Hard collection inquiry litigation

Hi Christine. I haven't posted here in a while. I have bent over arm and leg to try to help consumers at another popular credit board that have been the victim of multiple hard inquiries however the owners didn't like how I was proving them wrong so they attempted a character assassination of me and started banning me saying I was dissemating incorrect information. However, I followed through with my suit and won. I posted there again today after months of inactivity and one of the guys banned me again telling those that were asking what happened to my post that I was some kind of troublemaker. Someone was asking for the info and I didn't want to give the case information due to the fact that I'd like to try to maintain my confidentiality for security reasons as much as possible. But I volunteered to post my judgement when I got it.

If you don't mind, I'd like to post my post here. I believe it will be very informative.

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Hi, all. This is my first post in what has been ages. I finally took my former credit to court in small claims. And for those that need some remembering, I went round and round with the owners of this site(Pam, LKH) and others(Sassy) about whether or not a current creditor can make hard inquiries against your credit file.

This case was fairly easy to win because of my hard work and effort in researching and knowing California law. But California law is almost identical to the FCRA so anyone can sue from any state, but you usually would have to sue in Federal Court unless your state has the same provisions as California law and the FCRA that allows for damages if they do to you what they did to me.

Okay, about the suit. My argument was very straight forward. Any inquiry that is ever put into your hard inquiry section is an inquiry that is done by a creditor that is stating that "so and so consumer is requesting additional credit from me, the creditor". However, if a creditor of us, the debtors, is simply doing an account review, whether or not for collection purposes or not, then the inquiry is gonna go into the soft inquiry section of your credit report. Now, the reason for this is simple. California law and the FCRA states that any request for a credit file that is not the result of a credit transaction of the consumer must not be seen by anyone besides the consumer. Because of that the CRA's must know the exact reason for the pursose of the credit file pull at the time of the credit report pull. Both California law and the FCRA state that the person doing the pull must certify the use of the credit report and certify that it won't be used for any other purpose. Therefore if they certify that you're taking out additional credit, but you are not, then they would in fact be in violation simply because they are using it for a purpose other than was has been certified by them and the end result is usually a lowering of your credit score which was exactly what my former creditor was trying to do. This is true even if they have a permissible purpose for a report, such as for you having an account with them.

I had defaulted on a loan with them, unfortunately, and as a result for the next 36 months they were pulling credit reports as hard pulls at least once a month. They were trying to keep my score low so I would be forced to pay off the deficiency balance. Also, they did a soft pull two weeks after my bankruptcy date.

They tried to argue that they had a permissible purpose for the credit report pulls, which I conceded to and figured they would argue for. However, as I said, and the judge agreed, they have a responsibility to report the correct purpose for the pull so that they do not violated my rights and attempt to harm my credit score. It was great because I had all parts of the California Civil code in hand and quoted directly from them in my argument which went off like a charm. I was so happy.

The judge found for me for the amount of 5000 which is the maximum amount of California law.

This is a big victory for California consumers. If anyone from anywhere wants to hear once again my entire argument and my quotes from the law, just shoot me off a pm.

Oh, and to my critics. ner ner ner ner ner ner

I will post a copy of the judgment as soon as it arrives in the mail.

This is indeed a big victory - even though it's only small claims.

Your argument makes PERFECT sense.

And while your posting fits here, I'd really like to see it at the new Fight Back!!! forum (http://fight-back.us/forum/index.php?showforum=10), after all, you DID fight back!

I may have to make a separate forum just for inquiries.

And while I'm over here, I need to update with the most disgusting class action settlement ever. Here's the repost from the blog:

http://creditsuit.org/credit.php?/blog/comments/the_worst_class_settlement_ever_was_negotiated_by_lewis_stephen_kahn_kahn/
I thought I wasn’t seeing right.

Kahn Gauthier Law Group negotiated “free credit repair services."

