Here’s an example of financial services industry related poor decision making skills that create problems instead of helping to resolve them. The Department of Education’s business partner Action Financial Services, LLC contacted me in 2016 with a collection letter regarding alleged student loans. This case has been going on since 2011 and has produced ample of evidence that no loans exist. So, I requested debt validation from Action Financial Services, LLC. Just like it has been in the past in other similar situations, Action Financial Services, LLC did not provide any validation that would demonstrate that the disputed lending and borrowing transactions actually took place, that I actually received the allegedly borrowed money either directly or indirectly as tuition support, that any legally binding promissory note debt instruments exist in this case that meet the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) requirements, and that the Department of Education is the legal owner of any alleged debt.

Now, in 2017, Action Financial Services, LLC contacted me again with another collection letter. So, I have to request debt validation again. However, as is specified below, during our communication processes Action Financial Services, LLC did also offer to perform financial services in the form of debt validation. So, if Action Financial Services, LLC again fails to provide the debt validation that I requested below, I have no choice but to hold this company liable for false advertising and breach of contract.

• The letter published below was delivered to Rebecca L. Dillon, CEO, Action Financial Services, LLC, USPS Delivery Confirmation EL592799194US

Rebecca L. Dillon, CEO

Action Financial Services, LLC

4894 N Runway Dr. Suite 103

Central Point, OR 97502

Dear Rebecca Dillon:

I am responding to your company’s letters and am requesting debt validation and not to be contacted by phone. This is an open letter that I may publish on StopExtortion.org and on other websites.

Your company has promised in writing to provide debt validation but so far has failed to do so. Despite of that, your company continues to make unvalidated monetary demands that are accompanied with threats.

It seems that your company’s employees are not taking their obligation to verify the debt seriously enough and are attempting to forcefully collect nonexistent debt. Accordingly, as is specified below, if your company fails to provide the requested debt validation, I will hold your company liable for false advertising and breach of contract.

However, I do believe that if your client, the Department of Education, is willing to be reasonable, we can find a constructive solution to this case. So, if your company wants to participate in finding a constructive solution to this case, please send a constructive written proposal for doing so. In the process, please keep in mind the following:

• Unless proven otherwise, no debt obligation exists from me to the Department of Education. The over 5 years long debt validation processes have provided ample of proof that I do not owe anything whatsoever to the Department of Education.
• While I do not owe any money to the Department of Education, the Department of Education does owe substantial amounts of money to me for usage of my labor in involuntary servitude conditions. At this point the total outstanding balance that the Department of Education owes to me for using my labor in involuntary servitude conditions for over 5 years is $312,989.75. The accumulated debt that the Department of Education owes me has not been resolved and is due in full.
• Enclosed is the latest invoice.
• Student loans and relevant debt result from lending and borrowing, not from filling in financial aid applications and from a third party creating internal records after a student graduates from college. Accordingly, as has been stated numerous times in the past, if the Department of Education wants to continue to insist that I owe student loans because I borrowed money from a bank, then the Department of Education must validate that the relevant lending and borrowing transactions actually took place, that I actually received the allegedly borrowed money, that legitimate debt instruments exist and that the Department of Education is the legitimate owner of the alleged debt. As the over 5 years long debt validation processes show, the Department of Education has consistently failed to provide validation in all of these areas.
• Continued unvalidated monetary demands that are accompanied with threats made by the Department of Education and its business partners, including your company, will be considered acts of harassment and extortion.
• Until this case is resolved, I need to keep records of the relevant correspondence, so that we can avoid “he said, she said” type of ambiguities. The latter can easily be the outcome in a situation where parties with differing views are trying to resolve complex problems through phone conversations. We have enough misrepresentations regarding this case already. We do not need any more of it.
• I am not able to record phone calls. Therefore, I can correspond in writing only, via regular mail.

Thus, letters like the one dated 04/08/2017 that your company sent to me are not constructive. Such unvalidated monetary demands that are accompanied with threats do not benefit your company either, because now I must pursue this incident further as a debt validation case and I must hold your company liable if you fail to provide debt validation that you have promised to provide.

Further, please note that your company does not have any legal right to pursue collection activities in this case. I have already requested debt validation from your company and your company has failed to validate that the disputed lending and borrowing transactions actually took place, that I actually received the allegedly borrowed money either directly or indirectly as tuition support, that any legally binding promissory note debt instruments exist in this case that meet the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) requirements, and that the Department of Education is the legal owner of any alleged debt.

