Update to Hiding in Plain Sight. The Sinking Ship of PRA, one of the Nation’s Most Litigious and Vexatious Companies
On April 28th I posted a story about a book I am writing. Click here to read it.
I may be too late.
The book titled, “Hiding in Plain Sight: How PRA Group, Incorporated Created a Phantom Fortune from Worthless Debt” discusses PRA Group, Inc., a publicly traded company with symbol PRAA. Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of PRA Group, Inc.
It looks like my forecast was prophetic and my book might need to be retrospective, rather than forward looking.
On May 8, 2023, PRAA was selling for $34.34 per share, according to the month-long graph on Google Finance. On May 10th, the price had fallen to $19.38 per share. That is 56% of the price it sold for just two days prior.
I am a self-taught analyst and my portfolio fell less than that during the COVID-Crash of March 2020. (I am self-taught law, also, so nothing in my blog should be taken as legal or financial advice.)
Another indicator of a sinking stock ship can be found on the SEC site called EDGAR. Here, PRA Group filed a form 8-K on May 15, 2023.
PRA Group reported, in part, “outstanding senior notes of PRA Group, Inc. (the ‘Company,’ ‘we,’ ‘our’) are currently trading at significant discounts to their respective principal amounts.”
What does that mean? I asked my new best friend, Open AI at ChatGBT.
“When the outstanding senior notes of a publicly traded company are trading at significant discounts to their respective principal amounts, it means that the market perceives a higher level of risk associated with those notes. Let’s break down the concept to understand it better:
- Senior Notes: Senior notes are a type of debt issued by a company to raise capital. They are typically considered a relatively secure form of investment because they have a higher priority claim on the company’s assets in the event of bankruptcy or liquidation. This means that if the company faces financial difficulties, the holders of senior notes have a better chance of recovering their investment compared to other types of debt holders.
- Principal Amount: The principal amount refers to the original face value or nominal value of the senior notes. It represents the amount borrowed by the company and is the amount the company is obligated to repay to the noteholders at maturity.
- Trading at Discounts: When senior notes trade at a discount, it means that the market price of the notes is lower than their principal amount. In other words, investors are willing to buy these notes for less than their face value.
[LMAO. Maybe the junk debt buyer should buy a portfolio containing its own notes. The irony of it all.]
Significant discounts to the principal amount can indicate several factors:
a. Higher Perceived Risk: The market discounts the price of the senior notes because investors believe there is an increased risk that the company may default on its debt obligations. Factors contributing to this perception could include deteriorating financial performance, increased leverage, negative industry trends, or other macroeconomic factors affecting the company’s prospects.
b. Liquidity Concerns: If there is a limited market for the senior notes or the market is illiquid, it can contribute to the notes trading at a discount. The lack of buyers or sellers can lead to lower demand and reduced pricing.
c. Market Sentiment: Overall market sentiment can influence the trading price of senior notes. If there is a general pessimism or uncertainty in the market, investors may demand higher yields or sell their existing holdings, leading to lower prices and discounts.
It’s important to note that the price of debt securities, including senior notes, can fluctuate based on various factors, including changes in interest rates, creditworthiness of the issuer, market conditions, and investor sentiment. The trading price at any given time reflects the market’s assessment of the risk and return associated with those notes.”
I’m assuming companies are not happy to share the devaluation of their senior notes, and make these filings out of an obligation.
PRA insiders purchased millions in stock this week, according to a story on Google Finance. Often that indicates optimism by company executives.
Call me a cynic, but the amount the stocks cost the insiders is a small percentage of the amount some company executives receive in pay and bonuses in recent years. I’m just wondering here, but wouldn’t it benefit the insiders to purchase stock to form a sort of floor for the falling price?
I am torn. There is poetic justice if PRA hits bottom. But personally, the punitive damages I anticipate a jury will award to me on my lawsuit against Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC fall drastically if the company continues to lose money… even if the brass still collects a pirate’s trove of compensation as the ship is swarmed by bottom feeding sharks.
Email: bohemian_books@yahoo.com
The Mystery of “And/Or” Solved
One pet peeve of mine is the use of the character chain “and/or” by lawyers and judges.
Arkansas attorney William Zac White used the term repetitively in a complaint against me “and/or” the Rural Revival Living Trust.
I asked Judge Susan Weaver to order Lawyer White to make a more definite statement. She said there was no need. (But she did not clarify the meaning of “and/or”.)
