Yet another collection agency, Action Financial Services, LLC, was assigned to support the Department of Education’s continued extortion attempts that are enforced through usage of fabricated documents, involuntary servitude, harassment, abuse of power and bullying. The previous collection agency, Windham Professionals, Inc. disappeared after I requested debt validation. Similarly, every other collection company that the Department of Education has assigned to this case during the over 4 year period of time has disappeared. The Department of Education is fully aware that no loans exist, yet, they keep assigning collection agencies to this case one after another.

It is unfortunate, that the Department of Education is managed so, that the employees find it preferable to prolong problems instead of solving them.

Further, people at the Department of Education have clearly been engaging in highly questionable actions, which most likely should qualify as violations of laws. At this stage, people at the Department of Education apparently have chosen to continue to use the bullying approach, assigning meaninglessly collection agencies to this case one after another. The elections are coming up and the Department of Education’s actions and violations of laws that have been documented on StopExtortion.org deserve substantial spotlight. These documented actions show how the Department of Education actually operates and how self-serving this institution’s current priorities are in reality. The Department of Education is one of the key members of an infrastructure that, from the perspective of development of higher education, first and foremost serves the interest of its own members, while producing in abundance political demagoguery bubbles. This also serves as an excellent illustration of why in the higher education related areas the Department of Education has caused so much grief and has generated so little benefit to this country. Do we really want this to continue? Can we really expect things to improve, given that usage of fairly similar policies will continue?

Unlike all sorts of political demagoguery, the actions that have been documented on StopExtortion.org are all real and, hopefully, will support the notion that if we want improvements, then the way that Washington operates has to change for real as well. Appointing the next legion of career bureaucrats to produce more political demagoguery will be more of the same, and will not produce the improvements that are needed and can be produced.

• The letter published below was delivered to:
• Rebecca L. Dillon, CEO, Action Financial Services, LLC, USPS Delivery Confirmation EL292335652US

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 letter dated 06/28/2016 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.

All the collection agencies that have been assigned to this case in the past have demonstrated lack of integrity. They make outrageous and unrealistic monetary demands and promise in writing to provide debt validation, but when I request validation that (1) I received the alleged student loans and that the relevant debt exists, and (2) that the Department of Education holds relevant valid legally binding promissory note debt instruments, and (3) that the Department of Education is the legal owner of the relevant alleged debt, then the collection agencies just disappear.

Your company promised in writing to provide debt validation as well. 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.

I did not report your predecessor, Windham Professionals, Inc. for false advertising and breach of contract, because I wanted to see if that will help to move the case handling toward finding a conclusion to it. It did not – the Department of Education employees continued the extortion attempts that are enforced through usage of fabricated documents, involuntary servitude, harassment, abuse of power and bullying.

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 over 4.5 (four and a half) years against my will.

Please forward the enclosed invoice to your client, the Department of Education. For over 4.5 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. 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 4 (four) 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. The 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 that amount to legally binding promissory note debt instrument and to unconditional promise 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 4 (four) 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 4 (four) 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 your client is 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 08/26/2016. 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.
• By stating for 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 us in writing within 30 days from receiving this notice that you dispute the validity of this debt or any portion thereof, we 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.

This is all non-negotiable. I have no say in this. However, because your company at this point has received the requested notice of the debt being disputed, with the letter that your company sent, your company is making an unconditional promise to provide financial services in the form or debt validation, which also qualifies as a contract.

So, if your company, like everybody else before you, 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 furnishing 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