Is $17,000 for nothing, a fair deal?
You find yourself struggling to pay over $100,000 in credit card debt. Desperate and confused you turn to Express Debt Settlement (EDS) under the promise that they will cut your debt in half and lower your monthly payments. With comforting and reassuring words, they tell you how they will employ the Law Office of Simon & Bocksch to negotiate with your creditors and get them off your back for good. You are only responsible for 1 easy monthly payment every month for the next 5 years and your debt problems will be history.
Express Debt Settlement Review
Not sure what else to do, you agree to the plan only to find that two years later you have paid Express Debt Settlement over $17,000 in fees, nothing has been settled for less than you owed, you have already received 3 lawsuits and one of them has turned into a wage garnishment. Throughout the entire process the creditors continued to call and harass you, and every time you contact Express Debt you are simply told to keep sending in your payments because you don’t have enough money saved to settle any of your accounts.
You start to question the validity of this service and wonder why Express Debt could not settle a $1,900 account before it turned into a wage garnishment. Soon you realize that the only thing Express Debt and Simon and Bocksch have done for the $17,000 in fees is made your situation worse. In a panic and with your creditors threatening even more lawsuits, you request a refund so you can seek an actual solution.
How would you feel if you then received this email from Ari Dinov, the President of Express Debt in response to your request for a refund: (Bold emphasis added by me)
I am glad you have sent a dozen emails in the last 2 weeks because this is all evidence that I have, that you are constantly harassing me and my company. I am advising you to stop immediately or I will have no choice but to file a lawsuit against you for slander, defamation of character and harassment. Like I mentioned to you previously you signed a 5 year contract with my company and you are only 1/3 of the way through, your expectations have been unrealistic especially because you knew that your fees are collected in their entirety upfront as referenced in the customer agreement that you read and signed. I have further advised you that it would be in your best interest to remain in the program because your fees have already been paid and we will be able to settle some of your accounts in the next few months, however you keep harassing me, my company and my employees with “insane” acquisitions and metaphors . I am giving you 1 final warning to stop or the next time you hear from me will be from my attorney’s filing suit against you.
Wow, and who says customer service doesn’t exist in Corporate America anymore?
Dinah calls it the Express Debt Scam
This is what happened to Dinah, a former client of what I would call an Express Debt Scam, coupled with the services of Simon & Bocksch. I have reached out to Mr. Dinov as well as all other parties involved to seek an agreeable resolution to this situation, however, to date I have yet to receive any response.
Here are the facts as told by Dinah. In March of 2009 a sales person by the name of Dan Gordon pitched her on the idea that Freedom Debt Relief would be able to solve her debt problems by negotiating with her creditors and dramatically reducing the $100,000 that she owed. Believing the false promises of easy monthly payments for 5 years, she agreed to the program, stopped paying her creditors as instructed and started to send $737 a month to Express Debt instead. It wasn’t until over a year later did she realize that Express Debt was not affiliated with Freedom Debt Relief (the company she was told she was enrolling into by Dan Gordon).
About a year into the plan she was sued for $2,500 for an account that was originally only $1,900 when she enrolled into the debt settlement program. She was told that the Law Office of Simon & Bocksch would be handling any legal issues that could arise, so naturally when she received the lawsuit she contacted them. She was told that since she didn’t have enough money saved up they could not settle her debt and they could not represent her in court because the contract was not for actual legal representation.
Dinah corrected the attorney at Simon & Bocksch and informed him that she had already paid over $12,000 into the program and the lawsuit was only for $2,500, surely there was more than enough money to negotiate a settlement with. Nope, that is when Dinah learned that Express Debt had written the contract to ensure that they collect every penny of their $17,000 fee before any debts are negotiated on her behalf.
So nothing was done. The lawsuit turned into a judgment and still nothing was done. Then the creditor used the judgment to secure a garnishment against Dinah’s wages. Dinah begged and pleaded with Express Debt and Simon and Bocksch for help because she could not afford to have her wages garnished. After much persistence on Dinah’s part, Express Debt finally worked out an agreement for $2,300 however, as of December, 2010, the garnishment has still not been stopped and the money is still being garnished from her paycheck. This account was at a balance of $1,900 when Dinah enrolled with Express Debt and was negotiated only after a wage garnishment for a total of $2,300. These weren’t the type of results that Dinah was led to believe would happen when she enrolled in the program.
But wait, Express Debt is the gift that keeps giving
In addition to the garnishment Dinah has recently received two additional lawsuits from different creditors and that was when she finally realized that she needed to cancel the program from Express Debt and figure out a more realistic resolution with her creditors. She has requested a refund from Express Debt Review, but as of the date of this article she has received no refund of any of the fees. She has however received emails from the President of Express Debt attempting to blame her for the programs failure and even going as far as threatening to sue her if she does not stop contacting them.
Now, these are some of the facts that I have been told by Dinah, and as I mentioned I have yet to receive a response from anyone at Express Debt or Simon and Bocksch. I will wait a few more days to allow them to provide their side of the story before I escalate this complaint to the next level.
