Debt Collections Practice Act specifically makes harassing a debot a violation.

Section 806(5) says that harassing a debtor is causing a phone to ring repeatedly with the intent to annoy, abuse, or harass any person at the called number.  That doesn’t mean that they are only allowed to call once per day, it just means they can’t harass you.

That is why I was shocked to read in Section 9.14 of Besser’s book about calling back a person who hangs up on you.  When I worked for the debt collectors, and the debt collection agency I worked with was one of the worst, we never called back.

This is taken directly from Section 9.14:  “Following a hang-up, some collectors make an immediate callback to make sure that the call was not terminated accidentally.  If a reconnection is made, the collector may wish to inquire about the reason for the disconnection by saying something to the effect of , ‘I’m very sorry, Mister/Miss ______, but we seemed to be cut off before we were done.”

It is 2009, most phones don’t cut out, unless they are cell phones, and I will write more about that later.

Besser continues: “If the debtor begins to state that he or she hung up on purpose, then a collector may politely, but firmly reply by saying, ‘If you found our previous conversation not to your liking, then, please accept my apology.’

OK, so far, so good, I wouldn’t have called them back but…

Besser continues: “‘Nonetheless, hanging up will not make this matter go away.’”

Actually maybe it might.

To me, if a debtor says they intended to hang up, the conversation should be over.  The parting shot, also known as the last word, is harassment and as such it is a violation of the FDCPA.

So how can I be sure?

I can’t, but I’m sure if I have it on tape and I file a complaint that debt is going to go away at the very least.  One of my favorite lines (that I stole from a national debt expert) with debt collection agencies is “I’d love to own a collection agency, do you want to keep it up.”

Are debt collectors driving you nuts?  Do you think they are crossing the line?  Call me at 484-661-2891 or email me at jim@padebt911.com and we can discuss your debt problems and dealing with debt collectors for no charge, which is certainly less than that check by phone the debt collector is offering you.

Getting a mortgage modification after a Chapter 13 case is filed is tricky enough, if the Chapter 13 plan authority been confirmed, it requires permission from the court to modify the mortgage and amend the Chapter 13 plan.  Getting this permission is not easy.

This company is based out of Texas, and I’m not going to give them any advertising whatsoever, but you’ll know them when you deal with them.  Their salespeople are very good at being salespeople and they pretend to be a law firm, but if you dig through their website they will say that they’re not a law firm and not providing legal advice.  That’s a good thing, although I wish they be more up front about it, because if they try to practice law in Pennsylvania without a license, they be violating the law.  In my estimation, they are least violating legal ethics and while they say they are not providing legal advice, I’m sure that the State Bar of Texas would take a dim view of this behavior.

If you are in a current chapter 13 plan and you want a mortgage modification, you need to speak to your attorney before signing any papers.  As an attorney, I can only do so much to get sure money refunded from the slimy companies like this company in Texas and for one of my client it cost them $1899.

This client is angry with me.  I refused to authorize his company to process the mortgage modification.  The company claims you don’t need to be an attorney to process a mortgage modification, and they may very well be correct, but they are presenting themselves as a law firm and they are unlicensed, which could mean that my authorization of their services could mean they were working under my license.  I don’t know a single lawyer who would agree to that.

I don’t think I’m going to get the clients money back.  My best guess is that this firm is to disappear at the first sign of a complaint and reappear as another entity with a similar website and a similar slimy strategy.

Many clients seem to think that a mortgage modification is easy to get after a Chapter 13 bankruptcy is filed, nothing is further from the truth.  In the movie Back to the Future, Marty McFly said the Doc Brown: “you just don’t walk into a store to buy plutonium!”  You just don’t call the bank and get a mortgage modification either!  It’s a complicated process, a process being made more complicated because banks don’t really want to give modifications but are being pressured by the government.  Mortgage modification is a process that an experienced attorney should handle especially within a chapter 13 case.

