http://www.indisputably.org/?p=12 A Member of the Law Professor Blogs Network Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:21:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 http://www.indisputably.org/?p=12&cpage=1#comment-7 Paul Bland Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:15:01 +0000 http://indisputably.org/?p=12#comment-7 My firm handles a lot of consumer cases. While we do not handle individual debt collection defense cases, generally, we have been inundated for the last several years with angry consumers who feel that they have gotten a raw deal from the National Arbitration Forum in cases that it handles for MBNA. We're getting more complaints from consumers over this issue than the total number of case intakes we get on all other consumer issues. Our experience collaborates the Public Citizen report's allegations -- we repeatedly see intakes where people have strong evidence that they were victims of identity theft but the NAF just entered its usual order giving MBNA the full amount of its claim, cases where people were being pursued for zombie debts way past the limitations date (with no recent payments to re-invigorate the limitations period) where NAF nonetheless enters its usual award giving MBA the full amount of its claim, and a variety of similar abuses. Public Citizen isn't inventing this scandal, it has just pulled together hard numbers to validate an issue that nearly every lawyer who represents individual consumers has been hearing about for years. My firm handles a lot of consumer cases. While we do not handle individual debt collection defense cases, generally, we have been inundated for the last several years with angry consumers who feel that they have gotten a raw deal from the National Arbitration Forum in cases that it handles for MBNA. We’re getting more complaints from consumers over this issue than the total number of case intakes we get on all other consumer issues. Our experience collaborates the Public Citizen report’s allegations — we repeatedly see intakes where people have strong evidence that they were victims of identity theft but the NAF just entered its usual order giving MBNA the full amount of its claim, cases where people were being pursued for zombie debts way past the limitations date (with no recent payments to re-invigorate the limitations period) where NAF nonetheless enters its usual award giving MBA the full amount of its claim, and a variety of similar abuses. Public Citizen isn’t inventing this scandal, it has just pulled together hard numbers to validate an issue that nearly every lawyer who represents individual consumers has been hearing about for years.

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