I want to make this very simple and break it down to the brass tacks.
Dinah paid Express Debt Settlement over $17,000 in fees. She feels the program and likely outcome was grossly misrepresented. She would like her money back. Can someone at Express Debt please explain what they did to earn $17,000 and why Dinah should not be given her money back?
I will update this article within a week, whether or not a get a response from either Express Debt Settlement or Simon and Bocksch.
If you would like to contribute an Express Debt Settlement Review, have an Express Debt Settlement Complaint, or just want to weigh in on the issue, please use the comment box below.
Freedom Debt Relief had a MONEY BACK GUARANTEE on their web site. Was I deliberately thrown to Express Debt Settlement (who according to Atty. Jon Simon was an affiliate of FDR) for the deceitful fine print?
I am currently in the same state as Dinah. I have paid $6,000 into this same company and recently was sued by one of my creditors. I instantly removed myself from the program and withdrew all of the money from my noteworld account (which was only $2,500). Because I removed myself from their program 2/3 of the way through, Express Debt will not refund my money, blaming me that I didn’t see the program all the way through to the end. My argument to them was that long before I “breached” the contract, their company breached our contract by lack of communication with me their client and with my creditors. The only response that I have received is that they will not refund my money. I don’t really know what to do next. I just threatened them with legal action. Help?
Hello Mel,
I am sorry to hear about your situation. Dinah is out 17,000 dollars because of these guys. I wish there was some way I could make them do the right thing, but unfortunately, until the authorities catch up with them, the only thing that we can do is warn other consumers not to ever enter any debt settlement contract with these guys.
If you have any updates to your situation, please come on and share them. If you would like me to write an article about your story, I would be happy to do that. The more articles out there warning consumers, the better.
Mel, I wish we could reach more potential prey to these monsters and hopefully save another desperate soul.
I am not a bad person. Just somebody whose family fell into deep financial trouble. I had settlement offers from my credit cards last year but did not know that EDS just trashed the letters I faxed and my hopes. I should have communicated with my creditors myself and paid my debts with my 401K loan instead of paying EDS. Ari Dinov, the president of EDS kept arguing that I defaulted because I missed some payments altough I have bank records and NoteWorld records that prove him otherwise. I even sent two extra payments in some months if I worked overtime just to be ahead. I had to write letters myself to the judge and the lawyers of the banks to stop the wage garnishments. EDS did nothing for me except collect my money. These I believe call for MONEY BACK GUARANTEE.
When it rained, it really flooded and EDS buried me in the mud slide. My son graduated college but could not find a stable job so I transferred some of his debts to my 0% balance transfer offers. Before I knew it, the banks increased my interest rates to 29% making it hard to catch up on the payments. When my husband lost his job, his 401K loan became a withdrawal and we are still paying the IRS for the penalty. As much as possible I do not want to file for bankruptcy because I owed some friends money when my father and father-in-law became gravely ill and died last summer. Unfortunately my friends will be affected according to bankruptcy lawyers if I file. I communicated my unfortunate situation to EDS, hoping for some consience but nothing worked.
I have another court day on Friday. I am now just praying for miracles.
Dinah, I really don’t know how Ari Dinov and the rest of the crew over at Express Debt Settlement can even try to justify what they do. To take advantage of another person who is struggling and steal 17,000 dollars from them is so far beyond the pale it is mind boggling.
Then for them to threaten to sue you for even asking for a refund really takes the cake. Luckily many consumers that might consider hiring them after listening to their sales pitch will see your story and certainly think twice about it.
I know that isn’t going to bring your money back, but at least it can serve a purpose.
Let’s keep bringing awareness on every blog and every forum that we can until the authorities catch up to these guys.
If I was in your situation, I would certainly file a complaint with the BBB, the AG in your state and the state that Express Debt is located in.
I couldn’t imaging having to pay Express Debt all of that money. It is ludicrous that they will not offer any of it back. Express Debt Settlement is a scam straight up. They should be investigated and shut down before they can do it to any other consumers.
To anyone who reads this post: If I were in this situation, I would do one or two of the following:
1. Call a local legal referral number, and speak with an appropriate attorney for 20 minutes or so in exchange for a nominal 20-40 dollar fee. See if he can help.
2. Sign up for legal insurance premiums that will enable you to speak with an appropriate attorney about your situation for hours on end, if you need it. Legal insurance doesn’t grant you legal services, but does give you legal counseling, and a possible discount on legal services to help you to battle these people with professional help.
Take heart, but act; there is no way a company like this can legally behave this way
I had the same situation, luckily I was only taken for about $5000. I contacted Note world to see about getting money that I put into this account in hopes to take care of debt. They said Debt Settlement had withdrew the funds for their services @ 15% of total and $49 monthly service.
Good luck to everyone..
Hi Damon, I wonder who voted no that they should be able to keep all the money, Did they even read the post? Of course they should pay it back, heck, they shouldn’t even be in business. I’m actually surprised that they’re allowed to operate.