Illegal Business Practices

Collection Letters and Illegal Collection Practices

Please send or email us copies of any collection letters that you receive. Debt collectors and collection lawyers often violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. This law provides consumers with various rights and it prohibits certain debt collection practices. You may be entitled to recover up to $1000 plus actual damages. Typical violations are:

• Form letters supposedly sent from lawyers or law firms when that is not the case. (Form letters from out of state lawyers might violate the law.)
• Payment demand letters which insist on payment within less than 30 days or don’t clearly state the exact amount of the debt or imply that the debt is increasing and that payment of some unstated larger amount is required or mandatory
• Demands for attorney’s fees prior to suit when contracts provide for fees only if suit is filed
• Lawsuits filed by bad debt buyers
• Stating you will or may be reported to the IRS if you don’t pay the debt
• Stating that you will or may be prosecuted criminally (usually on bounced checks)
• Changing the default date used to compute the seven-year period a bad debt can remain on your credit report. (A collection agency or bad debt buyer is required to use the same date as the original creditor. Often, they use a newer date, which allows the entry to remain on your credit report longer.)
• Contacting neighbors and employers when there is no need to do so.
• Adding collection charges even though there is no contractual right to do so.

Credit Solicitations That Violate Your Privacy Rights

Many consumers are inundated with junk mail containing offers from mortgage lenders and car finance companies. The senders of these mailings obtain credit reports or lists of bankruptcies and target them. Many of these offers are illegal if the fine print fails to provide all loan terms or if insufficient funds are actually guaranteed for purchase of a car. You may be entitled to recover $100 to $1000 per mailing. Send or email to us any credit solicitations you receive.

Landlord-Tenant

We help Illinois and Chicago and Evanston Illinois area tenants who face the illegal landlord-tenant practice of failing to provide interest on security deposits. It is illegal in Illinois for landlords not to pay or credit interest on security deposits on buildings with a certain number of units. We pursue class actions to help consumers obtain the interest to which they are entitled.

Violation of Your Privacy Rights by Disclosing Credit Card Information on Receipts

We are prepared to pursue cases involving electronically generated credit / debit card receipts which improperly disclose your card’s (a) expiration date or (b) account numbers other than the last five. It is a violation of federal law to disclose this information of your receipt and creates a risk of identity theft. We are looking for chain businesses that routinely violate federal law by disclosing your confidential information of the credit card receipts they provide.

ATM Cases – Failure to Disclose Fees on Outside of ATM Machine

Federal Law requires disclosing fees by banks on ATM withdrawals on the outside of the machine. Your federal rights may have been violated even if the computer message screen discloses such charges but disclosure of the charge is not printed on the outside of the machine. You can forward us a copy of the receipt at issue and a photograph of the violating ATM machine showing that the fact that a fee will be charged or the correct amount of the fee is not displayed on the outside of the machine and will consider pursuing your claim as a class action lawsuit.

If you believe you have been a victim of illegal business practices, please schedule a free consultation with one of our consumer rights attorneys by calling us at 630-333-0333, or filling out our intake form on our Contact Us page.

We are dedicated to protecting your rights
and exposing consumer rip-offs and scams

Nationwide Consumer Rights

Consumer Protection Lawyers
Phone: 630-333-0333