Idalberto de la Torre exposes UNIFUND and ATTORNEYS for Racial Profiling and Suing based on Illegal Debts, He Hires Robert Paisola and the War Continues!

We had never been contacted either via phone or by mail by this company prior to us receiving this summons. Unifund supposedly purchased this debt from the original creditor (Providian) and they proceeded to file a lawsuit against us to recover these funds. We have always been pretty good with regards to record keeping for all our documents and we had a copy of a credit report that was dated 10/11/2002 that did show subject account had indeed been charged off on Jan of 2001. We immediately requested a current copy of our credit reports and once received we realized that subject account was now listed under another creditor name (Unifund CCR) and all the dates had been changed to show a more current date of activity. Under the account in question that had been open in 1998 it now showed opened in February of 2003 and the date of last activity was March of 2003.

On 07/26/04 we notified them via certified mail (Mr. Jacobson (their attorney and Unifund CCR) that we disputed the validity of this debt pursuant to §809 of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §1692g. 15 U.S.C. §1692g requires that a debt collector cease collection of the debt until such verification is provided by the debt collector. They continued to pursue collection of this debt without validating it and they were clearly in direct violation of Title 15 U.S.C. §1692g which carries a minimum of $1,000.00 in awarded damages if I would have decided to proceed with legal action.

On 07/26/04 we also requested that they provide us with proof that Unifund CCR Company was licensed in the state of Florida as a consumer collection agency and provide us with their license number. They never provided us with this information. I contacted the Florida office of Financial Regulation’s licensing and registration department, and there is no record of a company with the name of Unifund CCR Company on their database. Basically, Unifund CCR Company was (is) not a licensed consumer collection agency in this state within meaning of FL. St. §559.553. This was another direct violation of Title 15 U.S.C. §1692g.

On 07/26/04 we also asked them to provide us with a certified copy of the contract that showed our signature and stated that we agreed to pay for this d ebt, and they never complied with this request

When we appeared in court, we both informed the judge that we had requested verification of the debt from Unifund and their attorney via certified mail and our requests were ignored. We clearly stated that our intentions were to hire an attorney and prove that Unifund had illegally changed the dates on our credit reports to show that the debt was more current, that Unifund was not legally able to collect on accounts in the state of Florida, and that they had not verified subject account as required by law.

I contacted Mr. Hibbs and he recommended I look up an attorney in the NACA website. I did look there but here in Miami FL. I could not find any attorneys who specialized in this type of law. Most if not all of the attorneys listed in South FL. specialized in bankruptcy. I spoke to one of the attorneys who works for my company and he told me he would take the case. I brought him copies of all my documentation and he proceeded to build a counterclaim based on the FDCPA violations.

The attorneys representing Unifund sent us interrogatories that had questions regarding subject account. On the interrogatories we admitted that the original account (Providian) was indeed ours and we had obviously made said charges, but we did not admit to owing the monies to a third party or Providian's affiliates as one of the questions posed. We have never denied owing this money or making these charges.

Once the interrogatories were received by Unifund's attorneys they filed a motion for summary judgment. Our counter claim was denied as the judge deemed to much time had elapsed between the original hearing date and the time the counter claim was filed. After doing more research my attorney discovered that Unifund had transferred ownership of the account the attorneys that were licensed in the state of FL. Again once this was done, they never informed us about this transfer of ownership. According to my attorney this is illegal (they have been doing this here in FL for quite some time now, but there is no case law available) and it was presented along with the fact that I had never signed a contract with Providian as I was only an authorized user on said account, plus the fact that they never verified the account in the first place in our motion for summary judgment.

The judge denied both motions during the second hearing. My attorney had prepared a lawsuit based on what I mentioned above that he was planning on filing if our motion was granted but when the motion was denied it was not filed. (In hindsight, I think we should have filed it.)

The attorneys for Unifund filed a second motion were they basically stated that this was a valid debt. My attorney brought up the same arguments as before but the judged ruled in their favor and granted them the motion for summary judgment. Once my attorney told me, I asked him what options if any I had left. He explained that we could appeal and go ahead with our lawsuit to see if they would back off or at least try to settle. He went on to say that an appeal could be very costly and there were no guarantees that I would prevail. Deep down inside I wanted to proceed, but I spoke with my wife and she basically told me she wanted to close this chapter in our lives and move on.

I have already paid the attorney over $2,000 dollars and I still owe another $1,300.00. He has been nice enough to let me pay him in installments as I would not have been able to pay him this money all at once. The original debt was almost $4,000 dollars. Of course they (Unifund) tagged on attorneys fees and some other fees, so the amount is close to $8,000 dollars now. They did offer to settle for $4,300 . We offered $2,500.00 and they refused. I have told the attorney to offer $3,500 and if they refuse I really want to proceed with the appeal and our lawsuit, but my wife has basically told me we should just pay the full amount, move on and forget it.

I saw the story where you helped Mr. Kim on Bud's site, and I thought I would contact you to get your feedback regarding my situation as a last ditch effort on my part. These people have not even provided a copy of a contract that shows that we are legally responsible for this debt and they are pretty close to getting away with it.

Mr. Paisola

During the pretrial hearing for our case, Unfund had close to 30 cases for that one day. I felt terrible for all these people as they were not very educated and or did not have a clue regarding their rights. 90 percent of them were Hispanic and could barely speak the English language. There were also a lot of single women. One lady in particular was sued for an account of her deceased husband who supposedly had filed for bankruptcy. She kept trying to explain to the judge that she was an authorized user on the account and her husband had filed for bankruptcy and included said account under said bankruptcy in her broken English, but the judge ended up entering a judgment against her anyway. These are the type of people that this company targets as they can receive judgments without any type of dispute whatsoever. It seemed like the attorneys and the judge were on first name basis. I imagine it must be this way because the attorneys are probably there everyday with an unlimited amount of cases. What is amazing to me is how companies like Unifund can exist, and they can break laws over and over again by trying to take advantage of individuals who sadly do not realize what is occurring, they are uninformed as to their rights and protections, and are afraid of the legal process. They (Unifund) continue to do this without any restrictions or injunctions being placed on them.

I filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, the Florida Attorney's general office, the BBB FL. Branch, and the FL. Department of Financial Services to alert them of the activities that are considered common practice by Unifund when this whole thing started in 2004. The state of Florida office of financial regulation informed me that Unifund CCR did not have a license to operate a business in the state of Florida as of 08/16/04. I have been checking their database periodically ( I checked today) and Unifund CCR, is still not showing up as registered in the state of Florida. In other words, Unifund CCR filed a lawsuit against me and my wife for an outstanding unsecured charged off account in the state of Florida without having been issued a license to operate a business in the state of Florida. This is a direct violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FDCRA) and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. (FDCPA)

I did receive a standard automated reply from the FTC. The FL Attorney's office sent me a card explaining that they could not get involved since litigation was already under way. The BBB did place (file) a complaint on their file. The FL Department of Financial Services advised that because of such lax legislation in the state, they were handcuffed with regards to proceeding with injunctions or legal action against Unifund CCR and their attorneys.