Wrongful Credit Damage, Identity Theft and Debt Collection Abuse Blog

Just heard about this one yesterday. Identity thieves are sending very official-looking emails to random U.S. citizens. The emails purport to be from the IRS and claims that the recipient has an additional tax refund. The email then directs the addressee to provide social security number and bank account routing number so the IRS can deposit the money directly into the addressee’s account.

THIS IS A SCAM!  These emails have come from identity thieves who want your personal identifying information for illegal purposes.  This is what is known as “phishing”, where identity thieves send along very official looking bank or government messages which have some pretext for needing your social security number.  (Elsewhere in my blog I discuss the one that was going around a few months ago, where Los Angeles County citizens were supposedly contacted by the County Jury Commissioner about having defaulted on a jury summons.  That email also requested all kinds of personal information, including social security number, and was also a scam.)  These are all scams.

Remember the following as RULES:

1. The IRS will never contact you by email.  The IRS will only use snail-mail, unless you’re in real trouble, in which case the IRS will use United States Marshalls.

2. Most government agencies, federal, state and local, will not contact you via email.  In their records, you generally exist as a mailing address and not as an email address.

3. If ANY email which you have not yourself solicited requests your personal information, and particularly your social security number or your bank account number(s), DELETE IT!  If you have any questions, do not respond to the email but call the agency which has supposedly sent out the email to find out whether indeed they sent it out.  You can always provide them with your personal identifying information via registered mail or overnight mail, which is a much safer way of handling things.

I hope this short article is of assistance to you.  Thanks for taking the time to read it.

Sorry for the bad news, folks, but I see this at my desk every day.  People come in, overwhelmed with debt and credit problems and often crying, and part of why they’re upset is that they remember a time when it wasn’t that way.  They remember that their parents slept at night; they remember when their parents fought over issues with the kids rather than debt; they remember when few people even had to consider bankruptcy; they remember a time when the banks and credit card companies did not make their huge profits by cannibalizing American consumers.

Those times are long gone.  In case you hadn’t noticed, everyone around you is deeply in debt.  It used to be that hard-working people could afford “the American dream” without borrowing heavily.  Granted, members of the “Greatest Generation” (the World War II generation) would have mortgages, but these were usually fixed-rate mortgages at low rates.  Mortgage lenders used a rule of thumb that a family’s monthly mortgage should be no more than one week’s pay.  Thus, a family spent one week’s pay each month on their mortgage payment, and the other three weeks’ pay for living expenses.

Few families had credit card debt, because credit cards did not even exist until the 1960’s.  People who traveled used pre-paid traveler’s checks instead of credit cards.  People bought cars with cash; automobile financing was almost unheard-of.  Those people who did use credit cards routinely paid their balances down to zero with each billing statement.

What changed?  Well, although I usually represent consumers against big banks, credit card companies and debt collectors, one thing which changed was the consumers’ willingness to use credit.  This large-scale use of credit in turn drove up prices, which made it harder and harder for average consumers to save up and buy things with cash and not use credit.  Lack of consumer self-discipline was, and still is, definitely a big part of the problem.

However, other things changed as well.  The consumer credit industry is now a multi-billion corporate travesty, designed with one thing in mind: putting YOU, and keeping YOU, deeply in debt from the day you’re born until the day you die.  If, somehow, you survive your entire life while paying off all that interest, you’ll make them rich and you’ll die poor and leave nothing to your kids.  That’s the banking industry’s dream situation.  Obviously, it’s your nightmare.

The America you grew up in in the 1950’s and 1960’s is gone.  Maybe not for good, but it’s gone.  There’s a new set of rules today, and you’d better be on guard and recognize the fact that the ONLY purpose of our current financial structure in this country is TO SINK YOU DEEPLY INTO DEBT AND FORCE YOU TO LIVE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE PAYING OFF THE INTEREST ON THAT DEBT.  When you’ve confronted this as a reality, you’ll start taking some effective action to pay off your debts without incurring new ones, and to thus tell the finance, banking and debt collection industries to GO TO HELL!

Why are you telling them to GO TO HELL?  Because you want YOUR America back.  You want to sleep again at night.  You want to be able to look your children in the eyes and assure them that they have a reasonable chance of growing up in a better world than the one you brought them into.  You want the power in this country to belong to you and your friends and neighbors, not the corporate boards who allocate billions in campaign contributions to take away your consumer rights and drive you ever deeper into debt.

You’ll join me and my clients in telling the banking, finance and debt collection industries to GO TO HELL because you want YOUR America back.

Thanks for taking the time to read this & pass it along to your friends.

Bob Brennan