California Lawyer, Refuses To Pay Bank Of America Credit Card, Threatens To Sue

Like many credit card companies, Bank of America has been jacking-up interest rates right before federal law limits/caps the increases that can be imposed on credit card users. BOA has become infamous for raising interest rates as high as 30+%.

But one California attorney wasn't going to have it. He threatened to sue citing a breach in their agreement by lowering his credit limit and increasing his interest rate, at a time when BOA had received billions of dollars from the US government.

His letter to BOA read:

"I consider your action an anticipatory repudiation of the contract and am treating you as in breach," he wrote in a Dec. 31 letter to the bank. "I am therefore not paying the money that is currently due on January 3, 2010 out of protest."

"For the record, I have a perfect payment history and I have a nearly perfect payment record on my credit," Pavone's letter continued. "I have no doubt that you will mark my credit in light of this default, but if you do, I will sue you. I am eager to argue to a court that your interest rates are unfair within the meaning of various state and federal statutes, and anxious to point out that you 'had' to cut my credit limit from $32,000 down to $30,000 at the same time you were borrowing billions from the federal government and paid your executive bonuses in full."

The letter concludes by asking the bank to reduce his rate to 10.99 percent, after noting that it would probably cost less to reduce the rate than to have to fight the suit.
www.huffingtonpost.com...

Such debtors' revolts have become more-and-more common. Does his case have merit?

Americans have a very unhealthy addiction to credit cards ..

and its sad to see corporations take advantage of that addiction ...

I hope This guy wins the Case .. Screw the Credit Cards ..

[edit on 5-1-2010 by Polynomial C]

The credit card scam is the most beautiful of them all. Here's the way it works. When you buy something with your card, you create money (debt). When they receive the invoice from the store, the credit card company transfers *digits* into the account of the store owner. The credit card holder must repay, with interest, for the goods he bought. What the credit card company doesn't want people to know, is the fact that they never have to take any money out of their own assets to pay the store owner.

Credit cards, as well as bank loans, are part of the big scam of the banksters to keep the people in debt for ever.

On a personal note, i have no credit card, and i don't care to have one either. I pay cash, or i barter with people. Bartering is very easy, if you live in the country.

This whole system will implode on itself one day, and I WILL BE READY FOR THAT EVENT!

Note: This lawsuit might create a wave that will bring the system down, who knows...

I swear I just read about this.

S&F OP.

Anything to bring down the elite's house of cards.

Think outside the box.

Originally posted by MOFreemason
Does his case have merit?

Who cares if it has merit. He's a lawyer, so he doesn't have to pay any legal bills, and it sets a good precedent of sticking it to the man.

I hope they go to court, and BAC ends up paying a million dollars in lawyer fees.

Then I hope a million more people do it

Question for all of you,

If the lawyer takes the credit card company to court, and the courthouse collapses in the middle of the trial killing the lawyer and all the top executives of the credit card company, who wins?

Answer----





We all do!

[edit on 5-1-2010 by hotpinkurinalmint]

Imo debt is a new form of slavery. Even though I work hard I'll never afford a house, car damn even a slap up meal for me and my girlfriend unless I enter some sort of contract and accept debt. I hope he wins the case, but we all know about loopholes and technicalities and the big companies do seem to have them sewn up, some argue they actually write the rules. All spec obviously. Sorry if off topic a little.

reply to post by MOFreemason


That's f'n awesome!
In this day and age, companies like that should be held responsible for their irreputable (not sure if that's even a real word...but it should be!) behavior!
I hope this guy generates enough attention to rally other people to his cause.

Judge Andrew Napolitano stated that California credit laws are air-tight and that the lawyer has no chance of winning. Since the bank's lawyers probably wrote the laws, this doesn't surprise me.

