The Fraudsters radio show interviewed me this week for about an hour on how consumers can arm themselves and proactively protect their credit report, stop or fix violations, and obtain damages for violations under the TCPA, FDCPA, FCCPA and the FCRA. Here’s a direct link to the interview about how…
From time to time, our consumer law practice here in Tampa, Fl has had to shift gears to better use our state and federal laws that protect consumers faced with debt – and the inevitable robocalls and erroneous credit reports that come with that. The current state of robocalls is…
Florida is a state that allows professional licenses to be suspended for non-payment of federal student loans. We had a client who came to us last month after having her LPN license suspended. This is even worse than a garnishment. Rather than 15% of her wages being garnished, which is…
Today, a client elected to have us settle her defaulted federal student loans in full by payment from her 401k. While we normally don’t recommend using protected 401k monies to settle debt, this particular client makes too much for debt forgiveness. A settlement now will likely result in 10% reduction…
An Iowa appellate court ruled recently that a Income Driven Plan with a zero payment “does not ameliorate the undue hardship”. In In re Martin, out of the Northern District in Iowa (8th Circuit) the lender argued that the debtor was not entitled to discharge the loans because she would…
U.S. Passports Can Now Be Revoked for Unpaid Taxes — Can this Expand to Include Unpaid Federal Student Loans? Right now no. Although there are signs that U.S. Passport holders could face a revocation of their passports in the future for defaulted federal student loans. The reason I say this…
Punitive damages are increasing as more people start challenging errors on their credit reports. “Errors” is a funny word. A creditor will likely claim that it was an unintentional “error” that they reported negative information on your credit. But as it really an error? Punitive damages are on the rise…
Initially, twenty some years ago, I worked on the side of the student loan companies. Whenever someone in the State of Florida sought to discharge federal student loan debt in bankruptcy, I was often trial counsel for the student loan company. Our clients ranged from Sallie Mae, ECMC, TERI and…
Fortunately, there are several laws that provide both protection and damages for consumers facing errors on their credit reports. These include the Fair Credit Reporting Act (the “FCRA”), the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (“FACTA”) and most recently the Dodd-Frank amendments. Credit reports are not only key to obtaining…
During the mortgage meltdown, many homeowners received financial assistance from a fund set up by Florida called Florida’s Hardest Hit Program. This was primarily for folks whose income dropped during the recession. Due to lack of funds, the program has now ceased taking applications. However, there is one assistance program…