Yesterday, California Attorney General, Kamala Harris, filed a lawsuit against JP Morgan Chase.
The suit filed in California Superior Court accuses the nations largest bank of illegally filing lawsuits against California consumers to collect overdue credit card debt. Between January 2008 and April 2011, each month the financial institution filed thousands of lawsuits. Court documents state that in one day, JP Morgan filed 469 lawsuits.
The Attorney General said that JPMorgan Chases' debt collection practices were not legal. The financial institution overwhelmed the courts with law suits, but could not prove the validity of the debts. Documents were not only inaccurate, some were incomplete. During the foreclosure crises, Chase practiced robosigning. The bank went through and signed many legal documents without reviewing
them for accuracy.
Executive Director of The Public Good law Center in Berkeley, California stated that this problem is not limited to JPMorgan Chase. There are also credit card companies practicing the same tactics.
Brooklyn Civil Court Judge Noach Dear, said that he has presided over more than 100 of theses cases per day. “A vast number of the lawsuits are flawed and most of them can’t prove the individual actually owes the debt.” The Judge said that some lawsuits even rely on fabricated credit card statements.
Unlike in foreclosure cases, borrowers being sued over credit card debt often times do not show up to court. As a result, more tthan 95 percent of lawsuits result in a automatic default judgment.
The lender can then garnish a borrowers wages or even freeze bank accounts to retrieve money. Lenders say that they notify the borrower to come to court, but
in many cases they do not. Read more at www.dealbook.nytimes.com
The suit filed in California Superior Court accuses the nations largest bank of illegally filing lawsuits against California consumers to collect overdue credit card debt. Between January 2008 and April 2011, each month the financial institution filed thousands of lawsuits. Court documents state that in one day, JP Morgan filed 469 lawsuits.
The Attorney General said that JPMorgan Chases' debt collection practices were not legal. The financial institution overwhelmed the courts with law suits, but could not prove the validity of the debts. Documents were not only inaccurate, some were incomplete. During the foreclosure crises, Chase practiced robosigning. The bank went through and signed many legal documents without reviewing
them for accuracy.
Executive Director of The Public Good law Center in Berkeley, California stated that this problem is not limited to JPMorgan Chase. There are also credit card companies practicing the same tactics.
Brooklyn Civil Court Judge Noach Dear, said that he has presided over more than 100 of theses cases per day. “A vast number of the lawsuits are flawed and most of them can’t prove the individual actually owes the debt.” The Judge said that some lawsuits even rely on fabricated credit card statements.
Unlike in foreclosure cases, borrowers being sued over credit card debt often times do not show up to court. As a result, more tthan 95 percent of lawsuits result in a automatic default judgment.
The lender can then garnish a borrowers wages or even freeze bank accounts to retrieve money. Lenders say that they notify the borrower to come to court, but
in many cases they do not. Read more at www.dealbook.nytimes.com