Originally posted by lagenese
The credit card scam is the most beautiful of them all. Here's the way it works. When you buy something with your card, you create money (debt). When they receive the invoice from the store, the credit card company transfers *digits* into the account of the store owner. The credit card holder must repay, with interest, for the goods he bought. What the credit card company doesn't want people to know, is the fact that they never have to take any money out of their own assets to pay the store owner.

Credit cards, as well as bank loans, are part of the big scam of the banksters to keep the people in debt for ever.

While what you are saying is fundamentally correct, that does not excuse people from paying their debts. Defaults are a huge part of the problem we are now in. When people default, that money must be paid back from somewhere, regardless of where it originated, and that difference comes from the government, AKA their neighbors tax dollars. Since when is it your neighbor’s job to supply your family with plasma screen TV’s, salad shooters, and crap you bought off HSN? The problem being that there are folks out there who have learned this lesson, and religiously run up their credit, default, and do it again 7 years later. We are all now paying for other people’s irresponsible use of credit to live outside their means.

Why does it matter how the money is loaned into existence? It has to come into existence somehow after all. What does matter is that it this system somehow makes people feel justified that the government owes them free money simply because they know that the government makes money out of thin air.

For those who do not know how the system works, here is an excellent, short, presentation on the topic:

Hey OP... give us info how to get into contact with this guy.. I want to ask him if he'll turn it into a class action suit.. They tried that same crap with me.. except it wasn't a credit card. It was a fixed rate home equity line of credit so they assumed they could treat it like a credit card.

America and other debt based economies are in fact slaves to artificial wealth.

You don't earn it, you don't earn enough to live in that fashion and yet everyone wants to be rich and famous or put up a front of that and so we see the ridiculous debt patterns!

Credit was invented to enslave you and you will willingly put on your chains in order to maintain your social status.

the one thing people fear most is not having an identity. Your entire identity and sense of self worth is tied up in how much money you've got in this social construct.

If you don't participate, you are cast out, if you do, you are enslaved.

It's a suckers game. I play it, you play it, we all play it.

I don't know if this has been covered much on ATS... but years ago, I think in the '70s congress removed the tax deductibility of credit card interest...It was a move premeditated to bring on the "Home Equity" loans which immediately appeared... The congress then acted to protect the big banks and not the ordinary citizen..

Millions of people got equity loans on their home..and defaulted..and the bank was secured by a home...instead of nothing as would have been the case with credit card debt.

THROW ALL THE BUMS OUT AND ELECT PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT LYING CHEATING THIEVING LAWYERS AND BANKERS.

Originally posted by Polynomial C
Americans have a very unhealthy addiction to credit cards... Screw the Credit Cards...

I agree. I'm always wondered on the addiction of the Americans regarding the Credit Cards. I don't have a single credit card at all. Unlike the American, I can wait +3 months to gather the money for that what I want to buy. Plus I don't have to pay any surplus at all on this way and I have no debts at all.

reply to post by MOFreemason


Meanwhile the so call "our government" is allowing the banks to do the gouging with not repercussions of any kind.

I applaud anybody that have the guts to fight the corrupted system that the banksters has been able to do with while our own for the people government turn the eye the other way.

Is despicable I wish good luck to the California lawyer perhaps his fight would help the rest of struggling Americans.

Even my very good bank try to do the same to us, no by 30 % increase but by 2 %, my husband response, to close the credit card off and opt out, at least we had a choice, BofA with is representation in the white house in the name of the vice president Biden is getting away with a lot of corruption and unfair practices.

People needs to get off BofA.



[edit on 6-1-2010 by marg6043]

I absolutely feel he has a case, and worse case he does a little free work for himself. All these damn credit cards are nothing but a scam that I will be free from in a few short months (can't wait).