After a year of causing me to zealously defend myself, the Court dismissed me with prejudice, but errantly allowed the plaintiff to proceed against the Rural Revival Living Trust.
There are blog posts by attorneys on the internet that bemoan the use of the character chain “and/or” and cite case law that forbids it. There is admittedly case law that allows it. I think a good practice is, as I did, to ask for clarification. A competent judge would agree.
One of my visitors to this site was directed here from a site called “Meltwater”. I checked out the site. I am not finished exploring what they offer, but found this gem:
In a list of Boolean characters, Meltwater lists “and/or”. “Use this when you need a keyword to pull results alongside one or more other keywords.”
So, the technical meaning, according to a site that specializes in searching through data, is that the correct use of “and/or” is inclusive of the first term and any of the following terms. Using the character chain with only one option is the equivalent of using “and” alone.
For example, Mr. White could have expanded the subsequent choices, such as “Laura Lynn and/or the Rural Revival Living Trust, Laura Lynn as trustee of the Rural Revival Living Trust.” Before we became obsessed with Boolean thinking, a master of English, such as an attorney practicing in Arkansas should be, would spell out the language needed to distinguish the inclusivity of a chain of options.
“Laura Lynn, and the Rural Revival Living Trust, Laura Lynn as trustee of the Rural Revival Living Trust, or both.”
By giving only one option after “or”, Mr. White effectively made the complaint about common defense doctrine defendants Laura Lynn and the Rural Revival Living Trust.
*By the way, I looked forward to exploring Meltwater more, but they won’t allow me to look around without providing my email address. Fat chance.
Non-confidential Settlement Offer to PRA (a Wholly Owned Subsidiary of PRA Group, Inc.)
I am quite upset right now because I am thinking about that awful week leading up to March 16, 2020. The stock market crashed and I was heavily invested.
The reason I am thinking about this horrible time is because of my research into PRA. I see that on May 9, 2023 the value of PRA Group, Inc. stock fell over 30%.
Apparently it is getting harder for PRA to bluff and bully people into forking over money that PRA has no credible evidence is owed.
I am thrilled that the CFPB prevailed in the lawsuit filed March 23, 2023 against PRA.
I am angry that PRA Group, Inc. executives got paid several million dollars each while the publicly traded company was poised to lose money.
I am concerned that PRA will use the entire $2.6 billion dollars of credit extended to it, a good portion by Bank of America, and then file for bankruptcy. Not only has an attorney representing PRA, Mr. James Trefil, filed for bankruptcy, but the parent company has subsidiaries that service consumer bankruptcy accounts in the USA. PRA is certainly not adverse to using that tool to avoid paying its debts.
Besides that I would need to learn to navigate the bankruptcy court as a creditor, by the time we go through appeals to SCOTUS, I don’t know that I can still collect even a part of the jury verdict that I anticipate.
I am therefore willing to settle for $1,000,000.
This offer is good until June 15, 2023.
Sincerely,
Laura Hammett
Email: bohemian_books@yahoo.com
Oh, Asa Hutchinson III, Represent Me, Please, Pretty Please
In yet another Arkansas court absurdity, the Supreme Court of the State reinstated William Asa Hutchinson the Third’s license to practice law. The committee on Professional Conduct had put Attorney Hutchinson on Interim Suspension after yet another drug and alcohol related arrest.
But there were three justices that didn’t seem to lose their heads and all integrity. Let’s hear their opinion:
To be fair, here is the opinion (at least the stated opinion) of the Justices who reversed the interim suspension. It is hard to believe they believe this crap. My guess, they sat around and fig’r’d how they could throw the case toward their hommie’s son. Ya, ya, what did they say when Hunter Biden Esquire got caught on film with a crack pipe in his mouth…let’s use that excuse…or…
Email: bohemian_books@yahoo.com
A Little Wednesday Levity: How I ended up at the Arkansas Court of Appeals
Those of you who have followed the saga of fraudster Mike Pietrczak and his savior Good Ol’ Girl Susan Weaver, who I am going to call a Judgster, will understand.
Disclaimer: The man to whom I am legally wed is a hardworking guy who has drank a total of two beers in the five years I have known him. But I can look back at my former self and laugh.
How does a Lady Get a Copy of the Tape Around Here?
I have tried and tried to have Judge Susan Weaver of three circuit courts in Arkansas play the audio recording of hearings that Court Reporter Jana Perry made significant errors transcribing. No luck.
I sent a FOIA request. Judge Weaver said I ain’t gonna hear it.
