Blogger Suggests Debt Collection Story is Bogus

Lambert Strether, the founder of the liberal blog Corrente Wire, has suggested that my story on the woman who sued the debt collector might be a hoax:

The story (cross-posted here) is sourced to a phone interview with the woman's lawyer, Ross Teter. The best I can find in a quick search is this court docket item. I would want to make very, very certain that this story isn't really a way of propagating links to the "credit repair" services and forums, whose links appear further down in the article.

The name of the plaintiff, "Chrystal A. Snow", appears only here in Google news.

I tried to post a comment there but new accounts require administrative approval.

I confirmed the existence of the lawsuit by calling Dallas County Court-at-Law No. 4 and got the details of the judgment in a phone interview with Chrystal A. Snow's attorney Ross Teter. The case number is 08-05810-D for anyone who'd like to track it down.

The reason Strether could not find independent corroboration of the story by searching Google News is because the case has not received any media attention. There's only one blog that found it before I did: The law offices of Dean Malone in Dallas covered the suit last November and published a scan of 16 pages from the jury findings.

I do not have any relationship with the credit repair expert quoted in the article. I found her through the large number of messages on her online forum about lawsuits filed by Midland Funding LLC.

Credit · Law · Blogging · 2010/04/06 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

1. Thanks. The jury findings are great stuff.

I'm not sure I used the word "bogus." I did say that I thought the sourcing was thin, and the link to the docket number that you provide (08-05810-D) is the same link that I provided in my comment.

The jury findings that you now link to are the sort of thing I was looking for; the $8 million figure is on page 13. That looks like far better sourcing that a phone call to Teter (and might usefully have been included in the original post?)

2. As far as the credit repair links: Well, it's a hard world on the Internet, and I have to filter for bogus content in comments regularly.

3. Account approval is required at Corrente since otherwise I'd be inundated with spammers and SEO clowns. If you're not approved, feel free to contact me at lambert_strether DOT corrente AT yahoo DOT com.

#1 · lambert strether · 2010/04/06

Thanks for the update to the update on Corrente.

I tipped off the Dallas media to the story, so if someone follows up on it I'll link here.

#2 · Rogers Cadenhead · 2010/04/07

Always make a habit of checking out a company with the BBB, it is one of the best methods to ensure it is not a fly by nighter.

#3 · Bill · 2010/04/08