So before you consider sending a large amount of money to an out-of-state company who promises you the world, think about this: “Can I get the Chapter 13 trustee to prove this modification and an amended plan by myself?”  The reason you should ask that question is because if you go behind your attorneys back and do this, they are likely to find a way out of the case, and then you’ll be left with no representation.

For my angry client, they got a happy ending to their case.  All they need to do is catch up their chapter 13 plan and they will have a confirmed Chapter 13 bankruptcy case.  They don’t have to lose their home.

When you’re ready to stop playing games with the out-of-state mortgage modification companies, call me at 484-661-2891 or e-mail me at jim@padebt911.com to schedule your free, no obligation consultation.

Maybe you’ve heard it, it has something that sounds like gospel music playing in the background and the song has a lot to references to freedom.  I’m not against freedom, but it’s clear that they were targeting a demographic, and that demographic is African-American people, particularly women

I market to a specific demographic too, so there is nothing inherently wrong in targeting your audience to make sure your message reaches the right group of people who need your services, but this is more nefarious.

African-American women are being targeted by this company because they believe they are an easy mark for an inferior product at a lower price.  This debt settlement company’s product is inferior because they are not lawyers, in fact you will probably learn that their employees are in as much debt, if not more, than you are.

I have heard the Spanish language version of this ad.  This ad has Latin music playing in the background, so what?  As stated earlier, there is nothing wrong with demographic marketing.

What is wrong is the reason behind this target.  This company preys on these people because they are unlikely to fight back.  The Spanish speaking customer who is wronged will call in and suddenly they will not be able to find a Spanish speaking employee on site (by the way, I just hired my first bi-lingual employee today, his name is Manuel, and he will be converting this site into Spanish over the next few weeks).  Spanish speakers have less access to the courts because of the language barrier and if there is an immigration issue hanging over their head, they do not want to be noticed.  One immigration lawyer told me this company can market to Hispanics because “if they screw up and the customer tries to sue, they will get them deported!”

I suspect this company is targeting African-American women for similar reasons.  Most African-American women who go to a debt settlement company do not have extra money to hire a lawyer to chase this company if they fail to deliver.

I might be completely off-base.  There may not be any bad intention on this company’s part, but I’m pretty good at smelling a rat, and non-lawyer debt settlement is a lousy product.

If you are ready to resolve your debt problems and are ready to talk to a lawyer who will show you the respect you deserve, call me at 484-661-2891 or email me at jim@padebt911.com, and you can experience freedom from debt too.

It was a simple ad really, Chapter 7 bankruptcy $399.  So I started thinking what’s the catch.  Generally speaking attorneys in the Lehigh Valley charge anywhere from $1600-$3000 for Chapter 7 bankruptcy service depending on the complexity of the case.

So I open the add and started snooping around.  The first thing I noticed on the add is that it said $399 plus the court filing fees.  The court filing fees in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania are $299, so this ad is misleading.  The unsuspecting customer clicks onto the site expecting to pay $399 and have a bankruptcy case filed for them.  They are caught unawares by the $299 filing fee, but more than that they eventually are e-mailed a bankruptcy petition that they are expected to file with the court themselves.

What makes this ad so nefarious is that the company, who shall remain nameless because I don’t give Google love to frauds, has a name that sounds like it is a law firm.  Its website makes it look like it’s a law firm.  Its not a law firm, it is a bankruptcy petition preparer.

If your bankruptcy petition preparer I’m not mad at you, in fact on some simple cases, a bankruptcy petition preparer might be all a consumer needs to get back on their feet.

For the vast majority of consumers, their cases are more complex, and filing the petition on your own only sets you up for failure.

My father was right when he told me in this world you get what you pay for, and if you’re paying $399 for an attorney to file a bankruptcy, they probably aren’t very good.  Most likely though they aren’t even an attorney, and instead of the quality legal protection and counsel that you need, you get a PDF e-mailed to you and be told to finish the job on your own.

