Archive for 2009

Home Archive for 2009

It’s a wonderful Christmas morning. The tree is still beautiful, even with torn wrapping paper and opened boxes scattered amidst some still-unwrapped presents intended for friends who haven’t yet arrived.

As things settled down, I wandered to the kitchen table with my coffee cup in hand, to read the morning newspaper, with Johnny Mathis and others singing in the background. The music isn’t my day-off morning ritual, but the paper is. It only took me a few minutes to see what I didn’t expect on Christmas Day.

This was never part of Christmas before, at least not that I know of.

As I sat down, I separated the paper by sections as I always do, pulling out the sports section and the want ad section to set them aside for later reading, after my customary read of the front sections. But I never read the front section. Separating the paper, that was when I saw a different section.

I counted. 19 pages. 25 listings or so on a page. The smell of the eggs and ham my wife was cooking on the stove top began to fill the kitchen but I couldn’t put this section of the paper aside. Something made me ignore the rest of the paper and start to read just this section. I had seen this section of the paper before, but never bothered to look at it. This was Christmas morning and it was just “different.”

The entire section was foreclosure notices by the sheriff of the auction sale next month. 19 pages. 25 or so on a page. About 500 homes. But they aren’t homes anymore though. Just houses. Each one was probably someone’s hope once. A dream gone bad.

I wondered how many families still lived in some of them this Christmas morning, waiting out the last few days before they, too, had to leave.

I wondered how many homes were empty already, from families that couldn’t stand the thought of staying any longer in a hopeless situation. I wondered how many of the homes weren’t home to anyone at all now. Just empty houses.

Taylor Swift sang a Christmas song in the background as I turned the page. And then another. I no longer smelled the eggs and ham cooking as I thought of all the big shot suited-up politicians I had seen on the evening television news this last year, blaming each other for the layoffs and lousy economy. But those 19 page made me realize that it didn’t really matter how we got here.

One sheriff’s sale. 19 by 25. It meant 500 homes just in my county alone. On Christmas Day, it bothered me. Homes that aren’t anymore. How many children lived in them? How many mothers and fathers have cried from the shame of their faultless failure? And even if there was fault for any failure, that really didn’t matter either. Foreclosure changes lives.

In a world of million dollar athletes and multi million dollar penthouses, this is not the Christmas I thought I would grow up to. It just never occurred to me that foreclosures would become such a natural part of America. Or that homeless would be so very real for those so very young.

We shouldn’t lose dreams in America. And the Christmas Day newspaper shouldn’t have 19 pages of foreclosed homes up for auction. It shouldn’t. But it does.

So what do we do? I don’t know but I’m smart enough to know that I’m not smart enough to have an answer for this big problem. I hope someone does.

For now, I’ll continue doing some volunteer work, donating to church, and putting all the loose change I get at the register into whatever “give a little” charity cup is nearby. I know it’s not much, but it’s kind of like just trying to help out in the smaller world that I walk and live in. It’s the reason I never walk by someone wanting a hand out anymore. I used to. But that was before I could see their faces.

Maybe if we all did a few little things like that, things would get better. I don’t know that for sure either though. But I do know one thing.

19 pages, by 25, is very sad. And sad just doesn’t seem like it should be part of Christmas Day.

We live is some tough times. And some politicians aren't helping any. US Rep. Mike Turner, however, isn't one of those.

Too many policitians vote by party label first and people's needs second. That shows up early in the process too. Such as when they sign on as a sponsor of a bill or amendment. That sponsoring is important because it signals to other members of congress where they stand on an issue.

Maybe that's why Rep. Turner, a republican from Centerville, Ohio, signed on as the only republican as a sponsor of an amendment to help bankruptcy homeowners keep a roof over their heads.

Maybe he did it because he realized the much-ballyhooed government home loan program earlier this year (you know, the one that was supposed to help millions of homeowners modify their mortgages to keep their homes in hard times) had pretty much failed to accomplish anything at all. A good idea, badly implemented, which created lost of paperwork and frustration but accomplished no good. Only about 4% of homeowners whose homes were reworked thru the program have managed to get a permanent modification to save their home from foreclosure, reports USA Today writer Stephanie Armour.

Maybe he heard the defensive clamoring of near countless mortgage companies that said they were still "working on it" while hundreds of thousands of modifications remain tied up with their red tape. Why? Well, after all, lowering interest rates and reducing payments is not going to put any extra money in those mortgage company pockets. And, bottom line, that's what bankers are all about.

