PA Credit Card Laws

Our New Associate

Greg Artim — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:49:01 +0000

The Law Firm of Morrow and Artim, P.C. would like to announce that Attorney Matthew E. Becker has joined the firm as an Associate Attorney. Mr. Becker’s practice will focus on Criminal Defense, Consumer Protection, and Credit Card Defense. He believes that aggressive representation is the best way to defend his clients’ rights and money. Before joining the Pennsylvania Bar, Mr. Becker attended the West Virginia University College of Law where he concentrated his studies on the practical side of the law. Aside from competing in mock trials and earning the top score for Appellate Advocacy, Mr. Becker interned at The Harrison County Public Defenders’ Office in Clarksburg, WV where he defended indigent Criminal clients from Preliminary Hearings to Trials. He then worked in the West Virginia University College of Law Clinical Law Program where he continued to represent clients with legal issues both in and out of the courtroom.

Today, Mr. Becker brings his wide range of experience to better serve those who need an attorney. He has successfully represented clients at Preliminary Hearings, Magistrate Hearings, Arbitrations, and Trials. He prides himself on giving his clients the attention they need to fully understand the often confusing legal process and their options at every step of the way. If you are looking for an aggressive attorney to fight for you, give Mr. Becker a call.

Credit Card Lawsuits – What NOT to do!

Greg Artim — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 03:07:25 +0000

The sheriff arrives at your door with papers, or, the mailman asks you to sign for a certified letter. Uh oh, you have just been served with a credit card lawsuit. What do you do now? Let’s start with what you should NOT do… with number one on the list being: ignore the lawsuit. You can’t pretend that you didn’t receive it, and you cannot hope that it will go away on its own, because it won’t. Number two, do not call the creditor. This is a huge mistake that many people make. You are not a negotiator, (well, chances are that you are not a negotiator) so you shouldn’t speak to the creditor (in addition, you might be better off defending the lawsuit than negotiating it). Number three, do not call a debt settlement company. As we have mentioned in other posts, every single debt reduction or debt settlement company that we have encountered has either been in a best case scenario a company that grossly overcharges and in a worst case scenario a complete scam.

So what do you do? Call a consumer attorney. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why this isn’t everyone’s first choice. My office offers a free initial consultation on a credit card lawsuit, as do most other reputable consumer law firms. Let an attorney who deals with this sort of issue on a daily basis review your lawsuit. I will tell you if you should defend the case, negotiate, or take another action. Certain cases should absolutely be defended, and others absolutely should be negotiated. A good consumer attorney can usually make this judgment in a few short minutes. Take the time and contact our office or the office of another consumer attorney if you are faced with a credit card lawsuit. 412-823-8003 or 1-888-536-6644 for a free consultation.

District Justice Lawsuits

Greg Artim — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 19:59:21 +0000

There has been a growing trend with the collection agencies towards filing their credit card lawsuits at the local magistrate or district justice. My belief is that this is a cost savings measure on their part. Statistics show that approximately 85% of the people who are sued by collection agencies on credit card debt do not defend themselves. The cost savings for the collection agencies works like this: At the DJ level, there is no hearing unless the defendant notifies the court that they intend to defend the case and would like a hearing. In other words, if the plaintiff (collection agency) files a lawsuit at the local DJ, and the defendant fails to respond, then the DJ automatically enters judgment against the Defendant, without even having a hearing. The plaintiff company does not need to send a representative/attorney to court in this instance.

Our best advise, obviously, is to have a consumer attorney representing your interests even at the district justice level, whether its our firm or another firm. As we have mentioned in previous posts, collection agencies are rarely prepared to do battle at the district justice level and our chances of success are extremely high. If you are facing a collection agency or credit card lawsuit, please contact our office at 412-823-8003 or 1-888-536-6644 for a free case review.

Super Lawyer! Rising Star 2011

Greg Artim — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:20:35 +0000

Morrow and Artim, P.C, is pleased to announce that founding partner, Gregory T. Artim, Esquire has been named to the Pennsylvania Rising Stars list as one of the top attorneys in Pennsylvania for 2011. No more than 2.5 percent of the lawyers in the state are selected to the list.

