Justice Prevails

This morning the B/F checked his mother's bank account.

Her money is back! WE WON! Whoo hooo!

IN YOUR FACE, UNSCRUPULOUS LAWYERS!!!

Seriously guys, this was one of the most frustrating things I've ever had to tackle, and when I think of all the people who get illegally harassed by folks like this and are powerless to fight back, I get teary-eyed with anger and outrage.

If I were not a reporter, and a real stubborn cuss, we would not have prevailed. Because it was nearly impossible to untangle the documents and trace the theft (that's what I call it) back to an actual group of collection lawyers.

Here's where the rubber meets the road: What those thieves did was ILLEGAL, plain and simple. They got a court order to take her pension and her Social Security payments -- both protected from collection BY LAW. But they did it anyway, and just took their chances we wouldn't know enough or be savvy enough to fight them off. (for the record, if her debt were legit we would have honored it, but we don't even know what it was for, or if/when/how she got it -- the poor woman has Alzheimer's and can't even remember her son's name, for crying out loud.)

I did some reporter's research on them. Do you know how many cases they run a day, on average? 45,000.

Imagine that. It's a volume game -- they aggressively go after anyone whose debt falls their way, and don't bother with niceties. They make $100 a case if they get money back for their client. That's all -- but with 45,000 cases, that's $4.5 million. Imagine!

OK. Had to share. Here's a quick update on the other stuff:

Did very well (or pretty well) at my party Thursday night. Lots of nibbles, none terrible (like french fries and fried goods), some little crab bites, some shrimp, some chicken sesame skewers. I sampled those I wanted to try, but stopped when I began to feel full.

Came home later and had some cottage cheese for a late'ish dinner.

Fast facts for you all: I haven't been blogging about this but I am still doing my pushups every other day. Getting a LOT stronger. Really amazing how this one simple move can do so much good. I can bang out about two sets of 15 now, and I'm very close to a full-length "proper" push up. I still do them now on a slight incline, but it's very slight.

Off to work, more later.