Testaliars. What should be the penalty for spoliation and perjury in a civil suit?
“Testaliars” is what Consumer Attorney Jerry Jarzombek calls agents and attorneys representing creditors who frequently falsify affidavits or present erroneous legal documents to the court, according to an article by Deborah L. Cohen published in the ABA Journal called “Pennies on the Dollar”.
“They are scavengers, buzzards picking at the decaying carcass of a debt,” Mr. Jarzombek was quoted as saying.
My appellate brief in a case against Portfolio Recovery Associates, LLC, is due on November 6th. You can read about some of PRA’s dishonesty when it is complete. Unfortunately, the presiding judge, Trump appointee Lee P. Rudofsky, was less than honest in his opinions, as well.
Some of the dishonest statements require discussion of documents that are filed under seal. So, I am working on a motion to unseal those records.
Any brave attorney who wants to help on the case, please contact me at bohemian_books@yahoo.com. You can probably get this case turned around on appeal, and there is a fee shifting provision in the FDCPA. PRA settled with the CFPB with $12M in a fine for doing some of the things I claimed PRA did to me. PRA settled a case similar to mine where the jury awarded $82M in punitive damages.
The sanctions for spoliation of evidence and perjury should be enough to make taking this case worthwhile for an attorney who is ready to retire.
PRA Group, Inc. Spends Nearly $100,000,000 this Year on Legal Collections and Calls Me “Litigious”
“Why Is PRA Group (PRAA) Down 10.9% Since Last Earnings Report?”
– – Quote from Zacks Research on Yahoo Finance today.
Portfolio Recovery Associates, a wholly owned subsidiary of PRA Group, Inc. (symbol PRAA), spent at least $8,000 in costs and hired two premiere law firms to defend against my allegations of wrongdoing that PRA said would be worth no more than $5,000 if it went to a jury. The CFPB made similar allegations against PRA in March 2023, that PRA did to millions of people what it did to me, and PRA settled for about $24 million.
These defense costs are a drop in the bucket compared to the money the debt buyer and collector spends on legal collections. According to SEC filings, the amount spent on lawsuits against alleged debtors approaches $100 million per year. According to the deposition of a PRA representative, the company wins 90% of its cases by default.
The litigious nature of PRA Group companies is one issue that may affect investors’ perception of PRAA stock value.
Another issue, that is not immediately related to this blog is PRA Group’s propensity to borrow.
SEC filings as reported by Zacks show PRA Group has $4.3 Billion in assets and $2.7 Billion in borrowings. Do the total assets reflect the face value of the junk debt PRA purchases for pennies on the dollar?
Court documents in another case involving a different debt buyer show that an industry standard is about an 11% rate of collection on the face value of portfolios.
If you know whether PRA or debt buyers in general report assets as face value or expected revenues, please leave a comment or send a private email to bohemian_books@yahoo.com. Designate the email “background only”, “anonymous” or “for attribution”.
The reason PRA’s borrowing may become pertinent to this blog soon is that a low actual value of assets to borrowing rate is likely to lead to bankruptcy court. In bankruptcy, PRA’s portfolios would be sold to other debt buyers. And the new buyer would continue the cycle of churning junk debt by collecting from individuals who don’t have law degrees or teams of attorneys to protect them from abusive debt collection practices.
Therapist Said Karma Would Get PRA Group, Inc.
She was right!
Data and graph by Yahoo Finance.
It keeps falling, but I need to take a break from the blog for a long weekend.
Can’t wait to see what happens when the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals tells Judge Lee P. Rudofsky that he needs to let a jury decide what the damages are when a debt collector forces a person to sue to make the phone calls stop.
What Would Make Portfolio Recovery Associates Stop Making Annoying Phone Calls? An Open Email to the World’s Most Litigious Debt Buyer
Dear Counsel,
Troutman Pepper is well aware that the bill of sale offered as evidence of the alleged debt was not adequate proof, as I argued, because there was no reference to the -6049 account nor to me.
Assuming my appeal is successful, I intend to inform the jury that I incurred further damages during the pendency of the appeal. These include but are not limited to an increase in anxiety.
My sleep pattern is disrupted again, and I have had only about four hours of sleep per night for about three weeks. The sleep I have is filled with lucid dreams about traumatic experiences that I had buried by 2017.
While awake, I am ruminating on PRA’s implied threat that it will attack my husband, who keeps his finances completely separate from mine, which might cause discord in an amazing marriage.