I moved the Arkansas Court of Appeals. No, they said.
So, I’m laying in bed on a Saturday afternoon, watching YouTube videos with the hubby. On comes Congressman Jim Jordan questioning Rob Schenck who was called to testify before the House Judiciary Committee hearing regarding the Supreme Court.
Mr. Jordan asked Reverend Schenk about something he wrote in a book published in 2018. The quote had Justice Rehnquist announcing the case at oral arguments, calling Rob Schenk’s twin brother “Reverend Paul Schenk”. Rob wrote, “Paul and I winked at each other knowing we had made history with that Reverend in his name. It had been a minor victory when we had persuaded the court that ‘Reverend’ should remain before Paul’s name.”
Then Congressman Jordan pulled out a board with a section of the transcript on it. The word “Reverend” was missing.
Then came a jaw dropping moment for me. Mr. Jordan played the audio tape of the Supreme Court hearing.
Hey! How come he gets to play the audio tape, but I can’t play the audio of my case in a state circuit court?
Maybe there are audio recordings available of all Supreme Court oral arguments. I don’t know. I’ll have to look into this when I don’t feel a nap coming on.
Arkansas Times Article: Metal detectors to be installed at AR Governor’s Mansion, hypocrisy detector not needed
“Gun safety for me but not for thee.” This is how the leftist news outlet characterized the Governor’s decision to install metal detectors.
Honestly, I did not read the article. I am too cheap to pay for a subscription.
I am a libertarian populist, so I sometimes agree with the Arkansas Times headlines. Not this time.
I am a firm believer in the second amendment right to bear arms. This does not mean I own a gun or would ever use one. It does mean I think there would need to be great cause shown before a court could take the right to have a gun away. This is a higher burden than the “good cause” courts sometimes claim to have in wielding their power, under the implied threat of force, of course.
Too often restraining orders that take the right to possess a weapon are given for little or no reason. I had a former spouse ask for a restraining order against me, though he showed no documentation of contact by me, outside a courthouse in the presence of a bailiff, and I lived over a thousand miles away from him. The Court granted the restraining order, which included the seizure of my 2nd Amendment right. I had to hire an attorney to represent me who explained to the Court that I was in a small town in the hills of Arkansas when the process server swore, in what looked like crayon, that he served me personally at the address of my post office box in California.
There are several reasons to allow a person to own a gun. Guns are handy to provide food for your family. Guns are good in the event there is a tyrannical oligarchy or kleptocracy taking ordinary people’s property under the threat of death or arbitrary incarceration, such as during the Holocaust. And guns are good to protect one’s own property and safety while in one’s own home.
The Governor’s Mansion is the Governor’s home. It is reasonable for her to want to protect herself in her own home and to forbid anyone else from bringing a weapon into her safe space.
In fact, I think I’ll get a metal detector for my own house. If you come to visit, leave your pistol at the door.
If Judge Susan Weaver has the Audacity to Run for a Second Term, Vote NO!
Judge Weaver gave my house on 40 acres to a man who put his plan to defraud me with the help of the court in writing. Judge Weaver saw the letter.
Worse, I was dismissed with prejudice, meaning on the merits, and Judge Susan Weaver of Searcy County Arkansas said that my co-defendant, my living trust, lost by default.
One attorney told me Judge Weaver just doesn’t understand subtleties in civil law. But this is not the slightest bit hard to understand.
“Arkansas recognizes the ‘common-defense doctrine,’ which holds that if two are sued jointly, one of whom makes default, and the other appears and interposes a successful defense to the action, there can be no doubt but that the plea of the one appearing, will inure to the benefit of the other, and that he will also be entitled to his discharge, notwithstanding the interlocutory judgment by default.
“The test for determining under the common-defense doctrine if an answer will inure to a co-defendant’s benefit is whether the answer of the non-defaulting defendant states a defense that is common to both defendants, because then a successful plea operates as a discharge to all the defendants, but it is otherwise where the plea goes to the personal discharge of the party interposing it.” – Gunter v. Liberty Bank of Arkansas, 92 Ark. App. 163 (2005)
It is more likely that Judge Weaver has a plan to transfer properties out of little old lady’s trusts and into the pocket of her cronies like attorney William Zac White.
Add into the fact set that the transcripts of two hearings on my case were falsified and Judge Weaver won’t allow the recordings to be played in public. That looks like a cover-up.