That is, the material that you sent me does not validate that any loans and debt actually exists and that your company has the legitimate right to pursue collection activities.

The Department of Education creating internal records 12 years after I as a student graduated from college and doing so without existence of any lending and borrowing documents, without existence of any records or documents that would demonstrate that as a student I actually received the allegedly borrowed money, and without any documents that meet the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) requirements for legally binding promissory note debt instruments, and without any fully legitimate documents that prove that the Department of Education is the legal owner of any alleged debt does not grant your company the legal right to pursue collection activities of non-existent debt regardless of any authorization that you may receive from the Department of Education.

Case Background

I attended state owned Rhode Island College between 1990 and 1996 as an honors student. As far as I know, as a student I did not qualify for bank loans because I was in the U.S. on a temporary visa when I first attended college, and then on Green Card until graduation, without any credit history, co-signer or collateral. Further, initially I did not have any work experience and work history either. While I was a student my income was extremely low and did not support borrowing from a bank tens of thousands of dollars.

According to publicly accessible sources the in-state cost of tuition to attend the state owned Rhode Island College from 1990 to 1996 ranged from $1,703 to $2,838 a year. The Department of Education insists that I borrowed $46,354.00 as principal from Fleet National Bank. The amount of money that the Department of Education claims that I borrowed is several times higher than I possibly could have received as loans, even if I would have borrowed money. As a student, I did not live on campus. The Department of Education is unable to explain, how the $46,354.00 supposedly was used or where did it go. No relevant lending and borrowing related records exist that show that I actually borrowed this money and that I received it either directly, or indirectly, as tuition support.

I received Rhode Island College Honors Scholarship, Pell Grant and work-study financial aid that covered the cost of my attending Rhode Island College. The Department of Education does have information on this, but has knowingly forced me to work on this debt validation case for 5 (five) years against my will.

Please forward the enclosed invoice and letter to your client, the Department of Education. For 5 years your client has forced me to work in involuntary servitude conditions on this case that is intended to benefit the Department of Education financially and its employees professionally. In the process the Department of Education has been relying solely on the special powers granted to the Department of Education and has proceeded without furnishing proof that the actual lending and borrowing transactions have occurred and that I actually received the student loans in question either directly or indirectly, as tuition support.

I have invoiced your client for usage of my labor and will continue to do so. The Department of Education has not disputed the validity of this debt. Due to your client’s failure to honor its obligation to pay for usage of my labor, the entire unpaid invoiced balance is due and payable immediately.

Further Communication

I am thereby instructing your company’s representatives not to contact me by phone. Any communication with me must be handled by mail. Do not call me and do not contact any third parties such as my employer, neighbors, friends or family members.

Please note that failure to comply with the above may be a violation of State and Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Acts and/or other statutes, and may also be grounds for civil action, regulatory sanction, and/or other action. Further, release, transfer, and/or disclosure of personal information such as phone number, address and/or other privileged, confidential, and/or private personal data may be a violation of Massachusetts debt collection laws and regulations, such as MGL c. 93, s. 49: Debt collection in an unfair, deceptive or unreasonable manner, 209 CMR 18: Conduct of the Business of Debt Collectors and Loan Services, and 940 CMR 7.00: Debt Collection Regulations (Current).

Debt Validation Request

I dispute the validity of the debt in entirety and every portion of it. This is not a refusal to pay, but a notice sent pursuant to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 USC 1692g Sec. 809 (b) that your claim is disputed and debt validation is requested.

Your client, the Department of Education, claims that it holds legally binding promissory notes. Your client is responsible for validating such claims and the corresponding monetary demands. In accordance with case law, (citing)

• as assignees, the Guaranty Agencies and other secondary holders step into the shoes of the lender from whom they have taken the promissory notes and are subject to any defenses that the student/obligee may assert against the assignor/lender. See Jackson v. Culinary School of Washington, 788 F. Supp. 1233, 1248 n.9 (D.D.C. 1992), reversed on other grounds, 27 F.2d 573 (D.C. Cir. 1994), vacated, 515 U.S. 1139, on reconsideration, 59 F.3d 354 (D.C. Cir. 1995).