George Bailey may have been running his savings & loan to help folks out, but that's just a seasonal movie to be found on television once a year. George Bailey doesn't live on Wall Street.

Maybe Mike Turner did it because he's from one of the hard hit states that have suffered the loss of thousands and thousands of jobs, foreshadowing the foreclosure crisis that always follows on the heels of pink slips being passed out.

Whatever the reason, we say "Good for Mike." He appears to be the first republican to wake up and realize that the ultimate power to modify a mortgage is not to be found in a mortgage company's boardroom. It's to be found in the power of a federal bankruptcy judge.

No one has seen more foreclosures, or the impact they cause, than the judges who sit on the nation's bankruptcy courts every day.

On December 11 Rep. Mike Turner signed on as a sponsor of an amendment to the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009 that would give federal bankruptcy judges the power to modify mortgage terms on primary residences when the homeowner is in bankruptcy. In doing so, Turner acknowledged reality and, at the same time, necessity.

In the Dayton, Ohio area, Turner noted, it is estimated that some 10,000 housing "units" (let's just call them homes, or at least they used to be) have been abandoned because of the mortgage crisis (let's just call that a mortgage mess, which is what it is).

Ironically, bankruptcy judges already have the power to modify mortgage terms for people's vacation homes (that tells you something about who wrote that law, for sure). This new amendment would give them that power for primary residence homes. It's about time.

Meanwhile, the money-grubbing American Bankers Association came out against the amendment, shouting from the roof tops that the amendment will "impose unforeseeable costs on lenders." Gosh, folks, I just feel so very, very bad for them bankers.

Not surprisingly, another Ohio congressman, Rep John Boehner (looking remarkably well-tanned for someone from wintry cold-weathered Ohio), opposed the amendment. Clearly, while he knows where the tanning parlor is, Boehner's home is not in foreclosure. He just doesn't get it.

Helping banks and mortgage companies will not stop foreclosures. Creating government programs that they don't have to do anything about is not exactly going to keep roofs over the heads of the jobless victims of this economy.

Judges are notoriously conservative and almost always neutral. What's wrong with giving them the power to make a mortgage company accept a little less profit in order to keep another home from being abandoned, boarded up or not?

Abandoned homes are a major cause of crime increases, blight, and reduced home values for everyone. If you doubt that, then just call up the Detroit police chief and ask him.

Rep. Mike Turner has spoken his conscience. That's because he understands what he sees in his hometown.

It's too bad a lot of people in Congress don't get that. But then again, it's not their homes (or their neighbors) that are being foreclosed on. If it were, they'd be voting a lot differently.

Burdge Law Office

www.OhioConsumerLaw.com

Helping people protect themselves. Every day.

Think you live in the state with the worst economy? Think again.

Everyone seems to know that California is in the biggest economic trouble, with an economy in the dumpster, high unemployment, and no easy way to fix any of it. What may surprise many is not California. It’s the other states that are so very close to their own economic abyss.

There’s a new study out that has looked at the economy of all 50 states and ranked them.

The PEW Charitable Trusts has crunched state numbers for more than a decade, with a goal of making state governments stronger in order to improve the services we all get for our tax dollars. Part of that includes reporting on the bad times and, as we all know, we are now in a blockbuster bad time.

They looked at numerous factors to come up with a scorecard for each state: foreclosures, budget gaps, loss of revenue, unemployment, how easy or hard it is for each state to raise its taxes in order to cover shortfalls, etc.

With a “30" score being the worst and a lower score being better, here’s the “top 10" of the worst state economies, in order: California, Arizona, Rhode Island, Michigan, Oregon, Nevada, Florida, New Jersey, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

Wyoming, Nebraska and Iowa scored the best.

So where does your state fit? Ohio is almost the center of the list while Georgia’s budget gap put it just a hair behind the auto belt states of Michigan-Wisconsin-Illinois by one point.

The worst ten states account for nearly a third of the US population and economy, which is why those states in particular matter to all of us.

What the study shows is just how much farther the US economy has to go, although there are bright spots of how hard some states are trying. Wyoming, for instance, had a 19.7% drop in revenue but managed to come with 2% of balancing its budget.

We’ll all get through this as the economy starts to get better and better, but if history has shown anything, it’ll be a longer road than anyone wants it to be.

