Our goal is to protect consumers from Corporations who more often than not do not have the consumers best interest in mind. Consumers too often suffer the brunt of corporate wrongdoing, particularly in the area of false or misleading advertising, defective products or informaiton, and data or privacy breaches. Using litigation, consumers can employ economies of scale to confront corporate wrongdoing and obtain a remedy for those who were harmed. The MOUBARAK Law Firm has successfully obtained many consumer action settlements.

 

Areas of expertise

  • Debt Collection
  • TCPA - Telephone Consumer Protection Act
  • FCRA - Fair Credit Reporting Act
  • FDCPA -  Fair Debt Collection Practices Act

Debt Collection/FDCPA

When Debt Collectors Harass You, They Have Broken the Law!  Even if you owe the money, debt collectors cannot break the law when attempting to collect the debt! We will help you stop debt collectors from harassing you. The law protects you, regardless of whether or not you owe the debt. 

The FDCPA, in a nutshell, says that a debt collector cannot engage in or even threaten to take any illegal actions when attempting to collect a debt. Examples of illegal actions can include:

  • Harassment
  • Calling a neighbor or relative and discussing the debt with them
  • Contacting your employer
  • Threatening jail time
  • Threatening wage garnishment, among others.

If a debt collector violates the FDCPA, you can turn the tables and file a lawsuit against them! To make it even better, the FDCPA allows for recovery of your reasonable attorney fees. Its one of the few laws in existence that have such a provision. Think about that, you end up with a free attorney if you have an FDCPA claim. The debt collector pays our fee or we simply do not get paid.

TCPA

The TCPA is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which was passed into law in 1991. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued rules and regulations implementing the TCPA which then went into effect on December 20, 1992. A number of court challenges to parts of the TCPA have been brought. All failed.

The MOUBARAK Law Firm is handling lawsuits on behalf of consumers who received unwanted calls from debt collectors, banks and other companies on their cell phones. Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) individuals must provide express consent to receive certain types of calls and have the right to tell these companies, including debt collectors, to stop calling. For each unwanted call, a consumer may be able to collect between $500 and $1,500.

In general, telemarketing calls, unsolicited faxes, prerecorded calls and autodialed calls to cellphones are  violations of the TCPA, and the people receiving these communications can bring suit in local state court (including in small claims court). The statute provides  remedies that include statutory damages, generally from $500 to $1500 for each violation, which are paid to the consumer.

Robocalls are Prohibited Under the TCPA

Most notably, the TCPA restricts the use of autodialing by any telemarketer or debt collector. This is also known was a “robocall,” which is an automated dialing system with a prerecorded or artificial (computer generated voice) message. If you have received any telephone call where a prerecorded message automatically begins to play without another person on the other end of the phone, then that type of call is a robocall and is prohibited under the TCPA. The TCPA specifically prohibits these types of telephone calls to hospital patient rooms, elderly living facilities, pagers, cell phones, text messages, facsimiles, or any other services where the recipient is charged for the telephone call.

Who Can I Sue?

Consumers may be able to file lawsuits against the following types of institutions for placing robocalls:

  • Debt collectors
  • Student loan companies
  • Credit card companies
  • Check cashing companies
  • Banks
  • Mortgage companies
  • Finance companies
  • Retailers
  • Companies making calls claiming to inform people that they won a sweepstakes, a free cruise, etc.

FCRA -  Fair Credit Reporting Act (Credit Errors)

Errors on credit reports cause many problems: higher interest rates, wrongful lawsuits, trouble at work and more.  The Fair Credit Reporting Act sets forth consumers’ rights and remedies.  Every person should obtain all three credit reports once a year from www.annualcreditreport.com 

You may have negative entries on your credit report even if you have always paid your bills on time: the credit reference agencies which manage credit reports make mistakes, so even if you think your credit is good, you should make sure. A Federal Trade Commission report in 2013 estimated that 5% of credit reports contain important errors, and in a different FTC study, 26% of consumers who checked their credit reports found potentially material errors.