If the financial future of yourself and your family is worth too much to leave it in the hands of an out of state petition preparer and you are ready to get real help from a real live lawyer who specializes in helping people with their debt problems, then call me at 484-661-2891 or email me at jim@padebt911.com to set up a free consultation.

The call came in around 6:15 PM, and a man who claimed to be from Visa/Mastercard called saying he could lower the interest rate on my credit card to 6.9%. I still have one credit card left, and like I said I was curious, so I decided to chase the rabbit and find out what the story is.

He first asked if I had a credit card with a high balance but that I was at least $1000 under my credit limit. He said those were the parameters to make sure he could help me. I said yes.

So then he asked what the credit card number was. Normally my smarter side would kick in and I wouldn’t give this information out, so I grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down a sixteen digit number that started with a “4″ and gave it to him. I wrote this number down so I could keep the ruse going. If this guy was going to hang himself, I would need to give him some rope.

At that point, I asked for his name, and he replied “Ronney Archer.” He then asked for my expiration date, which I made up as well.

He then asked for the seven digits on the back of the credit card. I made up some more numbers, making sure the fourth number was a “0″ in order to fit within Visa’s parameters. I asked him for a phone number and he gave me a phone number that wound up being a phone line for a motel registration company.

Finally, if I wasn’t sure this was a scam, Ronney asked for the phone number for customer service and put me on hold. (I know Citibank’s phone number from memory because I deal with them so often) He told me he was checking with another department to lower my rate by I know darn well that he was calling to check the space on my card.

He came off hold and asked me if he had the right credit card number and repeated it to me. I told him he was one number off. He then asked for my social security number. I gave him a bogus number ending in “0666″ and he put me back on hold.

A few minutes later, he got back on the phone and he asked if he had the right credit card number again. I changed one more number and he asked me if he could have my phone number in case we got disconnected. I decided to do what I call the U.S. test and I gave him the number 215-867-5309. Any American over age 30 would remember that phone number from the annoying 80s song and call bull, but this guy did not.

All told, I spent 20 minutes on the phone with this crook and hopefully I cost him some money.

There is fraud out there, everywhere, and if you are not careful, you could get taken. Never give out personal information over the phone to someone claiming they will help you. Your bank has your card number and expiration date, they also have your social security number, no one calling from your bank should ever ask for this information.

If you are ready to get real help from a real live lawyer who specializes in helping people with their debt problems, then call me at 484-661-2891 or email me at jim@padebt911.com to set up a free consultation.

I have a current client who is pursuing a mortgage modification.  I will not mention which mortgage company because they are a major player and I do not believe they are at the root of the problem.

My client got a letter from that mortgage company saying their modification had been agreed upon and that they needed to wire $3300 via Western Union to a payment center that she never had sent money to before.  Furthermore, it required the money to be wired within five days or the modification would be lost.

This is an elaborate scam that most likely has its start on the mortgage company’s floor.  At the very least, someone sold a list of people who applied for mortgage modifications to an unscrupulous person/company.  It might also have its roots in the office of one of those so-called “mortgage modification companies” or “lawyer-based debt relief companies.”  I’m not sure where it came from, but it had to come from a place where you can get a list of people who are pursuing mortgage modification, and there really are only two places like that.

Never send money to your mortgage company based on a letter like this without calling them first.

I’m not saying it’s impossible for your mortgage company to send you a letter that asks you for something this unreasonable during a mortgage modification, I’m saying its unlikely.

This is a scheme that is out there, and it is dangerous.  When you send money via Western Union to the wrong people, you are not going to get it back.

When in doubt, call your lawyer, and then your bank, or if I’m your attorney, I will call your bank personally.

If you have gotten one of these letters, or you are considering mortgage modification and you are not sure what your options are, please contact me at jim@padebt911.com or call the office at 484-661-2894 to set up a free, no obligation consultation.