“On January 19. 2005, the Court held a fairness hearing to determine whether the proposed settlement was fair. There were no objections. The settlement provides for ClearCredit to give its members free credit repair services, with no purchase necessary by its members. The value of the services is $6,000,000.00. Additionally, defendant Info1 Holding Co. will provide a $220,000 fund in which it will pay ClearCredit to perform additional credit repair services for members who signed up during the time frame Info1 was providing ClearCredit with credit reports. Notice will be sent on February 24th notifying members that the Claims Period is open. It will last 6 months.”

What the *%^#*&^$@#@@!!!!!!

That just shows how incredibly STUPID attorneys are. Or maybe not stupid, just as vile as it gets? It’s a symbiotic relationship, the corrupt lawyers ensure that the companies they sue can continue to keep on screwing people so they can sue them again.

I’m so sorry for all these people who’ll have their credit destroyed “FREE of charge!"

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It is too bad that there was no interest in following this case, I would have been happy to submit an objection to the court. Too late now ....

There's also a ton of info at Fight Back!!! on credit repair firms, (http://fight-back.us/forum/index.php?showforum=8) including the scan of a secret "proprietary" dispute letter.

This is indeed a big victory - even though it's only small claims.

Your argument makes PERFECT sense.

And while your posting fits here, I'd really like to see it at the new Fight Back!!! forum (http://fight-back.us/forum/index.php?showforum=10), after all, you DID fight back!

I may have to make a separate forum just for inquiries.

Thanks, Christine. If you want, I can post all the necessary parts of the law that are relevant. I believe I'm the first person to sue a "current" creditor based on the fact that they made hard inquiries, and to win.

It sucks because the other board I had been posting is fairly informative, but after the owners made their original argument that a "current" creditor can make hards inquiries and that there's nothing a consumer can do about it, and I proved that to be wrong, they went on a character assassination to discredit me and the others at the site simply joined in, without realizing the owners were upset because I was onto something and was simply proving them wrong. I stated continuously that I was standing up for the average consumer, but the assault continued. I received the judgement this morning and am attempting to post it.

Well, aside from the judgment being barely readable, it seems like you deleted everything that would make it interesting -- why don't you just repost your argument at Fight Back?

Ok, it goes like this...

When you apply for credit to enter into a credit agreement, a creditor(and later if you default, a collection agency) has a permissible purpose to pull your report. They can do so at any time but they still have to certify the purpose of the credit pull as stated here...

http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra.htm#607

§ 607. Compliance procedures [15 U.S.C. § 1681e]

(a) Identity and purposes of credit users. Every consumer reporting agency shall maintain reasonable procedures designed to avoid violations of section 605 [§ 1681c] and to limit the furnishing of consumer reports to the purposes listed under section 604 [§ 1681b] of this title. These procedures shall require that prospective users of the information identify themselves, certify the purposes for which the information is sought, and certify that the information will be used for no other purpose. Every consumer reporting agency shall make a reasonable effort to verify the identity of a new prospective user and the uses certified by such prospective user prior to furnishing such user a consumer report. No consumer reporting agency may furnish a consumer report to any person if it has reasonable grounds for believing that the consumer report will not be used for a purpose listed in section 604 [§ 1681b] of this title.

As well as for here...

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=civ&group=01001-02000&file=1785.10-1785.19.5

1785.14. (a) Every consumer credit reporting agency shall maintain
reasonable procedures designed to avoid violations of Section 1785.13
and to limit furnishing of consumer credit reports to the purposes
listed under Section 1785.11. These procedures shall require that
prospective users of the information identify themselves, certify the
purposes for which the information is sought and certify that the
information will be used for no other purposes. From the effective
date of this act the consumer credit reporting agency shall keep a
record of the purposes as stated by the user.

As you can see, whether or not they have a permissible purpose, the law clearly states that they have to give the reason for the exact purpose of the credit pull. And California law even goes as far as to say that the CRA's have to keep a record of the purposes.

Now, if a creditor or even a collection agency states that they are pulling the report as a result of "a credit transaction initiated as a result of a consumer", but they are not, then it would be fair to say that they are pulling under false pretenses as stated here...

