Two Kansas Consumer Fraud Types: Corporate and Finance

Consumer Fraud litigation includes individual cases as well as class actions that have been filed throughout the country. These cases involve wrongful conduct of insurance and finance companies including fraud and bad faith.

Corporate Fraud

With the recent scandals involving Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Merrill Lynch and other corporate giants, there has been an outcry for corporate accountability. Many law firms are investigating and assisting investors nationwide to recover losses caused by the alleged inappropriate acts and actions of brokerage houses. Many investors are complaining that they have lost money because of the failure of companies and brokerage houses to disclose material adverse information and artificially inflating the companies reported results on its financial statements and other forms of accounting irregularities.

Finance Fraud

Financial fraud involves lending institutions which typically target the most vulnerable people in society.

These lenders are commonly referred to as “Predatory Lenders” and target minorities, the economically disadvantaged and the uneducated in an effort to realize huge profits. These lenders charge the borrowers higher rates of interest, require credit insurance products, require exorbitant up-front fees and include prepayment penalties. Most Predatory Lenders require the customer to purchase unnecessary credit insurance products. Additionally, these insurance products are grossly overpriced and essentially worthless to the consumer.

These companies engage in a practice known as “flipping” which involves a borrower constantly being flipped from one loan to another. This practice is extremely profitable to the lender, but devastating to the borrower’s ability to ever pay off the loan.

Another “predatory” practice known as “packing” involves unnecessary property, life and/or disability insurance being placed on the loan for no other reason, except the increased profit.

Another practice of the financial industry is known as “equity stripping” which involves a scheme to get the equity in your home pledged to a high risk separate loan, resulting in consumers losing their homes.

Another example of sham insurance is GAP coverage on an automobile. Many of the policies have exclusions that make them worthless.

If you or a loved one is in need of legal assistance, call Ray Hodge & Associates at (316)269-1414. The initial consultation is free of charge, and if we agree to handle your case, we will work on a contingency fee basis, which means we get paid for our services only if we recover money on your behalf. In many cases, a lawsuit must be filed before an applicable expiration date, known as a statute of limitations. Please call right away to ensure that you do not waive your rights.

Ray Hodge & Associates proudly represents victims and their families across the state of Kansas, including Wichita, Andover, Derby, Goddard, Haysville, Mulvane, Rose Hill, Newton, El Dorado and Hutchinson. Call today for a free consultation all over the state of Kansas. We have proudly served clients in Sedgwick, Butler, Sumner, Harvey, Kingman and Reno Counties.