threatening letter
Complaint
C
Country: United States
My daughter was 17 years old and she made a mistake in a clothing store, she returned the top. Later I got a letter from Palmer Reifler and Associates for a settlement of $150. I did not do any research about this law firm and agreed to pay in three payment. First payment, I sent $50 by Moneygram, the other two checks I mailed to the office. Today, I received a message at my work, claiming that I still owe them another $285. I called them, I said I paid total $150 and I had the receipt and cancelled checks. A lady told me that my last check was received one day late on the payment. She demanded $285 by this Saturday.They threatened me again. NEED HELP!!
Comments
Check these out: http://prascare.blogspot.com/
http://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/palmer--rei ... rs---23234.html
https://complaintwire.org/complaint/95wBAAAAAAA/palmer-reifler-assoc
http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2008/07/the_two_master_criminals.php
They can't threaten you. It's illegal. It's always a good idea to sent your payments by certified mail, return requested.
Good luck to you.
Any thoughts, tj?
You can find a WSJ article on them several years ago, and a report from someone laid off by Home Depot that they tried to shakedown after he filed for unemployment.
Mostly they appear to be shaking down parents over minor shoplifting by kids. They are a letter mill, looking for easy money to split with the store. They spout a good line, but not from much of a moral high ground. One of their attorneys might even come around here, and demonstrate his talents with the English language.
Offer one "settlement" and mysteriously the last payment made "doesn't arrive on time", so they "void the settlement agreement", keep the money, then make a new threat demanding a larger amount.
It cost them nothing, once they got your first payments, to turn around and demand more. Find an excuse, or make up one. How're you going to prove it, when you never saw it coming?
It's "spiff money".
Bottom line in any negotiation is if you can't trust the other party in a proposed contract, there is not much point in agreeing to anything, since you aren't likely to get what you think you are paying for. All you bought is a right to sue, and you know like with any con, they already covered their butt.
They get around the FDCPA prohibitions against deceptive collection, abuse and harassment, and illegal threats, by claiming they are a "law firm negotiating a settlement agreement", not collecting a debt. The secret is that whether you pay them or not has no effect on any prosecution, and that despite millions of such letters they send out, they may have only sued several times, in their home state of Florida.
You would be better off keeping your money.
Or use it instead to pay an attorney to write a letter, indicating that he is representing you in the matter.
Regardless of FDPCA, which they claim doesn't apply to them, then by bar rules, they must only communicate with your attorney, and no longer contact you directly. That makes it rather hard to threaten and deceive you by implication, so it's not worth the trouble anymore.
Reports are they move on to easier pickings.
They are about as fun to analyze from a game theory perspective as the shakedown debt collectors.
Or what?
Bet she was careful to leave that part out, or word it like "the store could choose to do...".
Learn to recognize Weazel English.
Demanding $285 as an offer to settle, and telling you that you "owe" it are two different things.
If she told you that you "owe" it, then they (or at least she), are now a debt collector again, collecting this "debt" rather than "negotiating a settlement".
Your counterposition might be that they just renegged on the "settlement agreement", this supposedly "late" payment is made up because they sat on their mail to fabricate it, and that they are in breach of contract for now demanding $285. You want treble damages (3x$150) plus your attorney fees, and FDPCA statutory $1000 penalty.
Or drive a wedge between the b*tch and the company, by suing her personally.
She is the one that stepped into the role of "debt collector", and she is separately liable for FPDA violations even if her employer maintains they are not.
How badly does her employer really want to waste money defending a federal FDPCA lawsuit that potentially might decide that they are a "debt collector", a position they have been working carefully to avoid? Cheaper to toss her under the bus.
Welcome to the House of Games.
Why don't you contact an attorney?
Many will review your case for free.
You might try www.naca.net to find a consumer attorney in your state.
It's not worth much in other cases either, which is why they use a letter mill instead.
Honesty makes no difference to the letter mill, since they exist to hide behind their lack of knowledge of "facts".
You now know what type of business you were dealing with, so take your business elsewhere.
Advise your friends to do the same, since the business can't be trusted.
This is not some product or service that someone has bought and not paid for.
It's all framed as a "settlement" to buy them off from supposedly suing under state laws that allow stores to sue in cases of shoplifting, to recover "damages" attributed to their costs of risk control.
Any obligation is alleged by implication and careful choice of words, as they carefully try to maintain that they are a "law firm negotiating a settlement" rather than a "debt collector". The amounts they toss out appear to be pulled out of thin air, based on the nuisance or scare value of the implied threat.
Doesn't sound like the minimum wage drones are really that careful about avoiding the FDCPA minefield. They are depending on conning suckers. Pay them off just to make them go away, but as you would expect, they just come back for more.
That classifies them behaviorally as predatory and sociopathic.
If by some chance you get a collection notice, demand they bring in a tape of the alleged theft, and ask that they bring in the security person. Once you get the security person in court, get an information subpena and make the SOB Sweat. In one case I know of the security guard was an NYPD cop that was dirty, and cut a deal, didn't take long to bury him and home depot. This is a large scam netting millions from scared people, and supported by the Crocked State of Florida.
PRA are sleazy bottom feeder lawyers who've created a business based on extortion.
Their practices are marginally legal. Their ethics are despicable.
Don't pay, you owe nothing. If you pay it will be worse for you. You will be followed in retail stores
for the rest of your life. This information will follow you into job interviews. Whatever you do, DONT PAY! The calls &letters will go away. Block them, get a new phone & forget about it.
PRA are SO much bigger than just shoplifting. They have never sued a single person, they don't have to
because dupes like us send them money!
Retailers LOVE PRA because its free revenue for them. They provide PRA with names.
PRA control the curriculum of DOC theft classes.
The reason this information is not all over the internet is because PRA trolls scour the internet &
corrupt all the files they don't like. PRA's golden goose is worth hundreds of millions.
Be smart, don't make another stupid expensive mistake.