§ 616. Civil liability for willful noncompliance [15 U.S.C. § 1681n]

(a) In general. Any person who willfully fails to comply with any requirement imposed under this title with respect to any consumer is liable to that consumer in an amount equal to the sum of

(1)(A) any actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or damages of not less than $100 and not more than $1,000; or

(B) in the case of liability of a natural person for obtaining a consumer report under false pretenses or knowingly without a permissible purpose, actual damages sustained by the consumer as a result of the failure or $1,000, whichever is greater;

and here...

1785.31. (a) Any consumer who suffers damages as a result of a
violation of this title by any person may bring an action in a court
of appropriate jurisdiction against that person to recover the
following:
(1) In the case of a negligent violation, actual damages,
including court costs, loss of wages, attorney's fees and, when
applicable, pain and suffering.
(2) In the case of a willful violation:
(A) Actual damages as set forth in paragraph (1) above:
(B) Punitive damages of not less than one hundred dollars ($100)
nor more than five thousand dollars ($5,000) for each violation as
the court deems proper;
(C) Any other relief that the court deems proper.
(3) In the case of liability of a natural person for obtaining a
consumer credit report under false pretenses or knowingly without a
permissible purpose, an award of actual damages pursuant to paragraph
(1) or subparagraph (A) of paragraph (2) shall be in an amount of
not less than two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500).

The reason being that the CRA's are required to not display inquiries that are not the result of a credit transaction initiated by a consumer as found here...

§ 604. Permissible purposes of consumer reports [15 U.S.C. § 1681b]

(c) Furnishing reports in connection with credit or insurance transactions that are not initiated by the consumer.

(3) Information regarding inquiries. Except as provided in section 609(a)(5) [§ 1681g], a consumer reporting agency shall not furnish to any person a record of inquiries in connection with a credit or insurance transaction that is not initiated by a consumer.

And here..

1785.11.
(c) Except as provided in paragraph (3) of subdivision (a) of
Section 1785.15, a consumer credit reporting agency shall not furnish
to any person a record of inquiries solely resulting from credit
transactions that are not initiated by the consumer.

These provisions are what created the "soft inquiries" and "hard inquiries" sections of everyones credit reports with all three CRA's. Without them, all inquiries ever done by anyone requesting your credit report would be seen by everyone.

So, the key here is what exactly is the reason code for each credit pull. If it's the CRA's themselves that are placing the credit pull from the creditor into the "hard inquiry" section even though the creditor is submitting the pull as a "collection" pull or even an "account review" pull, then it's not the creditor's fault and you can't sue them. And if it's the CRA's fault, then you would sue them to make them stop. This would apply to what I was talking about in the other thread regarding "collection inquiries" being viewed by others.

This is taken from a previous post of mine at the other board. The part in italics is taken exactly from a standard Experian credit report. What they are admitting to is basically itself a violation. I go on to state............................................................................................

Requests viewed by others

The section below lists all who have requested in the recent past to review your credit history as a result of actions involving you, such as the completion of a credit application or the transfer of an account to a collection agency, mortgage or loan application, etc. Creditors may view these requests when evaluating your creditworthiness.

Just that alone, if it is a true Experian policy, and if carried out, is a violation of both the FCRA and California Civil Code, because if a creditor pulls your report for the purposes of a "transfer of an account to a collection agency", then that is not due to a transaction initiated by a consumer and the inquiry itself should not be included to anyone else besides you according to..

http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/031224fcra.pdf

FCRA § 604. Permissible purposes of consumer reports [15 U.S.C. § 1681b]
(3) Information regarding inquiries. Except as provided in section 609(a)(5)
[§1681g], a consumer reporting agency shall NOT furnish to any person a record of inquiries in connection with a credit or insurance transaction that is NOT initiated by a consumer.

If your friend does have an inquiry and it is due to collection activity whereby the pull is not a result of a transaction initiated by you and the inquiry itself is in the hard inquiry section whereby potential creditors pull your report and see it, then that would be a violation of the law and you could sue Experian for it. I know this for a fact as it is a matter of law. I do not know of anyone suing for it, though.