Burdge Law Office

www.OhioConsumerLaw.com

Helping people protect themselves everyday. Since 1978.

The car makers are all abuzz about electric cars. Seems like everyone is trying to build one faster than the others are (or better than the others are planning to do). But the objective of all of them seems to be the existence of the car and not the purpose of the car. That's like saying no one needed pickup trucks or minivans. Every vehicle is designed for a purpose and car makers might do well to keep that in mind. Maybe, just maybe, one electric car design is not the best way to go for all of us.

At least that's the result of a recent study by McKinsey Quarterly that was just released. And it makes sense.

All consumers still want good value for their money, regardless of their "green" viewpoint. Fact is, if there was a car that fit your needs and was cheaper to own and use than a gasoline powered car, most people would buy it. Well, another fact is that most people want a vehicle that fits their needs too.

Detroit (and the rest of the world) would do well to design to fit the need first, since the engineers say that the tough part isn't coming up with an electric car --- it's coming up with one that fits the universal need of everyone. You know, one that can run to the mall or across the state. Adding that huge battery capacity to go across the state is vastly different than just the minor battery capacity needed for the trip to the mall.

And that directly affects cost because the cost of batteries is in direct proportion to their capacity size. "One implication is that companies offering only a plug-in hybrid with, for example, 40 miles of all-electric range may be undercut by manufacturers of much less expensive vehicles with just 10 or 20 miles of electric range and only marginally higher operating costs," reports McKinsey.

The folks at McKinsey have a good point. "By focusing on specific driving missions of consumers, a company can match a vehicle's energy storage requirements to a consumer's particular needs and thus design more economic vehicles." Translated, that means the car you want can cost less if it is designed from the start to fit the needs you have for it.

That makes sense. Figures. McKinsey's economists seem to have figured out what the global carmakers have not.

Burdge Law Office

www.NewCarLemonLaw.com

Helping consumers get their money's worth since 1978.

We've talked before about identity theft and its dangers and lots of people have. There's even a terrific British Youtube about it and the puzzling question of whether it is really identity theft at all (or is it just electronic bank robbery?). Well maybe we're about to find out.

Patco Construction Company, Inc. v People's United Bank dba Ocean Bank, no pending in state court in Maine, may tell us just whose fault it really is, besides the cyber criminal of course.

Patco was a long time customer of the bank but after losing hundreds of thousands of dollars from online theft and then getting a notice from the bank that they wanted Patco to pay it back, they decided they had enough. Patco sued the bank for the loss. 'bout time, some would say. So would I.

While the claims include negligence, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and more (what, not bailment?), fundamentally the theory is that the bank failed to live up to its most basic obligation, which is to protect its customers' funds from theft. Patco's case is one to watch. With the increasing rise of cyber theft, sooner or later it may happen to you.

The Patco bank's claims of sophisticated "behind the scenes" security measures and computer programs didn't do much good to stop cyber thieves who dipped not only into Patco's accounts, but did so repeatedly, transferring money to accounts that Patco had never used before, and from internet addresses that Patco had never used before either. The thieves even managed to tap into Patco's line of credit for a hefty $200,000 transfer.

When you think about it, Patco's claims make sense. All banks are quick to point out, on their websites and in their paper brochures, how they have all these computer theft protection measures set up to protect your deposits from theft. Much of it is advertising directed at encouraging consumers to use the internet for electronic transfers and bill paying that are high-profit transactions for the banking industry. After all, there aren't many tellers working inside that big bank computer box. Heck, there's even fewer of them at the walk in windows nowadays.

A century or two ago people put their money under the mattress or buried it in the backyard because that was safe. Now when you put your money in the bank, it's because you think it's safe. Well, not quite as safe as it used to be.

Still, if you give a friend $50 to hold for you, it's only natural to expect that they'll have it on hand to give back to you when you ask for it later. Especially if that "friend" is a big bank that collects millions of dollars from thousands of people and then invests it and charges interest on loans and makes money off your money (which they keep). That's a simple idea that any person can grasp.

You expect the bank to protect your money and when they don't, it doesn't really matter whether they had one computer program to stop cyber thieves or a hundred of those programs. When the money is gone, it's gone. But it ought to be the bank's fault.

So let's stop calling it identity theft and call it what it is. Bank robbery. As soon as the banks are forced to stop charging customers for their own account keeping negligence, they will start trying to stop the problem. Sooner or later the bank will decide it needs to fix it so cyber theives can't get into your account.