I do have a question if someone can help me out. I had a credit card through wamu, which was bought by chase. While the card was under chase I went 4 months without making a payment, bad times, but I am now current on the account paying directly to Chase and big shock my purchase ability has been reinstated . However, I keep getting calls (10+ per day) from a debt collection company called IC services eventhough the account is current. The "fabulous" representatives for this company inform me that I owe them the 1900 balance and to sent up payment arrangements (they claim the card defaulted from wamu, which is not the case it was chase). As I said the account is current and the balance on card is no where near 1900!!!!!!!! Does anyone know if I have any recourse or how to get them to stop? Before someone says to sue them, I'm doing all I can to pay off the cards, pay my living expenses, and not accrue any new debt, therefore I have zero money for a lawyer.

I can understand the anger towards Bank of America. However, please remember that there are always two (2) sides to every story.

Credit card debt is unsecured debt, which means that there is no collateral held to protect the bank in the event of default. For example, if you use your credit card to purchase a dinner at a restaurant for $100.00, the bank has no way to recover any collateral if you default on this debt obligation.

Unsecured debt is also considered a very, very high risk loan. And that's exactly what a credit card is - a high risk loan, with an ever increasing likelihood of a high percentage of defaults in a severely distressed economy.

What we don't know is what triggered the bank to hike the interest rate.

Did the attorney lose his job and has been 90 days late on his other credit cards?
Did the attorney just borrow gobs of money that he can't afford?
Did the attorney do anything to increase the risk of default in the eyes of the bank?
Did he take out a whole bunch of new credit cards recently?
Did the attorney really make his payments on time?
Does the attorney have a past history of credit issues - tax liens, judgments, bankruptcies, etc.?

All this, we don't know. We don't have all the facts. So quit jumping to conclusions that Bank of America is at fault.

Obviously, Bank of America is sophisticated enough to use personal credit report monitoring to monitor the credit history of its borrowers. If there are warning signs - such as tax liens, late payments on other debt, judgments, loan defaults - then Bank of America is perfectly justified in protecting itself from default by increasing the interest rate and cutting the credit line - regardless of whether the borrower has "allegedly" made his payments in a timely manner.

That's what smart banks do. They try to minimize their risk, and mitigate any risk with either more collateral (unavailable, in this case), a higher rate (yup), or shorter terms (converting an interest only loan to a loan of principal and interest at a fixed rate).

Banking is a business, after all, not a Romper Room or a charitable non-profit. The borrower entered voluntarily into a legal loan contract, mind you, willingly. He could just as easily have decided to pay for all of these credit card expenses with cold hard cash. He didn't. He elected to pay his expenses with a high risk loan facility - a credit card. His choice.

This story reeks of a publicity stunt. Don't be so gullible.

I don't buy his story one bit. Never late on a payment? Sure. Sounds good to me. Why don't you back this claim by making all 3 of your credit reports available for public viewing? Don't want to do that? Well, how about at least telling us what your credit score is? Oh, you don't want to disclose that either? Not having credit issues? Uh huh. Whatever you say, sir.

This attorney is trying to play on the anger of Main Street against the bank bailouts - which are a completely separate issue from the attorney's credit risk.

If he is a heightened credit risk, then Bank of America is doing the right thing by protecting its interests in the loan asset. Last time I checked, Bank of America repaid all government bailout money, with interest mind you. And, according to the CEO's that accepted TARP funds, it wasn't an optional choice either - They were pretty much told by Paulson et al that this was non-negotiable and that they had to accept TARP funds whether they liked it or not.

The earlier post is correct - When borrowers default, everyone else pays for it. The losses have to be paid somehow, and so the losses are ultimately passed on to the average consumer in the form of higher rates, fees, etc. Why should I have to pay for this deadbeat attorney that stiffs the bank?

If the attorney had any iota of intelligence, he would consolidate this loan into a 4-5 year term loan at a fixed rate of principal and interest to pay off the debt entirely. He would avoid using his credit cards except for emergencies.

Instead, he is opting for the publicity stunt. Promoting his "Entitlement Philosophy" where contracts are thrown out the window and anything goes as long as you complain loud enough to the press. Not much can be said about the character of this borrower, other than he doesn't have any.

[edit on 6-1-2010 by CookieMonster09]