In my case, since it is the creditor that is misrepresenting the credit pull, my suit is against the creditor for pulling under false pretenses, but yours, or rather your friends, would be against Experian itself....................................................................................

Back to this thread. In my case with regards to my lawsuit, I had an auto loan that I defaulted on back in May of 2001. My former creditor started making hard inquiries about every month for three years. As you know they fall off after two years but I managed to sue on in March of this year a day before one of the inquiries was gonna fall off from 2003 . There was one more from September of 2003 so there were atleast two violations plus they did an account review pull two weeks after my bankruptcy discharge date in 2004. So I had those violations on my report. I called Experian to make sure that the hards were a result of my creditor falsely claiming that I was taking out additional credit back in 2001 and 2002 and so forth and an Experian customer service rep told me it was exactly that.....that my former creditor was certifying that I was taking out additional credit when I was not obviously, since I was in default. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. lol

It's obvious to me that they were doing that to keep my credit score down so that I would be more inclined to pay off my deficiency loan with them. I owed about 6400 bucks or so. That's why they were doing it. I was only able to get 5000 and would have got more if the judge could have allowed, as he put it in his own words. There was a funny story the judge told when I talking about Experian. He said that his dad had recently passed and that he had found out that there was a negative on his report that was actually his dads and that he tried calling the CRA to get it removed but they wouldn't talk to him because they said they couldn't talk to him because he wasn't his dad. Everyone laughed in the courtroom.

Be that as it may, that was my argument.

Ok, very good.

Now, in the FCRA I see this problem:

15 U.S.C. § 1681

(m) Credit or insurance transaction that is not initiated by the consumer. The term"credit or insurance transaction that is not initiated by the consumer" does not include the use of a consumer report by a person with which the consumer has an account or insurance policy, for purposes of

(1) reviewing the account or insurance policy; or

(2) collecting the account.

This seems to be a problem. Both account reviews and collection inquiries are not defined as "transactions not intitiated by the consumer" in the FCRA.

How about Cal. code?

Ok, very good.

Now, in the FCRA I see this problem:

15 U.S.C. § 1681

(m) Credit or insurance transaction that is not initiated by the consumer. The term"credit or insurance transaction that is not initiated by the consumer" does not include the use of a consumer report by a person with which the consumer has an account or insurance policy, for purposes of

(1) reviewing the account or insurance policy; or

(2) collecting the account.

This seems to be a problem. Both account reviews and collection inquiries are not defined as "transactions not intitiated by the consumer" in the FCRA.

How about Cal. code?

That's only referring to the "use" of the report with regards to having a permissible purpose, not with regards to the certification of the exact usage of the creditor obtaining the report. I believe the legislature added that to make sure that creditors could pull a report after having an account established with a debtor so they could be sure that they could try to collect on a bad debt and obtaining a credit report on a debtor would help. so long as it wasn't abused. I also believe that the legislature had a close eye on "inquiries" which is why they added provisions such as how long they had to stay and that only certain ones(those not initiated by the consumer) were allowed to be seen, so that credit scores would not be affected.

I'm glad you brought that up as I noted EXACTLY what you quoted when I originally filed my suit as I was gonna sue based on the fact that I believed that they didn't have a permissible purpose. As I was doing additional research to tie up all loose ends on my original claim, I saw that and had to change arguments, so I amended my claim about two months after filing to change my argument that they were simply pulling under "false pretenses" rather than for suing under "knowingly without a permissible purpose", which was what my original filing was for. :)

You're right.

I reviewed the discussion I had about this with an attorney client (law school is expensive!) in early 2004 and he pointed at 1681m regarding the reporting of collection inquiries to creditors and neither he nor I noticed that 3 letter word "use."

Not only does your argument make perfect sense, but now I think it's legally sound. Unless I'm missing something else.

You obviously realize the tremendous benefits for all with hard collection inquiries and I want to be sure that I'm not missing anything before I tell everybody to file those lawsuits. This is almost too good to be true.