Super Lawyers, a Thompson Reuters business, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The annual selections are made using a rigorous multi-phased process that includes a statewide survey of lawyers, an independent research evaluation of candidates, and peer reviews by practice area.

The Super Lawyers lists are published nationwide in Super Lawyers magazines and in leading city and regional magazines across the country. Super Lawyers magazines also feature editorial profiles of attorneys who embody excellence in the practice of law. For more information about Super Lawyers, go to superlawyers.com.

The first Super Lawyers list was published in 1991 and by 2009 the rating service had expanded nationwide. In February 2010 Super Lawyers was acquired by Thomson Reuters the world’s leading source of intelligent information for business and professionals.

Debt Settlement Companies and Lawsuits

Greg Artim — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:22:45 +0000

In previous posts, I have advised all of you to avoid Debt Settlement Companies like the plague. In my experience, I have found that they either are outright scams, or, they simply charge way to much for the service that they provide. Lately, we have found a new issue with a few of these companies and it has really been making me angry. We are only 11 days in to this month, and I have already received 3 calls from potential clients who allowed a debt settlement companies to prepare or assist in preparing a response to a lawsuit. In each case, I had to explain to the potential client that the responses that they allowed the debt settlement company to prepare were hurtful to their lawsuit. All three of these clients likely would have won their lawsuits had they hired us from the start. Unfortunately, they allowed these companies to prepare the responses, which were improper and/or inadequate, and which put the client in a disadvantaged position. The sad part is that the responses were prepared by attorneys for the debt settlement company. (Note: not any old attorney can prepare a response to a credit card lawsuit, and this is especially so when the attorney is not licensed in Pennsylvania).

In each case, I had to advise the client that their case had been undermined by the inappropriate response of the out of state attorney that was retained by the debt settlement company. It would now cost more in legal fees to try to correct or minimize the damage that had been done versus if they had hired us from the beginning. The message here: DO NOT LET A DEBT SETTLEMENT COMPANY ASSIST YOU IN PREPARING A RESPONSE TO A LAWSUIT.

LVNV Goes Down!

Greg Artim — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:09:04 +0000

Justice has finally been found for one Washington County, PA client of ours. LVNV sued our client, Mr. G, on an old WalMart account. LVNV was asking for approximately $4500 in damages in the lawsuit. At the arbitration hearing, LVNV presented approximately 1 years worth of old statements. They did not produce a signed agreement, or any agreement for that matter, and they didnt provide any real evidence that they had purchased Mr. G’s alleged account. Despite this lack of evidence, the Arbitrators ruled that Mr. G owed $2250 to LVNV. Our educated guess is that the Arbitrators simply were not familiar with basic contract law… To that end, we filed an Appeal for Mr. G because we knew that LVNV didnt have any other evidence. At the bench trial, LVNV again came in with the same lack of evidence, but this time, they included a few “Affidavits”, wink, wink, that alleged to support the sale of the accounts. These “Affidavits” didnt support anything, they were vague and incomplete, and they referenced other documents that were not presented at trial. I felt bad for the attorney who was representing LVNV, he is a very nice man who is forced to handle cases where he only has about 30% of the evidence that he needs to prevail. Anyways, long story made short, we won on appeal, complete judgment for Defendant.

2010 – Morrow and Artim review

Greg Artim — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 17:41:30 +0000

2010 was a prettygood inaugural year for Morrow & Artim. On the plus side, we won almost every single case that we handled. We helped consumers successfully defeat the claims of collection agencies to the tune of about 25-30 victories per month. We saved those consumers over $1,000,000 in allegedly defaulted credit card debt.

On the negative side, we lost 2 credit card cases to original creditors and we lost 2 credit card cases to collection agencies/junk debt buyers. Both of the collection agency lawsuits were appealed. We won one of those cases on appeal and the other one is still pending. UPDATE: We won the second case on appeal.

