JPMorgan Chase Drops Pursuit of Millions (Billions?) in Credit Card Debt – For Now
On 11/2/10, I contributed a piece to insideARM.com titled Follow Directions or be Fired! A Debt Professional’s Dilemma.
In this piece, I described how Linda Almonte, a banking professional and former employee of JP Morgan Chase, had been fired by that firm – she claimed – for questioning the intelligence and legitimacy of their decision to sell off a flawed portfolio of credit card write-offs.
Photo by Kent Wang
The aggregated debt in question was sold off to industry debt buyers, sometimes unkindly referred to as the “bottom feeders” of the ARM family. Reportedly, this would bring back a cool $23MM and more to the bank’s bottom line. But, this mistake in judgment – I am being polite, here – would prove to be just one of a series of floutings of the law and of ethics that culminated month’s later in today’s WSJ article trumpeting: Lender Drops Pursuit of Debt.
In a follow-up blog in December, 2010, titled Finance Professionals – We Have A Problem, I put out a more urgent plea. At that point, Linda had run out of funds (she had been refused unemployment benefits and was fighting that decision). She, her husband, and three children were being evicted. I created a “survival fund” and asked for contributions to help her weather that storm and plastered this all over credit groups in LinkedIn.
My comment at that time is still timeless and important: “Perhaps, by getting her (Linda) safely back on the ground, we will learn something about what it takes to survive by depending on each other. Given corporate practices and the present economy, that skill and experience may well come in handy.”
I am too embarrassed by the response to tell you how unsuccessful that request turned out to be. Linda was evicted, loaded the family into a car, and headed off to Florida to bounce in and out of shelters, all the while fighting in the courts for justice.
Read more of Jerry’s thoughts here on Forbes.
I hope it all works out for Linda. Sometimes whistle blowing doesn’t seem to pay off. I was marketing and sales for a collection agency several years ago. The clients were complaining about their remittances. I did some file diving to discover the owner double netting checks from law firms. Because I had to ‘sell’ our services, I went to the double netting owner to ask that he change the sales literature or his bad habits. Neither, I was fired on Monday. The only satisfaction I got? Found another job in 24 hours, who just happened to be a client of the same collection firm. Imagine my satisfaction when they asked me to audit their remittance statements.The ultimate satisfaction was hearing the collection company filed bankruptcy. So, Linda, hang in there. Lady Karma has a way of balancing the universe.
Does Linda have a PayPal account where we can send her something that she can receive immediately?