Why don't they agree with you at creditboards? Can you post the URL to the discussion?

Christine, they continued to focus on the fact that they do have a permissible purpose. Every time I brought up my argument(and even would admit that they do have a permissible purpose) they would say "so and so has as permissible purpose so they can do a hard pull at any time when you have an account with them and you have no case". Plain and simple, even after I described my above argument.

I think my problem was I never asked them to describe just why exactly there are "soft inquiry" sections and "hard inquiry" sections. Doing so would have put them on the spot to describe why exactly some inquiries are displayable while others aren't, making them have to admit that there are reasons why it's important for a creditor not to make a credit file pull "under false pretenses". My other problem was that, like I said, my original argument was that they were pulling "knowingly without a permissible purpose", so they just kept thinking I was using that argument, which was wrong, because of what you had quoted above. At some point, I did tell them that I was changing arguments, but I think it was too late.

After some time, they kept calling me a "troll", and being the zealous person I am for myself and the average consumer, I kept reregistering after they kept banning me, and trying to explain that what the owners there were saying, was incorrect and that I had a valid argument. Everyone pretty much kept calling me a troll(those that didn't really care about what I said of course). There were a few that were actually looking forward to what I was trying to accomplish though.

The thing about it is that I never really violated the TOS over there.

If your registration(s) with or ability to access Creditboards.com, any other Creditboards.com community and/or any other service provided to you by Creditboards.com is discontinued by Creditboards.com due to your violation of any portion of these Terms of Service or for conduct otherwise inappropriate for the community of Creditboards.com, then you agree that you shall not attempt to re-register with or access Creditboards.com, any otherCreditboards.com community and/or any other service provided by Creditboards.com, through use of a different member name or otherwise. In the event that you violate the immediately preceding sentence, Creditboards.com reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to immediately take any or all of the actions set forth in subsections (ii), (iii), (iv), (v) and (vi) above without any notice or warning to you.

That's the TOS that they were saying I was violating and in order for me to have violated it by continuing to reregister, I would have had to have done something wrong in the first place.

In other words, let's say the police throw you in jail for no reason, then you break out and they say, "well, so and so broke out of jail so that's the reason we're putting him in jail". It just doesn't make any sense.

Be that as it may, I am never posting there again. I accomplished what I was going to do and that's the best thing to me. :)

Well, as many readers know, I've had my own issues with creditboards.

FICO scores - the debate goes public (http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2958&hl=)

I haven't been banned, I just don't post there anymore. I'm way too busy trying to make a difference.

I consider THEM the trolls - actively working AGAINST legislative changes in favor of a better life for all. And, according to readers, they do credit repair on the side, so it's not entirely non profit as they claim.

It is very sad that ALL the other credit forums ONLY revolve around getting better credit so that people can finance more crap they don't need -- legally or illegally - whatever it takes.

I really don't think that some who had a charge-off last month should get the same rate as someone who never had a late payment. I believe in fairness. I documented that you can have a 720+ FICO score 2 years after filing for bankruptcy -- IF the credit reporting is ACCURATE.

And I've documented how DELETING charge-offs can LOWER the FICO scores by 18 points. (http://fight-back.us/forum/index.php?s=&showtopic=316)

Right now credit reporting is nothing but a way to force people into charge-offs and bankruptcies and to ensure that their credit rating is artificially damaged through INCORRECT reporting.

Those HARD collection inquiries are DEVASTATING to people with aready low scores.

I happen to have an NCO hard collection inquiry (no idea why, I pay my bills on time and didn't get a collection letter), but haven't had time yet to sue them. So I have a personal interest in your argument too and I WILL be testing this myself, most likely in federal court.

And now I got to work on a motion with a Monday deadline and take it to town for filing on Monday, but I'll post the link to the new Fight Back inquiry forum next week.

Thanks so much for "thinking outside the box" and especially for sharing. I'm still a little worried that we're missing something -- it's almost too good to be true. We will find out.

They MAY just appeal. If so, I will certainly keep you posted as I will have my hearing heard in Superior Court, which is a lot better sounding than in small claims. But they haven't yet so I doubt they will.

