There is a theme on which I must keep harping.
It's all about you knowing your rights and exercising
them. This came home to me big time yesterday when
I was reading a four part series of articles which were
published in the Boston Globe over 2 years ago.

I am very familiar with Small Claims Courts and how
debt collectors use the system to try to take advantage of
consumers who are ignorant of their rights. But nothing
that I know prepared me for the expose written by the
Globe. My eyes were popping out of their sockets.  I could
not believe what goes on in MA.

I am going to give you the link so you can read the 4 part
series in its entirety at the end of this blog. I'll only touch
on some of the more tawdry high points in these articles.

According to Boston Globe the cards are are stacked against
the consumer as far as the debt collection system goes
in the State of Massachusetts. What goes in small claims
court in MA made me feel like I was back in the colonial
times.

I  will broach some of the more shocking and alarming things
that go on within the judicial system of the State of MA
and the unlawful acts debt collectors are allowed to perpetrate
under the guise of equity and justice for all. I don't think these
outrageous stunts by debt collectors are only peculiar to
MA though. I think we in witnessing a national pandemic which
seems to be getting worse exponentially.

The worst abuse I read about is the overt practice debt
collectors have of not checking to be sure that they are
mailing  their dunning letters to the right address but
affirming to the courts that they have mailed to the right
addresses. This results in consumers never receiving the
summons and complaints when they are sued by
debt collectors. The worst part is that when and if the
mail comes back as not delivered the courts skip over
it and take the collectors' word and proceed with the case
issuing a default judgment against the consumer.

One firm, Norfolk Financial and another one known as
Commonwealth Receivables filed 12000 lawsuits a year

between 2002 and 2006 in MA small claims courts. They

use small claims instead of higher court because it is easy

and quick to get judgments and costs only $40.00 to file an action
with upper limit of the amount you can sue for being
$2000. The real object of these suits as not the defaulted
or debt that has been written off  but the fact that in
MA it is legal to seize cars to enforce a judgment.
Considering the fact that these people pay about
$.07 each for old debts or debts in general and can
seize property worth thousands makes this business
a very profitable one for the Goldstone family.

The item that is really just really one for the books
is the practice in many small claims courts in MA

of allowing a case to be heard even if the plaintiff's
attorney is not present. That's right. The court clerks
don't care. This abuse is through the use of "covering"
attorneys. These are lawyers who hang in the courthouses
all day and who are paid say $20.00 a case for raising their
hands and saying "here" or "Plaintiff"  when the subject case
is called. According the Globe they appear in courts around
the state and can represent as many as a dozen plaintiffs in
a single court session. Suffice it to say that literally know
nothing about the case they for which they are answering
"here".

The way the system works they don' t have to know more.
They are there to get the default judgments against the
defendants who do not show up which translates to most
of them.

If some of these victims had known about my StoptheCallsFast.

Com system I think it is a fair assumption that there would have

been many less default judgments.

The link for whole series is: http://www.boston.com/news/specials/debt/