The real problem is that the Court of Appeals justices, Judge Billy Roy Wilson and Judge Lee P. Rudofsky have each been informed of my allegations and none have done anything I asked for or anything else I am aware of to correct the injustice.
Susan Weaver is doing a lot of damage during her time on the bench. Her victims should be compensated by the government that failed to make a timely correction. That may never happen. But the citizens of this state are right to think there is no integrity in our judiciary.
My suggestion is to vote the elected judges out of office and make certain that the federal judges are not confirmed for any promotion.
Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied: The Arkansas Court of Appeal’s Speed of Molasses Deprives Me of Justice
Judge Susan Kaye Weaver gave a property worth over $200,000 from my living trust to an irrevocable trust created by Attorney William White specifically to hold the property on behalf of his client, Mike Pietrczak.
I was named in the same suit, but dismissed with prejudice after William Zac White’s helper gave me the original handwritten, signed letter by his client that admits to committing fraud against me.
I filed two maximum length briefs in the Arkansas Court of Appeals on November 23, 2022, arguing amongst other things the Common Defense Doctrine. One was written as an individual, the other as the sole settlor, trustee and beneficiary of the trust.
The Common Defense Doctrine is precedence that “…one whose liability is dependent on, or derived from, the liability of one who is exonerated in an earlier suit…on the same facts may take advantage of the bar of the prior judgment even though he was not a party to the earlier actions or in privity with the defendant therein. Ted Saum & Company v. Swaffar, 237 Ark. 971, 377 S.W.2d 606 (1964).”
Mr. White did not bother to respond to the brief. Why should he when Susan Weaver seems to be his lap dog?
While waiting for the COA to decide if my unopposed briefs were accurate, my bank account has dwindled to nothing and I am relying on a $600 per month pension, loans and gifts to eat. (I had a writing gig that helped me pay off my loans to zero, but now I am starting to feel the pinch again.)
And really, how long will the $199,000 the fraudsters got for selling the property last? Mike Pietrczak is a lifelong drug addict and alcoholic. The trustee, Walter Pietrczak, is a broke ass loser who was a conspirator in the fraud. Seems like the money will be gone before the justices can finish scratching their heads.
That is why I asked the appellate justices to refer the case to the proper prosecutorial agencies that would handle honest services fraud. Judge Weaver could have used her favorite excuse, (I don’t know nuthin’ about nuthin’), for her absurd orders. But she conspired with Court reporter Jana Perry to falsify what was said in a couple hearings, to try to make her rulings seem legit. Then she lied in a court document by saying she listened to the recordings and the transcripts were accurate.
Incarcerating Susan Weaver will not put food on my table, but it will provide me with a happy ending to the book about Arkansas Injustice that is in my writing queue. The residual income the book generates is not restitution in any way…it is derived from my own labor. There will be some poetic justice though, in that.
If Portfolio Recovery Associates’ Lawyers Lie and Bully You, It is No Anomaly
I asked Judge Rudofsky in the Federal District Court of Eastern Arkansas to allow me my Constitutional Right to have a jury hear my genuine dispute against Portfolio Recovery Associates and their parent PRA Group, Inc. (Stock symbol PRAA)
The Trump appointed judge said that no reasonable juror can believe any of my claims is more probably than not true, except maybe the one distinct claim about the character or amount of the debt PRA alleged. Nothing about annoyance nor invasion of privacy. According to Judge R., it is perfectly acceptable for a stranger to call hundreds of times without leaving a message when you let it go to voicemail and refuse to identify what company they work for if you refuse to tell them your birthday or last four of social security number first.
There is a hearing on a defense motion to kick that one claim out by summary judgment and my motion for reconsideration of the other claims. It is by phone on May 23, 2023. I am unclear if I may give out the code for the public to listen in.
After my briefing was complete, a judge in Virginia approved a stipulated order and judgment between the CFPB and Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC. The complaint and order recount how the CFPB believes PRA did many of the same things I claimed they did to me to hundreds of thousands of other people.
Apparently Judge Rudofsky does not think the people at the CFPB are reasonable. If the CFPB staff were reasonable to believe the claims of hundreds of thousands of other alleged debtors, than a reasonable juror might believe me. And Judge Rudofsky decided that no reasonable juror might think my rendition of the collection activity claiming I owed $2,297.63 and litigation that caused PRA to set my balance to zero is more probably than not a fact.
Here is a downloadable copy of my notice and the CFPB Complaint and consent agreement with the debt collector.
A Higher Law 