They often wait till the last day to appeal. If they do appeal, I'd like to refer you to an attorney. It's too important to risk losing -- feel free to e-mail me at christine@bayhouse.com. I have some personal not so good Cal. small claims experience too.

Will surely do, Chistine.

You asked for other threads, most have been removed from view by the mods. They did this to cover everything up. As I said, I registered using other names and continually was banned. Let me reiterate that I never insulted anyone and never posted anything derogatory or incorrect. Some of the names I used were johnnybgood(my original name), shygyrliecue, shadycrisp, snowplow2005, and newyearsday2005. They attempted to remove every thread, however there's a glitch in their system that allows for the posts of threads that have been removed from view to still be seen if you do a search by username and check the "show by posts" box. Do that and you can see a lot of the activity.

When I got my judgement, I posted at their site about my judgement(as I PROMISED I was gonna do, if in fact I ever won my case), but they removed it before most could see it, but someone posted a thread about that very thread(http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=126285) and asked why they removed it. Unfortunately, my thread was removed, but I saved that guys entire thread for future reference. I managed to get a post in that thread that was seen by a few people that were currently reading it and you can see their replies starting with hurricanefans27's post on the second page. He actually supports me, but after the character assassination that is totally uncalled for and unjustified, you an see him take back a bit of his credit of me. LKH even goes as far as for calling me a "punk". I can not tell you how many times he's called me that in my time posting there. I have NEVER done the same.

This was my EXACT post there.

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http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?act=Search&CODE=show&searchid=3b8dcb0b7f03429c3b2544d14020e305&search_in=posts&result_type=posts&highlite=

It's a shame that the owners have been unable to accept the fact that they have been wrong. I have done nothing to them but have fought in earnst to help the consumers that have been taken advantage of by collection agencies and those that have continuously tried harming people's credit by making unauthorized hard inquiries. Everything I have done has been based on principle and it appears that that takes a back seat here.

Be that as it may, my judgement came in the mail today and I have just scanned it and taken out stuff so I can try to stay as anonymous as possible. Considering the character assassination I have taken from the owners of this site for no reason at all, it's obvious that there could be problems if my identity is freely thrown around.

You can find a copy of the judgment at the link below and I only ask that this thread be left up as a reminder that I have won and have accomplished what I set out to do. As such, I will vow not to post here ever again.

p.s. If anyone works really hard you can find my case on the internet.

http://www.creditforum.org/showthread.php?p=11455#post11455
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There is no reason why they would not have had any problem leaving that post up for all to see. I posted it a bunch of times, but it kept getting deleted. While looking at that thread and all others and my posts, it should be obvious that the owners there have a problem, not me. They allude to in that thread that they're gonna sue me. I look forward to that day and the look on that judge when I show that I did nothing wrong and didn't even break their TOS. Lol

It's obvious to any reasonable person, that there is something else going on.

Hi Christine,

I know this is a long time coming, but I should update you on how this went. They did appeal and we had our case heard the same day. I basically did a lousy job of presenting my case and basically lacked the fundamental aspect of my case, and that was that I didn't sue Experian and get a court order demanding that they disclose to me exactly which code was entered by Fireside Thrift(now Fireside Bank) when they initiated all the credit pulls. So, since the judge didn't see proof that it was Fireside that was purposely pulling under false pretenses(namely by saying it was me making the request for an extension of credit), instead of entering the code for an "Account review" as should have been the case, I do not believe that the judge could seriously rule in my favor.

One thing that worked against me was my lack of experience in smalls claims. I made a motion to force Experian to show up and produce the records, namely those saying exactly what code Fireside entered when making each and every credit pull of myself, and when I had the hearing the judge told me I couldn't make them show up since they were not a party to the case.

Obviously, I know now that I should have sued Experian and made a motion to compell to have them turn over the documents so I could use them in my suit against Fireside.

