Addressing the growing wave of loan modification services that promise but don’t deliver assistance to homeowners burdened by mortgage payments they can no longer afford, the California Attorney General promised in hearings held in Southern California to aggressively target these companies especially those advertising on television.
Archive for March, 2009
Jerry Brown going after homeowner scams
March 31, 2009YouTube planning to highlight premium content
March 31, 2009YouTube’s popularity hasn’t yet translated into big revenue dollars. It looks like they will be trying to change that by redesigning their website to focus attention on premium content that can be monetized with “in-stream” advertising. Supposedly, the new design will have four tabs; Movies, Music, Shows, and Videos, the first three of which will contain the premium content while the fourth will continue to feature high school students lip syncing to the hottest American Idol contestant.
Complaints about Bankers Life’s aggressive telemarketing
March 31, 2009A Michigan county sheriff has received reports of Bankers Life aggressively telemarketing its insurance products by pushing people to set up appointments and to disclose personal information. I’ve posted several times about Bankers Life and about their involvement in litigation claiming they have been selling elderly customers annuities they didn’t need. The article doesn’t say if the elderly were the target here or whether the company had violated the “do not call” registry. According to the sheriff’s department, these calls weren’t illegal.
Chinese drywall class action filed in Louisiana
March 31, 2009No longer isolated to Florida, plaintiffs in Louisiana have filed class action suits in Louisiana Federal Court claiming that the drywall made by Chinese manufacturers besides emmitting the noxious smell of rotten eggs are also corroding coils in air conditioning units and refrigerators.
NY AG get Chase to stop $10 service fees
March 31, 2009After several lawsuits filed throughout the country against Chase changing the terms of their agreement with credit card customers, the bank has settled with the Andrew Cuomo, the New York State Attorney General and agreed to give refunds totalling $4.4 million to more than 184,000 customers.
However, the ten dollar service wasn’t only term the bank changed with its customers. It also changed the monthly amount minimum amount credit card holders had to pay. I wonder if this will impact any of the class action lawsuits that made these claims.
Dr. Phil & the “Dark side of the Internet”
March 31, 2009“Dr. Phil explores a new, dangerous trend affecting your honor student. No longer needing to walk the streets to exchange sex for money, young women are turning to the reputable Web site craigslist.com to sell their bodies.”
The dark side of Dr. Phil more like it. Don’t these people have anything better to talk about? Here’s a link to Dr. Phil’s conversation with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart about his ridiculous lawsuit against Craigslist. Your tolerance for self righteous drivel better be higher than mine.
SoCal Craiglist apt. scam
March 30, 2009Someone in Southern California responded to a Craigslist ad for an apartment that turned out to be a fake. However, this hasn’t stopped this person from getting harassed by fake apartment emails and phone calls. The pleas have that telltale feel of Internet fakery, full of West African missionary work and mothers with lung cancer.
These things must work…
Wikirank:new Wikipedia popularity tracking tool
March 30, 2009This tool will allow you to measure how many hits a topic is receiving in Wikipedia. For example, if you want to know how many hits the “Google” Wikipedia page is getting over the last month, this site will give you that along with a cool graph. Even better, say you want to compare the popularity of “Google” with “Apple Inc.” and “Ebay.” It lets you do that and automatically provides a chart showing their relative popularity over time. (The Google page is way more popular).
2008 man-made catastrophes cost $7 billion
March 30, 2009
These are things like explosions and giant fires. The two largest, the Apache Energy offshore gas plant explosion and the BHP Billition business interruption, both happened in Australia and cost about half of that amount.
Loan modification scams are everywhere
March 29, 2009Here is a link to recent consumer complaints in several different locations. I’ve posted several lawsuits involving debtors feeling scammed when they have gone to loan or debt relief services for assistance and gotten none.
Reading Tea Leaves by Randy Wilson 