Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Debt Collectors Face Lawsuit After Florida Man's Death

A woman in Tampa, Florida, is suing debt collectors for contributing to her husband's heart-related death.

Dianne McLeod is suing Green Tree Servicing for the wrongful death of her husband, Stanley, who died in 2005 after a series of heart problems.

Mrs. McLeod says debt collectors repeatedly violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), and the resulting stress led to her husband's death.

The McLeod story hit quite a nerve here at Legal Schnauzer. My wife and I have been subject to blatant unlawful actions from debt collectors. This has caused enormous stress, but so far, our health seems to be holding up. But what if that changes. What if Mrs. Schnauzer has a stroke? What if I have a heart attack?

And what about the abuse we've taken from corrupt members of the Alabama State Bar over the past eight or nine years? I know we enjoyed generally good health when our legal nightmare started in 2000 and 2001. What are the cumulative health effects of being repeatedly cheated in court? If a researcher wanted to examine that question, we could be guinea pigs A and B.

I've already told Mrs. Schnauzer, "If I keel over someday soon, here are the people you need to sue for every penny they are worth." And I wasn't joking.

I'm also not joking about the deleterious effects unethical debt collectors can have on your life. We've already written that Mrs. Schnauzer thinks she was recently cheated out of her job at Infinity Property & Casualty Corporation because of a lawsuit we've filed against two debt-collection outfits--NCO and the Birmingham law firm of Ingram & Associates. In fact, she testified to that effect under oath in a recent deposition.

Mrs. Schnauzer wasn't just blowing off steam. We've uncovered evidence that Lloyd Gray & Whitehead, a Birmingham firm defending NCO, has substantial ties to Infinity Property & Casualty. We've also discovered that at least one very close associate of Alabama Governor Bob Riley--a target of frequent critical coverage here at Legal Schnauzer--resides on Infinity's Board of Directors. (Much more on all of this coming soon.)

Finally, new evidence indicates that even my unlawful termination, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), might have been driven, at least partially, by Ingram & Associates' and NCO's efforts to collect a debt we allegedly owed to American Express. (Much more on that coming, too.)

As for Dianne McLeod, does she have a legitimate lawsuit? Time will tell. But our Legal Schnauzer team hopes she brings Green Tree Servicing to its ugly knees.

Just how bad are some debt collectors? Consider this from a CNN article about the McLeod case:

Billy Howard is an attorney who runs the Consumer Protection Division for Morgan & Morgan. Howard represents McLeod and has about 500 similar cases against companies who use what he called "Tony Soprano tactics," a reference to the fictional organized crime leader who was the central character in the HBO drama "The Sopranos."

"I think it's frightening because these companies go after people and they utilize tactics people just don't know are illegal," Howard said.

"Scare tactics work. They've worked for years. That's how the mafia made so much money. That's how these mafia-like tactics result in so much money. People are scared," he said.

Howard says one of his other clients had this message waiting on the answering machine:

"You're a piece of s---. That's why you turned your phone off. Mother f-----. But that's OK.

"You haven't heard the last of me. But if it takes me a year or takes me two, believe me, I will find you. You better move. But if you move, you better move to California, 'cause I do travel. And I like traveling. Goodbye."

And then there was this one:

"When I see you. I'm gonna f--- you up. I want my money, and I want it now. I hate people who lie to me and abuse my company. ... If you bring my money back, you don't have to worry about me, just disregard my message."

We have not received those kinds of physical threats. But in some ways, we were treated even worse than this. There's little doubt that Mrs. Schnauzer was cheated out of her job because we chose to fight back against corrupt debt collectors. Now, we are seeing more and more signs that I might have lost my job largely because of debt collectors, too.

How low will debt collectors go? They seem to have a bottomless pit of sleazy tactics. We will be following the Dianne McLeod case. And we soon will be going into detail about what we've experienced from the classy crowd at NCO and Ingram & Associates.

1 comment:

  1. Debt collectors are our government.

    Here is my email to the civil rights attorney (best in state of Oregon) about it all since he had me researching the COPS and how to dig into their weapons abuse. OMG what I have discovered ...

    To: attorneys at law
    Subject: Dumber than a box of rocks, I am


    http://billparish.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/oregon-pers-to-cash-in-on-foreclosures/

    The State of Oregon PERS has every imaginable stock to trade we can hope to imagine from UNIFUND as ACA International and a very special set-up of Oregon Collectors Association, Inc. - Home

    Thus, I must step back and ask myself just what in the hell do I think I am doing trying cases in Oregon's court system! There is no such truth: JUSTICE.

    First, every judge must depend upon numbers of guilty parties who have basically been robbed blind by those who put the PERS system into computers to run and rerun the cycles of fraudulent inducement and transference of wealth.

    1980s, first colonial success of full spectrum heist;

    1990s, dot com set-up digital non-transparent exchanges in SEC, government retirements, etc.;

    2001-2010, we all get to give to the richest digital masters of the universe and then die for GREEN to be successful;

    THE BEST - (attorney) - AND THIS IS YOU AS WELL AS THE (attornyes)! ... ATTORNEYS AT LAW

    ARE LOSING.

    Money wins as long as it does not reach the point of return, the law of the universe in Galileo's tried and true scientific proof of gravity is coming around fast now.

    It is a losing battle when the digital system has put the judges into the position of either receiving the trades and exchanges of the hidden hand of the market which is run by the insurance fraud and monetary fraud, too -- or see all that money into their education and years serving in what was thought to be a scholarly pursuit of the law ...

    .... only to find that they are cannibals of the US Constitution for the familial lineages who have been at this same game for years and years --- see how clever they are to put all the government retirees on the sliding scale of how many entrepreneurs feed their trough for the future of no creative genius, clearly.

    I am at a loss in discovering what I have.

    ALL JUDGES: ACOSTA, KING, AIKEN, et al. are doing exactly what they are forced to, from the financial dictatorship of digital debt-credit sold as money.

    Their lives and wealth depend upon being nothing but midwives of the flesh destroyed in the heist of America again and again and again until there is no more.

    COPS sell the products and so do the ATTORNEY-DEBT-COLLECTORS for the vendors who bring the products to the government PERS market.

    The judges protect the sales for those products because their financial power depends upon it.

    PERS cannot be sued. Judges cannot be noticed for conflicts of interest.

    Therefore, a remedy sought for the restoration of transparency in a system that uses human beings as nothing but disposable commodities for those who are the most predatory criminally insane of our species, is not.

    This is truly an abomination of what our country was meant to stand for. I can hardly wait to recycle this energy.

    Thank you (attorney) and my best to the (attorneys). I do not have a clue as to what any of us are going to do.

    Best, RK aka Biloxi Marx

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