However, I still plan on taking on this issue of collectors and collection agencies making hard pulls when they should be doing soft pulls since this appears to be an industrywide practice and is against the FCRA and CA state law, but I have no way of knowing whether or not it is specifically collection agencies that are purposely entering the codes incorrectly or rather the CRA's that have a bad software setup that makes the inquiries show up in the hard inquiry section instead of the the soft section where they belong.

I plan on suing in the next month or so given the fact that I have a collection from a company that made hard pulls around a half year or so ago. I will post updates here. I believe this will be very informative and certainly look forward to proving the boneheads at creditboards wrong. :)

Just one quick thing, if you'd like to take my first post in this thread and make a new thread out of it, I think that would be the best use of my resources revolving around this case.

thanks again, Christine

Ok, made a new thread.

Consumers RARELY prevail in a small claims appeal as it's handled in California. When you're up against the lawyers, you really don't have a chance. You don't know that law.

I think that the only way to really make a difference is to file in federal court where you can read their arguments and then respond AFTER taking a few days or weeks to do RESEARCH.

And you have to do discovery, which you can't do in small claims. BTW, did you read my Experian depos? I tried to get some info about the inquiries, but didn't get anywhere, the person they produced really wasn't qualified to answer my questions.

Of course depos are expensive, but that's what it takes. The consumer lawyers are totally letting us down, so it's us or nobody.

Another problem is that while you can prevail in small claims, you're not making case law unless you get a detailed written ruling and even then it doesn't count for a lot.

But it IS good practice.

Anyway, if you want to sue again, I'll be glad to create a topic for you at http://creditfactors.com/ or http://creditlitigation.org/cgi-bin/resources/discus.pl to share research and discuss arguments and strategy. Obviously, that should NOT be public for the defendants to see.

And I AM now suing NCO, although the judge might just dismiss them because not all defendants/claims are related. There are so many mistakes to make ... I hope that soon I've made them all :)

And even if they are dismissed, I'll sue them again. And I DO share my filings.

The person that wound up showing up was in no way versed in law or credit. I'm certain he was not a lawyer. He didn't have to do much since it was me that had the burden of proof to establish.

My problem is I don't know how to use the Federal Court system. I wish I had your expertise. I plan on giving it another go in Small Claims and I believe that if and when I do win, they will appeal to Superior Court and I will gain more experience there. Then I can move on to going after Equifax and Transunion in federal court since they do not have a physical presence in CA and I can't sue them in small claims here. Experian has a physical location on Costa Mesa, CA which is why I can sue them in small claims. If I'm missing anything here, lemme know.

You're missing a lot. For one, of course you can sue TU and Equifax in Cal. small claims, they have registered agents in every state.

What worries me about you is that you are completely unable to do any research and you just don't understand the legal system. Even though I just explained a few things to you, you're determined to make the same mistakes again.

And I don't have any legal expertise. I filed my first federal suit in 2003 and I basically copied an attorney's complaint and modified it for my purpose. If you can't copy and paste, you shouldn't file lawsuits. I knew nothing. I read the court's rules and didn't understand them.

It wasn't until 8/05 when FINALLY AZ district court started electronic filing. Of course it took a while until there were similar cases with the type of filings I was interested in and to date few of my claims are litigated, but by now there's a tremendous resource available to anyone at 8 cents a page.

I subscribe to the junk fax litigation list and there are litigants who are NOT attorneys and they appeal all the way to the state supreme court and PREVAIL. Well, sometimes. I have learned so much from the junk fax litigants, the lawyers there explain legal issues, concepts and strategies.

There is an FDCPA litigation list, but the lawyers will not allow consumers to join. That tells you something right there.

I have maintained http://creditlitigation.org/ for over a year, I have yet to have anyone share anything.

So maybe the FDCPA lawyers are right, consumer litigants are just a nuisance?

Sometimes I can't help but think that consumers get what they deserve. Not everybody is up for the stress of litigation, but NOBODY?

Anyway, I'm really busy. I have two active appeals, an active federal suit, most likely a 2nd one soon. I just filed my objection to the Hillis / Slack class action and now there is the next class action to object to. In case anyone reading here doesn't know, my blog is at http://creditsuit.org/.

