Court Opinion

ID: 9565621
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:24:42.051437+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:47.913092
License: Public Domain

BARNES, Chief Judge,
concurring fully and specially.
I concur fully in the result and all that is said in the majority opinion. I write separately to give notice to the bench, bar, and public *870that League’s “debt relief plan” from “North American Educational Services” (NAES) has been unsuccessful in numerous cases throughout the country. Naming the company may assist other courts who are analyzing similar issues. As noted in the majority, League, who says he is 86, asserts that his billing error letter was “composed originally by highly trained attorneys who specialize in this matter.” Whether composed by specialists or not, this unconscionable scheme will not let a debtor obtain tens of thousands of dollars in cash and goods and then avoid paying the debt.
Decided May 19, 2008
Reconsideration denied June 11, 2008.
Joseph C. League, pro se.
Mann & Bracken, M. Douglas Mann, Joseph C. Cooling, for appellee.
Pro se debtors have filed numerous actions against card companies using NAES methods; for example, in addition to the two California federal cases cited in the majority opinion, an unpublished April 2008 case from Kansas quotes almost verbatim the letter League used here. A third opinion issued less than a month ago in New York refers to a number of similar cases filed there:
Defendant notes that plaintiff used a debt elimination scheme generated by Debt Relief Services Company (or known as North American Educational Services) to eliminate debts by frustrating creditors with frivolously claimed billing errors and ultimately commencing pro se litigation against the creditors ([defendant’s memo] citing, as an example, another pro se action pending in this Court, Lysakawa v. Chase Bank USA, No. 07CV89A(Sc) . . .).
Kryszak v. Chase Bank USA, No. 07CV202A, 2008 U. S. Dist. LEXIS 24323 (W.D. N.Y. 2008).
This “[I]nternet scheme targeting unwary consumers seeking debt relief” appears to be a fairly recent enterprise, because all of these opinions involving this method of “relief” were issued in 2007 and 2008. More cases will be coming, more opinions will be issued, and the public should learn before it is too late that its resources could be put to better use than buying this debt relief plan.