Please note that the above citation is applicable to the time period during which I attended college and the alleged loans were made. Accordingly, I request that your client furnishes copies of the following documents:

• 1) Exact copies of the original documents that demonstrate that student loan lending and borrowing transactions did take place and the resulting debt exists.
• During the 5 (five) years long debt validation dispute your client has not been able to show that I received any student loans either directly or indirectly, as tuition support. However, I did receive Rhode Island College Honors Scholarship, Pell Grant and work-study financial aid that covered the cost of my attending Rhode Island College.
• 2) Copies of original documents that meet the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) requirements for legally binding promissory note debt instruments.
• The partial, front-end copies of the Application and Promissory Note documents that I filled in and your client has furnished, are financial aid applications. As such, these documents do not contain the following information that is necessary for a document to qualify as a legally binding promissory note:
• – The exact principal amount that has to be paid. The partial copies of the Application and Promissory Note documents that were furnished to me state that the principal can be the amount printed in the loan application, or less, which then also includes zero ($0.00).
• – Specific interest rate.
• – Due date, and when and at what frequencies any money has to be paid.
• – Further, a promissory note must be an unconditional promise to pay. A signed partial copy of the Application and Promissory Note financial aid document on its own is not an unconditional promise to pay, because the financial aid applicant may not receive any loan at all, or may receive the loan in the future at an unknown point in time, in which case the loan amount will be disclosed to the borrower in the Notice of Loan Guarantee and Disclosure Statement.
• That is, the Application and Promissory Note financial aid document does not state with certainty that the financial aid applicant will receive or has received any loan amount at all. If the applicant does not receive any loan amount, then there is no debt or debt obligation.
• Therefore, the Application and Promissory Note financial aid document on its own qualifies at the most as a conditional promise to pay, dependent on the content of the Notice of Loan Guarantee and Disclosure Statement and any other documents that the applicant will sign when receiving a loan.
• Accordingly, as was pointed out above, if your client claims that lending and borrowing transactions occurred, your client must furnish relevant signed documents and documents that amount to legally binding promissory note debt instruments and to unconditional promises to pay.
• 3) Two-sided (duplex) exact copies of the two-sided original (duplex) Application and Promissory Note documents.
• If your client is the actual legal owner of the alleged debt, then your client must have the original, fully qualifying Promissory Note documents in its possession. So far, your client has furnished copies of the front end of the two-sided Application and Promissory Note documents, and separate copies of what could be the back ends of any person’s documents. Nothing links these copies reliably together. There is no information on the separate copies of the back ends that relates them reliably with the front ends of the Application and Promissory Note documents.
• I do not accept the unidentifiable separate back ends as parts of the same documents. Any person who handled these documents could have made a copy of the front end of my financial aid applications, and the back end of another person’s financial aid applications, and put them next to each other either accidentally or intentionally, claiming that these two copies belong together as one document.
• Please note, that the guaranty agency that seems to be the source of the relevant documents, has already shown that it can manufacture legal documents at will – an act, that I consider to be equivalent to forgery.
• The separate back ends contain information that may be interpreted as Fleet Bank signing over loans to guaranty agency. Because we do not have reliable documents that show that the alleged student loans existed in the first place, or that Fleet Bank signed over the alleged loans to the guaranty agency, your client must furnish documents that prove that the alleged loans exist and that your client is the legal owner of the said alleged loans.
• Accordingly, your client must furnish exact duplex copies of the original Application and Promissory Note documents as is requested above. However, during the 5 (five) years long debt validation dispute your client has not been able to furnish exact duplex copies of the original Application and Promissory Note documents. Instead, your client sent me repeatedly partial copies of documents, that were made from partial copies of documents.
• Please do not send me one-sided copies, so that you make separate copies of the front and back end of the original documents.
• Similarly, please do not send me two-sided copies that are made from copies. Such copies can be made by putting together two sheets of paper and copying both sides as if it were one document. Such act would be equivalent to forgery.
• 4) Exact copies of all of the original Notice of Loan Guarantee and Disclosure Statements that apply to the loans that I allegedly received.
• During the 5 (five) years long debt validation dispute your client has not been able to furnish exact copies of all of the original Notice of Loan Guarantee and Disclosure Statements that apply to the loans that I allegedly received.
• Please do not send me copies of documents that were manufactured after I graduated from college. Manufacturing such documents after I graduated from college is an act that is equivalent to forgery.
• 5) Both (5.1) and (5.2) listed below:
• (5.1) Copies of the original insurance claims that Fleet National Bank allegedly submitted to the guaranty agency.
• (5.2) Copies of the original financial transactions documents that clearly demonstrate that the guaranty agency actually made insurance payments to Fleet National Bank on my behalf.
• Your client’s previous correspondence states that your client’s monetary demands are in part based on the payments of insurance claims to Fleet Bank. However, your client has not provided copies of the insurance claims that Fleet Bank allegedly submitted. Similarly, your client has not provided copies of the documents that show that my alleged student loan insurance claims payments to Fleet Bank ever actually took place.
• 6) We already had a documented incident where the guaranty agency that is involved created student loan borrowing related “original” Notice of Loan Guarantee and Disclosure Statement legal documents in 2012 by entering my current information into their computer system (and used a wrong bank’s name), while I graduated from college in 1996. As is stated above, I consider manufacturing such documents at will to be acts equivalent to forgery.
• Therefore, please have each document notary certified, stating that
• (6.1) the document is the exact copy of the original document, not a copy of a copy, and
• (6.2) the copy was made in the presence of the notary who certifies it, and
• (6.3) which company or organization currently holds the original document.