Your chances of prevailing in small claims are quite good, but I'll give it 90+% that you'll lose on appeal. And even if you prevail, there's no written record, no filings, nothing to cite, it might not even help you in your next small claims case.

You're missing a lot. For one, of course you can sue TU and Equifax in Cal. small claims, they have registered agents in every state.


While they have agents, I was unaware I could sue them in small claims. I knew that I could sue them in Federal court because you can sue anyone in federal court, however since they didn't have a physical presence in ca, I thought I couldn't sue them in state court.


What worries me about you is that you are completely unable to do any research and you just don't understand the legal system. Even though I just explained a few things to you, you're determined to make the same mistakes again.

Quite the contrary. I already have an account with pacer so I can access us courts if I choose to do so. I am not too sure what mistakes I will make by suing in small claims. While my suit can't be used as case law if I win, if and when they appeal, it would go forward to Superior Court and I would like to think a decision there would be written.


And I don't have any legal expertise. I filed my first federal suit in 2003 and I basically copied an attorney's complaint and modified it for my purpose. If you can't copy and paste, you shouldn't file lawsuits. I knew nothing. I read the court's rules and didn't understand them.


Don't short change yourself. While being very agressive and possibly turning some consumers off, some consumers, including myself, strongly value your constant struggles on behalf of yourself and every other consumer that is being taken advantage of by big corportions and those with a lot of money at stake in keeping the average consumer down.


It wasn't until 8/05 when FINALLY AZ district court started electronic filing. Of course it took a while until there were similar cases with the type of filings I was interested in and to date few of my claims are litigated, but by now there's a tremendous resource available to anyone at 8 cents a page.

I agree. Keep on fighting.


I subscribe to the junk fax litigation list and there are litigants who are NOT attorneys and they appeal all the way to the state supreme court and PREVAIL. Well, sometimes. I have learned so much from the junk fax litigants, the lawyers there explain legal issues, concepts and strategies.
.

As a result of resuming my credit action and returning on a regular basis to sites like yours, I have already signed up there and with class action lawsuit center to continue to educate myself.


There is an FDCPA litigation list, but the lawyers will not allow consumers to join. That tells you something right there.

I have maintained http://creditlitigation.org/ for over a year, I have yet to have anyone share anything.

So maybe the FDCPA lawyers are right, consumer litigants are just a nuisance?


Or they could be afraid of consumers suing on their own and the FDCPA laywers missing out on cases they would otherwise be acting up on behalf of said consumers.


Sometimes I can't help but think that consumers get what they deserve. Not everybody is up for the stress of litigation, but NOBODY?



Anyway, I'm really busy. I have two active appeals, an active federal suit, most likely a 2nd one soon. I just filed my objection to the Hillis / Slack class action and now there is the next class action to object to. In case anyone reading here doesn't know, my blog is at http://creditsuit.org/.

Your chances of prevailing in small claims are quite good, but I'll give it 90+% that you'll lose on appeal. And even if you prevail, there's no written record, no filings, nothing to cite, it might not even help you in your next small claims case.

There is no case law on what I am gonna attempt to accomplish. There is an industrywide acceptance of collection agencies making hard inquiries and wrecking consumers credit when they are not attempting to take out credit and it needs to stop. Now.

Well, I obviously hope that you prevail.

The CRAs, creditors and collectors share their litigation experiences and they spend many millions on expert legal advice.

I've been in court pro se for several years now and I receive next to no support from the 200 million people who I'm fighting for. I'm broke. I'm tired.

And I'm very pessimistic.

Well, I obviously hope that you prevail.

The CRAs, creditors and collectors share their litigation experiences and they spend many millions on expert legal advice.

I've been in court pro se for several years now and I receive next to no support from the 200 million people who I'm fighting for. I'm broke. I'm tired.

And I'm very pessimistic.

Thanks.

And if you were so pessimistic, you wouldn't be doing all the work you do.....and prevail at the same time.

I have sent you an email with my aim name.