From the Truth in Lending Act, 1968
“A meaningful disclosure of credit terms so that the consumer will … avoid the uninformed use of credit.”
Congress wrote that so a borrower could read a deal before signing it. The terms that matter still sit in the smallest type, below the line where you were told to sign.
Reading that type is my practice. When a dealer, a collector or a credit bureau gets it wrong, there is usually a federal law that already says it shouldn’t have happened. I represent the person who signed, never the company that wrote it.
Agathe Wexler
Consumer attorney, St. Louis
Section 1. The terms
What you can expect, in plain type
You will deal with me, not a call center. I read every page you send, and I tell you in writing what I found and what I think it’s worth pursuing, even when the answer is that it isn’t.
Several of the laws I use make the company pay the consumer’s attorney’s fees when the consumer wins: the federal laws on debt collection, credit reporting, odometers and defective cars among them. When your case rests on one of those, my fee usually comes from the other side, not from you.
Before we start, you get a short engagement letter that says how I’m paid and which court costs and expenses, such as filing fees or a deposition transcript, you could still owe if a case is lost. Nothing in it is in small print.
Section 2. The figures
What federal law already sets aside for you
These numbers are written into the statutes. Most companies are counting on you never reading them.
$1,000
In extra damages a court may grant against a debt collector who breaks the rules, on top of what you lost$10,000
Or three times your loss, whichever is more, when a seller rolls back a car’s odometer to defraud you30 days
For a credit bureau to reinvestigate an item you dispute, in most cases
From 15 U.S.C. § 1692k, 49 U.S.C. § 32710 and 15 U.S.C. § 1681i. These are limits the laws set, not results; what a court grants depends on the facts of each case.
Section 3. The clauses
Three places the fine print hides
Most of the people who call me signed one of these, or received one in the mail.
The car contract
Miles rolled back, a wreck nobody mentioned, add-ons you turned down that showed up in the loan anyway, or a call to come back and sign a worse deal days after you drove home.
Dealer fraud
The collection letter
A collector chasing a debt that isn’t yours, is years old or is the wrong amount; calls at work after you asked them to stop; a lawsuit filed on paperwork that doesn’t add up.
Debt collectors
The credit report
An account you never opened, a paid debt still shown as owing, a file mixed up with a stranger’s. Disputes that come back “verified” with nothing fixed.
Credit report errors
Section 4. The places
Every contract names a place
Where it was signed, where you live, and where we sit down to read it.
Signature line
Bring me the paper. We’ll read it together.
Send a photo of the contract, the letter or the report, and a few lines on what happened. I’ll read it and tell you plainly whether the law is on your side.