Based on the available information, qualifying Promissory Note documents in this case do not exist at all, and your client does not have even the original two-sided (duplex) financial aid Application and Promissory Note documents in its possession. Thus, based on the available information, your client has partial copies of irrelevant documents, created internal records and now claims ownership of an alleged debt.

Further, based on the available information, the “loan” records were created after I graduated from college, by picking approximately 80% of the amounts from the financial aid applications, without existence of the corresponding lending and borrowing transactions and the relevant documents. Such internal record creating does not create debt.

I have requested debt validation in this case since December of 2011. Your client has repeatedly failed to validate that (1) I received student loans and that any debt actually exists, and (2) that your client holds valid legally binding promissory note debt instruments, and (3) that your client is the legal owner of the alleged debt.

If you and your client are unable to validate the debt as requested above within 30 days of your receipt of this letter, you and your client must stop making any further monetary demands and state in writing that the Department of Education will not under any circumstances make any further demands regarding the specific previously claimed alleged debt, and will not authorize any individual, company, organization or institution to make any kinds of further demands regarding the specific previously claimed alleged debt.

Further Actions, False Advertising and Breach of Contract Charges

Please furnish the requested debt validation documents by 06/01/2017. For each listed debt validation item for which the requested documents do not exist, please state separately in writing that the requested documents do not exist.

Your company can fulfil its obligations in one of the following three ways:

• By furnishing the requested debt validation documents.
• By stating individually for the each relevant debt validation request item that the requested documents do not exist.
• By sending a response, clearly stating that you did try to obtain the requested debt validation documents from the Department of Education, but the Department of Education failed to furnish the requested documents.

If by the deadline stated above you fail to furnish either the requested debt validation documents or the requested written statements, I will hold your company liable for false advertising and breach of contract on the grounds specified below.

The letter dated 06/28/2016 that your company sent to me lists monetary demands and states the following:

• If you notify this office in writing within 30 days from receiving this notice that you dispute the validity of this debt, or any portion thereof, this office will obtain verification of the debt or obtain a copy of a judgment and mail you a copy of such judgment or verification.

Further, the same letter also states what your company’s fees are regarding this case.

Within 30 days from receiving the above letter I did notify your office in writing that I dispute the validity of this debt and requested debt validation. Your office received this debt validation request on 07/27/2016. Yet, your office has not obtained and sent me verification of the debt. Instead, your company sent me partial copies of financial aid applications and other similarly irrelevant material.

Further, please note that with the letter that your company sent, your company made an unconditional promise to provide financial services in the form or debt validation, which also qualifies as a contract.

So, if your company in response to this debt validation request once again will send me partial copies of financial aid applications without furnishing qualifying proof that I ever actually received any of the alleged loans, then your company clearly is not providing verification of the alleged debt. Filling in financial aid applications and receiving bank loans are two different sets of financial transactions. Further, the alleged loan principal is about 20 times higher than was the cost of the relevant average annual tuition, and I received Rhode Island College Honors Scholarship, Pell Grant and work-study financial aid that covered the cost of my attending college.

Thus, without furnishing the relevant debt validation and without clear indication that your company actually tried to obtain and furnish the relevant debt validation, your company is liable for false advertising and breach of contract.

Further, if your company in any way participates in reporting the unvalidated loan records to a credit bureau as if these were actual loans in collection, I will hold your company responsible as accessory to extortion attempts that are enforced through usage of fabricated documents, involuntary servitude, harassment, abuse of power and bullying. Resolving these charges will become a much longer process than other alternatives for handling this case will be.

Thomas Eklund