The Court was wrong when he said suing PRA was my choice. Filing suit caused PRA to set the balance to zero, regardless if it was a waiver with an IRC violation or an admission that the debt arose from a data error or fraud. Filing suit presumably would stop PRA from making further annoying phone calls to me after the 30 day verification period. PRA said it stopped calling the -6000 number in 2013, then started calling it again seven years later.
If you know any other way to get PRA to stop calling a person forever, other than suing Portfolio Recovery or giving them an extorted payment, let me know.
Thank you,
Laura Lynn Hammett
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Please leave your comments below, or email bohemian_books@yahoo.com
A Conversation with Federal District Judge Lee P. Rudofsky
*WARNING! WARNING! This is parody.
The judge’s actual words are in black. I moved whole sentences around a bit. Maybe I should practice law; I already truncate sentences and splice phrases from different paragraphs together. I did change third person to second person “you” statements without using [brackets]. Where I am surmising what Judge Rudofsky is thinking, the text is blue. The way I wish I could write in my appellate brief is in red.
Judge Rudofsky:
Pending before the Court is Defendant PRA’s Motion for Taxable Costs. Pursuant to Rule 54(d)(1) and 28 U.S.C. § 1920, PRA requests $8356.18 in costs. You make numerous arguments as to why the Court should not impose the requested costs. Your arguments are not persuasive. No arguments or reasoning can influence me, because I have a solemn pact to protect the interests of Walmart, and PRA buys billions of dollars of worthless debts from GE Capital Walmart. We gotta get PRA paid. Accordingly, the Court GRANTS PRA’s Motion.
Laura Lynn:
But you are not following the law and you are falsifying the record.
Judge Rudofsky:
I do want to tell you that I am not one of those judges who gets concerned or worried or upset about appeals. I get paid the same whether I get it right or get it wrong. In fact, the cabal gives me extra points if I keep the masses in their place. I’m on the fast track to a position as Grand Poobah.
Laura Lynn:
But, your honor, I am a 61-year-old with severe Hashimoto’s Disease and stress related insomnia. It is difficult for me to take a job, because I never know if I will have the energy to leave the house. I am trying to make money writing, but that is difficult. That is why I didn’t use my bachelor’s degree in journalism right after graduation and worked in real estate instead. I lost all my relatively liquid assets in the COVID-Crash and live on a $639 per month pension.
Judge Rudofsky:
Liar! Elsewhere you state that your monthly income is $630.
Laura Lynn:
I’m sorry. It’s not that I was too tired to look up my deposit receipts or my pinky finger slipped when I reached for the 9. I was trying to keep one extra vegetarian salad at Chipotle each month without reporting it.
Judge Rudofsky:
Plebeian. You also cite to 15 U.S.C. § 1692(k). § 1692 does not have a subsection (k). You mean § 1692k.
Laura Lynn:
I beg your forgiveness. My sister Mary Sherman is right. I am a “moron”.
It seems a little Draconian though, to make me pay more than a year’s pension for the debt buyer’s costs, when I could not afford to pay for the depositions that you said would help my case.
Judge Rudofsky:
You have not shown that you are currently so destitute that awarding taxable costs would be inequitable. You do not note what your expenses are.
I do not believe that you can’t get by on $639 per hour and still pay PRA’s costs. Attorneys like James Trefil get paid half that and pay their bills. Well, maybe not James Trefil, but you understand my point.
Laura Lynn:
But Your Honor, I said $639 per month.
Judge Rudofsky:
That does not create — a more favorable situation for you were this to go to a jury than you had before. In fact, if it does anything, it hurts you, but I just don’t think it makes any difference one way or the — or the other. Notwithstanding your status of a poverty level income, you appear to concede that you have assets of at least $70,000 in a capital account.
Laura Lynn:
Your Honor, (exasperated), that money is being held by my sisters who refuse to dissolve a family-owned limited liability company that has no purpose to exist, other than to hold my capital. That is what one of my 12 lawsuits over a lifetime is about. That Court, Judge Linda Lopez, said that my sisters are using reasonable business judgment to decide that my capital is assets of the company and dissolution is not required as long as the company holds assets.
It is on appeal.
Judge Rudofsky:
Oh, that is wonderful. I’m sure Linda appreciates you appealing. I think it’s a great part of our system and, quite frankly, it makes me feel better that there are other judges looking over my shoulder who can tell me if they think I got it right.