In terms of the FDCPA claims that we agreed to represent clients on, every single case that Clay Morrow handled either ended in a settlement or in a courtroom victory. Kudos to Clay for a successful 2010.

In terms of the Lemon Law claims that we handled, every single case that we worked on either resulted in a settlement or a courtroom victory with the exception of one single case. Our lone Lemon Law defeat occurred because our client simply didnt want to pursue his claim any further and failed to show up for the scheduled hearing.

Schuylkill County Credit Card Case

Greg Artim — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 01:49:51 +0000

We received some pretty fantastic news today. We are representing an individual in a collection agency case in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. This individual was sued by LVNV, which is one of the larger junk debt buyers that we deal with. The lawsuit was typical, typical in that it was severely lacking in information and details. As a matter of course, we filed objections to the case to raise the issue of legal sufficiency.

While we always expect a judge to agree with our reasoning, this judge went one step further. He took action that would have a permanent effect on credit card cases in Schuylkill County, he issued a written opinion on the case. A written opinion doesnt happen on every case. To the contrary, written opinions are rarely issued. A common pleas judge typically only writes an opinion where the case at hand has important issues that are recurring and can affect a number of people. With the rise of credit card lawsuits in Pennsylvania, and in Schuylkill County in particular, this judge felt that it was important to set the law for the county.

The opinion focused on the defective nature of the lawsuit, namely, that the junk debt buyer (LVNV) didnt comply with the pleading requirements on credit card cases in Pennsylvania. The judge issued a ruling and opinion that the lawsuit was defective, and that if it was not corrected in a timely manner, it was subject to dismissal. We are hopeful that LVNV will not meet its burden on this case. We have not only helped our client on this particular case, we have helped the wonderful consumers of Schuylkill County who are facing similar legal issues.

A Courtroom Victory!

Greg Artim — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 13:17:32 +0000

Ms. W was sued by Atlantic Credit and Finance for approximately $9000.00 in Dauphin County. Ms. W hired our firm to defend and we noticed right away that the lawsuit was defective. With a defective lawsuit in Pennsylvania, the proper response is typically to file Preliminary Objections. We won the first round of arguments on the objections, forcing Atlantic Credit to cure the defects that were present in the complaint. I guess that I should say that we forced them to “try” to cure the defects. Atlantic filed an Amended Complaint and it was still very defective. We responded with another set of Objections to the Complaint and after Argument, the judge threw the case out for failing to cure the defects. The lawsuit was lacking in many areas. It failed to include a signed application, a cardmember agreement, or any of the monthly account statements.

In a rare occurrence, the judge issued a written opinion on the case, which was reported by the courts. Typically, judges simply issue brief orders that either dismiss the case or move the case forward to trial. The written opinion is issued where an issue continues to re-occur and the court wants to set a standard for all similar cases. We are proud to have helped Ms. W and we are also very proud to have had a written opinion issued in our favor. Until another opinion changes the law, our case is the standard for credit card cases in Dauphin County.

Defective Notice on a Default Judgment

Greg Artim — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:30:32 +0000

We recently had the pleasure of representing Virginia H on an Allegheny County credit card lawsuit. Virginia was sued by Arrow Financial earlier this year. She failed to respond to the lawsuit in time, and a default judgment was entered against her. She called our office and after a quick review of the docket, we noticed that the Important Notice that was sent to her was defective in that it contained additional language. (An Important Notice must be sent by the debt collector if you fail to respond to the lawsuit within 20 days. This notice affords you an additional 10 days to respond). We immediately filed a Motion to Strike the Judgment and argument was held before the Honorable Stanton R. Wettick. Our argument was that the additional language that the debt collector added to the Important Notice was deceiving in that Virginia thought that a judgment had already been entered against her. Judge Wettick agreed and struck the judgment. Shortly thereafter, the judge scheduled an Arbitration hearing and of course, we won as usual. The reported opinion can be found at the Pittsburgh Legal Journal