CREDIT CARD DEBT LAWYER

Beware of Thieves, whom the police go to college to learn how to catch and convict.

Thieves Tap Into Home Equity
by Bob Tedeschi
The New York Times, Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Homeowners who have significant equity in their homes may be well-advised to check their credit reports frequently.

That is one conclusion of a recent report from the Identity Theft Assistance Center, a nonprofit industry group, which said that identity thieves had recently begun making targets of individuals with good credit because such people often have substantial untapped home equity.

The home equity line of credit is an ideal vehicle for criminals, according to Steve Bartlett, chief executive of the Financial Services Roundtable, a consortium of banking-related companies that offers financial support to the Identity Theft Assistance Center.

Mr. Bartlett said such credit lines are typically "big pools of money," and if consumers do not regularly check their accounts, that pool can drain quickly.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual mortgage fraud report, which was released in April, cited home equity credit fraud as an "emerging scheme" in the slumping real estate and mortgage market.

Those with poor credit have been preyed upon by identity thieves in recent years, because thieves who pretend to be such owners could easily obtain mortgages from subprime lenders with little documentation.

Now that lenders have vastly tightened their lending criteria, criminals who specialize in mortgage fraud have little choice but to move upstream and seek out victims with good credit.

Home equity lines are a favorite option because they are almost as easy to open as a credit card account, as long as a criminal has the proper financial information.

In a typical scheme, the F.B.I. said, perpetrators pose as homeowners to establish home equity credit accounts online.

Criminals will then often send a fax to the bank requesting a wire transfer of funds to a different account. To verify the request, the bank unknowingly calls the perpetrator.

The F.B.I. does not break out various types of mortgage fraud by state, but in general, mortgage fraud is a bigger problem in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut than in many other states. New York is among the 10 states with the highest rate of mortgage fraud, while New Jersey and Connecticut rank in the top 20.

Mr. Bartlett, of the Financial Services Roundtable, said the region was a logical choice for mortgage fraud because of the relatively high value of homes there and the relatively high income of the residents.

Victims of such schemes are typically reimbursed by the lender if a bank investigation confirms fraud, Mr. Bartlett said. But lawyers who represent victims of identity theft said such remedies do not often come quickly or easily.

One way for a homeowner to determine if someone has created an equity credit line is to enroll in an identity fraud detection service like one offered by the Identity Theft Action Center, called ITAC Sentinel.

That service, which costs $10 to $18 monthly, will alert subscribers to credit inquiries or changes to an account.

Mr. Bartlett said that Identity Theft Action Center, a nonprofit organization, earns nothing on the service.

Services like ITAC Sentinel can also provide alerts to debt unrelated to home equity, like credit card accounts recently open in the subscriber's name.

The major credit bureaus -- Equifax, Experian and TransUnion -- offer competing credit monitoring services. And a check of a credit report would also reveal a debt to a bank unknown to the homeowner or a debt to an existing bank that has suddenly grown larger

I'm kind of rehashing Day 1 here?

Holy living hell on gods green earth I can’t take this shit no more! People suing me, companies threatening me, dickheads calling me, lawyers harassing me, courts fining me, government agencies sucking the life out of me, and every tom, dick, and Joe knocking down my door trying to get every bit of money I can possibly squander up and give it to them.

Fuck all you bitches!

Let me start first by saying I’m not some kind of irresponsible trailer trash piece of shit. I haven’t owned a credit card in over 4 years. Most of this “debt” is many years old. I pay all my regular stuff like rent, car, student loans, utilities, and all the stupid other things that life brings me on an everyday basis. At least I try to. I work hard raising my tiny family by myself and paying every fuck that wants money for everything from not coming to a complete stop at a sign to forgetting about a parking meter.

But when some lawyer asshole sued me a few weeks ago for 3 thousand dollars threatening to take 25% of my paycheck to pay off a debt that is over 5 years old I told myself that was it. I’m not paying them. And mostly because over half of that money was originally used by my ex girlfriend to buy drugs and other bullshit and it had nothing to do with me. Fuck that.

So I went down to a lawyer and spoke about bankruptcy. She wanted like $1500 to do it for me.

Hahaha, how can it cost money to tell the world you don’t have money?

So my next step was to promptly go to the bookstore and I bought myself a big fat 500 page book on filing for chapter 7 bankruptcy yourself. I’m a smart guy, so I read the book, got all my records together, and spent my entire weekend organizing and I filed that shit myself. I have about over 100 pages of type written documents and other materials all carefully construed together in a binder that I will be filing with the courts on Monday.

So I guess Joe Blow lawyer won’t be deducting shit from my paycheck. Ha – you lose ace! I get to start over and throw all the bullshit bills, collections, and threats on my life seen in this picture and toss it out in the garbage and start fresh.

Drowning in debt no more? Well- kind of – I still owe on my car and over $40,000 in student loans that aren’t dischargable, DOUH!

Taken April 9th, 2009
Posted April 10th, 2009
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