Laura Lynn:
What if they think you got it wrong?
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Please consider helping me defray the costs of appealing this order. I am considering framing a question to SCOTUS: When a federal district judge, who cannot be fired according to the will of the people, dismantles the FDCPA, is he making an unconstitutional power grab?
You can CashApp a donation to $CoolOldStuff. Or contact me at bohemian_books@yahoo.com. Especially if you can contribute free legal representation or know an organization that pays filing fees for people who can’t qualify as in forma pauperis. Thank you. (This is a gift to an individual, not a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.)
Satan and Federal Court Judge Lee P. Rudofsky
No, I am not saying Judge Lee P. Rudofsky is Satan or the Anti-Christ.
I am just saying that we can learn a lesson by comparing the two.
Judge Rudofsky has now granted Portfolio Recovery Associates motion for me to pay their costs of defending against a lawsuit arising from incessant phone calls PRA made in an attempt to collect money I did not owe to them.
Along the way, Judge Rudofsky twisted words, lied, deceived and may have orchestrated the falsification of a transcript. I will detail my claims in my appeal and in other posts on this blog. Here is the big picture.
Judge Rudofsky is incredibly intelligent.
He studied at Cornell. He studied at Harvard. He lived in Israel for a year, and I presume he speaks Hebrew well. He writes in English with a silver “tongue”.
But intellect is not an indication of integrity. And Judge Rudofsky lacks integrity.
He lies. He deceives. He has no compassion nor empathy for the ordinary person.
He is a dangerous man.
(Being dangerous can be taken as a compliment of sorts. Sometimes I call my husband “cute”. Then I playfully correct myself. “I mean you look sexy and dangerous.” Judge Rudofsky should not take my comment about him as a compliment.)
Here are a few verses about Satan taken from the King James Version that remind me of Judge Lee Rudofsky.
Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.
2 Corinthians 11:14-15
And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.
1 Peter 5:8
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
2 Corinthians 11:3
But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty… [which refers to Genesis 3:4-5) And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
And Eve fell for it. Be on your guard. When you read orders written by Judge Rudofsky, know that he is tweeking the truth, whether through subtle deception or outright lies. If your case is disambiguated from the plaintiff who failed in front of Judge Rudofsky, the Judge may fictionalize the evidence to fall under the precedent that fulfils his agenda.
His agenda is to please those who control the most money, in exchange for prestige, power and possessions.
2 Timothy 3:13
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
Matthew 7:15-17
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
Judge Rudofsky’s fruit is evil. He presided on a case filed by a self-represented, low-income, sickly woman against a billion-dollar debt buyer. He admittedly misquoted the plaintiff to say she agreed she owed a debt, ignoring the score of clear and concise statements that the woman did not owe the debt. He refused to let a jury decide.
The woman told the judge that all her assets other than those that are protected in bankruptcy were lost or taken from her since COVID-19. She showed that her efforts to re-enter the workforce by reviving her writing career resulted in a loss, at least in 2022. She said that she went to other courts to try to recover some of those assets but lost at the trial court and is on appeal. (Only 20% of appeals are successful and the number by self-represented litigants approaches zero.)
Judge Rudofsky ordered the woman, me, to pay over a year’s pension in costs anyhow. This is not a direct quote, but to paraphrase, he said “let her eat cake.”
Friday Funday: PRA Group, Inc., symbol PRAA Takes a Dump
Graph clipped from Yahoo Finance.
Have a nice weekend, y’all.
UPDATE from Hump-day.
How Low Can PRAA Go?
Quick Update on PRA Group, Inc. Stock Price
Argus analysis from August 16, 2023 reported on Yahoo Finance.
From post on this blog of August 11, 2023: I’m musing on PRA’s financial health as I prepare for appeal and hopefully trial, and watching as the price of PRAA stock tries to push down through the $17.74 ten-year floor.
Are Judges Approving Tax Evasion on Debt Collector Portfolio Recovery Associates’ Cases?
