Practice Areas
Car Fraud & Warranties
Some of the tactics unscrupulous car dealers use can include:
- Defective (lemon) vehicles (new & used)
- Delivering the vehicle before financing is approved
- Concealment of vehicle's salvage or wreck history
- "Lemon laundering" -- Previous lemon vehicle sold without disclosure
- Missing or inaccurate credit, lemon law or used car disclosures
- Incomprehensible and illegal vehicle leases
- Improper title and odometer disclosures
- Deceptive sale of extended warranties, credit and GAP insurance
- Many other frauds in the vehicle financing
Learn more at our "Car Problems?" section.
Credit Report Problems
Problems with credit reports can wreak havoc on your financial health. Although you cannot remove accurate information from your credit report unless it is too old, problems you can do something about include:
- Illegal "pulls" of your credit report
- Someone else's information on your credit report
- Bankruptcy-discharged debts reported as charged-off or still owing
- Outdated information (generally 7 years)
- "Re-aging" -- Reporting old debts with new dates
- Identity Theft
- Multiple reports of the same account, sometimes with different names or numbers
- Accounts reported in collection agency's name (Mass. consumers)
Learn more at our "Credit Report Problems?" section.
Debt Collection Abuse
Debt collectors, including collection lawyers, can cross the line in many ways, which may include:
- Threatening legal action when not intended
- False claims to be a lawyer or from a lawyer
- Abusive, improper or excessive phone calls (more than 2 per 7 days in Mass.)
- Collecting debts discharged in bankruptcy
- Giving you false deadlines
- Illegal or unintended threats
- Improper use of court proceedings, encouraging you not to attend a court date
- Telling relatives, neighbors or co-workers about the debt
- Improper entries on your credit report
Learn more at our "Debt Collection Abuse?" section.
Credit Card Problems
Errors and mistakes on credit card billings can be frustrating to deal with and can include:
- Billing you for someone else's account
- Failing to credit you for errors
- Failing to honor your disputes
- Charging a higher rate than promised on balance transfers
Mortgage Abuses
Your home is probably your most expensive investment and the roof over your head. You need to protect it from being jeopardized by:
- Mortgage servicing abuses
- Mortgage loan "flipping" (unnecessary refinancings that profit the lender)
- Illegal financing and document preparation fees
- Failure to credit payments
- Illegal payments to mortgage brokers
- Failing to adjust your adjustable rate
- Improper payment posting
- Improper payoff fees
Consumer Class Actions
Class action cases can arise from most types of consumer problems where a business engages in the same unfair, deceptive, fraudulent and predatory business practices with many consumers, treating them all in the same way. This approach to resolving consumer disputes is an effective tool where businesses make a lot of money by their unfair practices that cost each individual consumer only a small amount. It is also helpful to try to get businesses to stop their illegal practices.
