Interview With A Legal Assistant

This is an interview conducted by Elizabeth Grieco, (Pocono Environmental Coalition and Wildlife Society), about the rampant fraud present in our society. We decided to post it on hubpages for the educational benefits to consumers. This is just one example of some things witnessed over the years in the legal business.

Witnessing The Storm Of The Century
Interview with a legal Assistant:

In the Legal - Collection Industry, (in many capacities) since 1982. What kind of fraud are we taking about? Social security fraud, identity theft, credit card theft, mortgage theft, insurance theft, foreigner fraud, and grand theft/larceny.

She is infuriated, that in our collapsed economy that this egregious, fraudulent behavior against the consumer still persists more than ever. In contrast, She remembers working at the largest collection agency in New York, managing and overseeing day to day operations, she alleges that she was prevented from taking clear and concise action on many occasions for the protection of the consumer and up holding the Federal Law’s pertaining to Consumer Rights.

In one incident, (early in her career), she was representing the Parking Violations Bureau for Scofflaw Parking tickets, and her duty was to execute on many accounts throughout the five boroughs of New York City. Consequently, this one particular execution caused the first death of a city Marshall on the job. He was collecting $30,000.00 in parking tickets, whereby he was fatally shot in the head while proceeding to seize vehicles at a collision shop in Manhattan. It was a devastating event to deal with at the age of 18 years, in the start of promising career.

Despite this horrible event taking place many years ago, which left a permanent scar in her memory and on her heart, she has never faltered in her position to represent what is right for the people. At one point, she was tagged as a Benedict Arnold by her employer’s, because she cared about the people, regardless if they were being sued or not. Steadfastly, she maintains that love is a universal language, operating through love brings greater success in any business or industry worldwide.

She is known to go after collection agencies and lawyers who violate Consumer

Rights and break Federal Law. For example, in 1983, she was the youngest female

Consumer Rights activist, at nineteen years old, to successfully sue two New York

attorneys by winning a third party disclosure case, which was a violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, FDCPA. She was successful in actually having one lawyer disbarred and the other lawyer left with an official record of violating Federal Law. This historic landmark case took place in Mineola, Long Island in a filled court room, (open to the public), as her peers looked down to witness this young whipper snapper in action as she pleaded and won her case which caused the court room to applaud and cheer. She believes today that good morals and principals are essential to continue creating the building blocks for a solid foundation for success. The collateral damage that we see today in the mortgage industry, with the financial economy collapsing can be attributed to the rampant fraud within the banking, collection and legal industry.

How was this perpetuated and why?

1) Banking guidelines are 26/36 DTI (debt to income ratio)

2) Broker can operate to 50/50 DTI (debt to income ratio)

3) Brokers and appraiser’s inflating value and commissions played a role

4) Collection attorneys and real estate attorneys, were supposed to represent what is right and legal

5) Banks were supposed to represent the consumer, but allowed

a gateway for the Brokers to commit fraud.

6) Banks became overrun with an increase of fraudulent activity that they

inappropriately sold or placed into collection firms.

In the factoring industry, it is typical to buy a five million dollar portfolio of accounts at a 20% discount,(which is typical for notes), the bank acquires those instruments at a discount and are able to use their full face value, thus increasing their full net worth. Banks receive a tax write off for their charged off debt, that they sell for pennies on the dollar in portfolios of millions of accounts.

Conversely, the banks, brokers, accountants and lawyers each played a part in facilitating the Environment for fraud to be committed. Standing idly by watching the fraud being committed and doing nothing about it. This is not only a violation of their own ethics but a gross crime against humanity.

One of the reasons why the fraud became prevalent is because banks are restricted in writing paper and not restricted in buying paper. So it became routine for them to buy the paper written by the private industry, thereby allowing them to increase their net worth.

Another reason why the fraud accelerated, is because the private industry (being unrestricted) found an open gateway for fraud to be committed. Resulting in manipulation of property values as well as applicants financial documentation to acquire loans. Brokers also in collusion with appraisers orchestrated the packaging and document creation, in a stacking order to facilitate the fraud, with the majority of the consumer’s not having a clue of what was going on with their mortgages. They knew the crimes to commit to get the loans done. They incorporated this practice into their daily routines. Hence, the process of committing fraud becoming so common place and matter of fact. The credit card debt got absorbed by the refi craze via the inflated values that did not exist in the first place.This created a double and triple whammy effect on the consumer population, who was left holding the bag. To compound the problem they charge off the inflated debt and sell off the portfolio for pennies on the dollar, while taking a tax write off. They also didn’t scrutinize loans properly that were submitted by the many mortgage brokers, because they only focused on making profit.

All banks, brokers, accountants, and lawyers have a fiduciary responsibility to their clients to protect their information, consumer rights, money, credit and accounts. A fiduciary responsibility requires that you protect all aspects of any given financial transaction. Today, this fraudulent behavior has reached pandemic proportions causing a ripple effect of collateral damage in multiple ways upon the consumer. A recent experience at a collection law firm, (where she was also successful), she was able to reconfirm the astonishing amount of fraud and criminal cases coming into the firms. Upon witnessing the fraud herself, and attorneys, and legal staff also witnessing it, she knew things were getting much worse. She was witnessing fraud, as well as witnessing collection lawyers witnessing the fraud openly and in a common place manner. They were fully aware they were being witnessed by her, witnessing the fraud, and choosing to do nothing about it.

Over the years she literally begged many to help her go after fraud cases, and could not gain the cooperation of anyone, so she did it herself. Nobody wanted to be bothered, even though it was everywhere, and we the tax payers are paying for this fraud. It was rampant, and common place, and it was also very apparent nobody intended on taking any action to correct it. Why? Too complicated, and not enough money for them. It's always about the profit, not the protection of the consumers who directly cause that profit in the first place. You have no consumers, you have no business to profit from... The end. Hence the collapse of our economy.

Today is the beginning of a swift switch to the other side. Now she has her own branch of a nationwide law firm to help people settle their debt, and has other methods of educating the public on appropriate maneuvers they can make to solve their financial distress. Her belief is educating people on their options, and the truth, through love, the end results are favorable, and positive...no matter what action or event may be occurring. She has appropriately chosen the side of representing the people, officially. May the compilation of the facts begin...A proactive movement has begun.

Ironically she herself has been harassed on a daily basis since 2004 for a paid in full debt that has now been sold more than 25 times. All 25 plus firms violated the FDCPA, and the FCRA, among other acts. This is another fine example of proof and evidence readily available to substantiate the rampant disregard for federal law, and consumers rights.