Excerpt of class action settlement from Pollak et al v. PRA:
“PRA will provide, without imposing any condition or charge whatsoever, a credit to each account belonging to a Non-Zero Balance Class Member (“Account”), in an amount not to exceed the outstanding balance of each Account, up to $500.00 per Non-Zero Balance Class Member and collectively up to $1,092,000.00. No cash payment will result from any credit provided to a Non-Zero Balance Class Member’s account(s), and PRA agrees not to issue any Non-Zero Balance Class Member a form I099-C due to the credit.“
The PRA Group, Inc. subsidiary emphasized, toward the beginning of the settlement agreement, “PRA has denied, and continues to deny, each claim and allegation of wrongdoing Plaintiff alleges in the Litigation. PRA also has denied, and continues to deny, inter alia, any allegations that Plaintiff or the Settlement Class suffered any damage whatsoever, were harmed in any way, or are entitled to any relief as a result of any conduct on the part of PRA as alleged by Plaintiff in this Litigation.”
In the case I filed against PRA, they denied, denied, denied. Judge Lee P. Rudofsky agreed with PRA. He said I owed money to PRA and no reasonable juror would disagree with him. But PRA lawyers from Rose Law Firm, Troutman Pepper and PRA big-wig Meryl Dreano all told the judge that Portfolio Recovery set my balance to zero as a “waiver” and had no intention of filing a 1099-C due to the waiver.
Judge Rudofsky winked at PRA and said, you’re right, setting the balance to zero was a “waiver”, but don’t bother complying with the tax code. That is just for the little people.
The Pollak plaintiffs were not suing for the misrepresentation of the amount or character of a debt. They alleged that the notorious debt collector sent letters threatening litigation with no intent of litigating.
The amount per plaintiff in Pollak is under the mandatory reporting requirement of $600. The money is still taxable, and the aggregate is over a million dollars. There are other tax rules I’ve noticed where the IRS discourages breaking up payments into many small chunks as to evade detection from the IRS of what is one giant transfer of wealth, in the hopes the transfer can be made tax free. The instructions for 1099-C say: “Do not combine multiple cancellations of a debt to determine whether you meet the $600 reporting requirement unless the separate cancellations are under a plan to evade the Form 1099-C requirements.” (emphasis added) It is probably worthwhile for the IRS to investigate the number of recipients of these $500 settlements who reported the gain. This is tippy toe right up to the line. Maybe our law makers can add a few more words to the tax code. Perhaps, “all class action settlements must be reported on the new form 1099-CA.”
At least in my case, PRA could have been crediting my account to zero because I did not owe the debt, as I claimed, in which case they were not conspiring and encouraging what they believed was tax evasion. But no, PRA insisted that it was a waiver and therefore they must admit they had the intent of orchestrating tax evasion. (I’ve already informed the IRS about what transpired.)
One attorney who served PRA on both cases was James Trefil. How many other cases did Mr. Trefil participate and counsel the defendant debt buyer and convince the Courts to ignore the Internal Revenue Code?
(If you know judges who approved settlements of $600 or more per debtor with no 1099-C issued, inform us in the comments or send the case info to me at bohemian_books@yahoo.com. If you send a file stamped copy of the agreement, it will be posted as a Doc of the Day.)
FREE Downloadable Documents from FDCPA Case
My appellate brief challenging Judge Lee P. Rudofsky for granting summary judgment to defendant Portfolio Recovery Associates is due in about 49 days.
I need to file a motion to change privacy designations soon, so don’t have time to chat with you, my dear readers.
In lieu I am offering to you two documents pulled from PACER yesterday.
One is my reply to my motion for partial summary judgment. The gist is that when a debt collector agrees to zero out an account without an order from a court and does not issue a 1099-C cancellation of debt, the debt collector is admitting that the person named on the account is not liable for the alleged debt.
Portfolio Recovery Associates claimed that it just decided to zero out the debt “in light of the litigation”, and they admitted that my claim that I owed no debt was made in “good faith”, but Judge Rudofsky interpreted that to mean PRA “waived” the debt.
The second document talks about why the business records that showed my account details should not be kept confidential. Judge Rudofsky allowed for me to make the comment about the waiver and 1099-C issue, but made it clear that if I step over the line he will hit me with paying the debt buyer’s attorney fees.
If you have business documents generated by PRA that are not ordered confidential by a court, please share them with other readers by emailing a copy to bohemian_books@yahoo.com. Together we can show that, as the CFPB complained, PRA lying on affidavits in court and making collection efforts on an invalid debt is commonplace and therefore awards and settlements on state cases and FDCPA cases against Portfolio Recovery should be much higher than the usual $1,000 or $5,000 they get away with.
A Higher Law 