So when will that happen? When we all make it happen. Banks don't like losing money and they don't like paying out money either. When it starts costing them money, they'll do something about it. Until then, they will keep tellling you that it's "your" identity theft problem and that it was "your" money that was stolen and not theirs.

How Patco's case comes out will be very interesting. But, one thing is for sure, the rest of us will be watching. And you can bet that the banks will really be watching.

Burdge Law Office

http://www.ohioconsumerlaw.com/

Helping consumers protect themsevles since 1978.

Hurricane Katrina was a disaster for Mississippi and thousands are still affected, with populations shifted and the landscape scarred still. One thing it made the public more aware of, however, was not in the wind that day.

After Katrina left the coast and dissipated, and FEMA finally got into gear, the federal government bought thousands of trailers from RV manufacturers for temporary housing for the thousands of displaced homeless families who had lost everything in the storm. For everyone at the time, it seemed like a blessing. The reality was something else.

With most of the trailers, if not all of them, came the smell of death. Now, it's on sale.

Acres of trailers, 483 of them in Brooklyn, are being sold at an online auction by the federal agency charged with disposing of surplus government property. And the sale closes October 2.

"We're trying it out to see how it goes," said Alicia Paris, an administrative assistant who transferred from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Gulfport office to help with trailer sales. Paris described the lot being sold at Carnes as "7's," which in government-talk means they think the formaldehyde-laden trailers are repairable and can be used as "temporary housing."

Of course, the folks who think these trailers are repairable and livable are the same folks who didn't even see Katrina coming, so you know what that's worth.

As sales go, this one is small. It's only 483 of the estimated 35,000 that were still left over earlier this year, nearly a third of which are located around Columbia, Mississippi. People stopped buying the trailers in 2007 when word leaked out about the heavy dose of formaldehyde that was used in the trailer construction and its ill effects on people living in the trailers without knowing about it.

Turns out, though, that this is all a bit of a blessing in disguise. Congressional investigations and lawsuits have now turned up evidence that the Rv industry has for decades used formaldehyde in construction of trailers, mobile homes, Rv's, motor coaches and other occupational use. None of it was widely known until Katrina came to town. The publicity was so bad that now one company has even started building Rv's that are "green" and promise no formaldehyde use at all and others have promised to cut back on formaldehyde use. That's good for everyone. Especially owners.

The long term health hazards of formaldehyde are notorious, including higher cancer risks. there's a good blog about it here: http://injurylaw.reganfirm.com/2008/02/articles/consumer-safety/fema-trailers-formaldehyde-dangers/.

Meanwhile, be careful. That new smell in your new Rv might not be what you think.

Burdge Law Office

http://www.rvlemonlaw.com/

Because life's too short to put up with a bad Rv.

A lawyer who worked for Toyota says the manufacturer hid and destroyed evidence about accidents involving their vehicles from the courts, federal investigators and lawyers representing victims in lawsuits against the company.

Automotive News is reporting that Dimitrios Biller worked as an attorney for Toyota Motor Corp. for four years until 2007, including representing the automaker in accident litigation. In a lawsuit filed this summer in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Biller said Toyota did not listen to his urgings to disclose all the evidence it had in rollover lawsuits or for National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulations.

The lawsuit, a public record, was quickly met by an effort of Toyota to get the judge assigned to the case to "seal' the record so no one would see what Biller is saying. But for now, the court documents are public. And the possible existence of evidence that could harm Toyota in accident litigation has caused Dallas attorney Todd Tracy to plan to refile 15 rollover, frontal-impact and rear-impact suits against Toyota.

Tracy, who fought against Biller in Toyota cases, has said he can not imagine Biller is making it up and he's not the only attorney who is getting ready to refile their cases.

Meanwhile, what is Toyota's response? Toyota spokesman Mike Michels said the company was "concerned" with Biller's breach of attorney-client privilege and contracts in disclosing information from when he worked at Toyota.

Notice that they didn't deny hiding evidence, they didn't deny destroying evidence, they just said he shouldn't be allowed to tell anyone about it. The whole thing sounds like a lawyer with a conscience and most people would be quick to say there's nothing wrong with that.

Courts will be looking to see if the allegations are true and if they are, Toyota may face some huge penalties and fines and dozens of new lawsuits on old cases that they thought they had won already. And rightly so.

Burdge Law Office

www.NewCarLemonLaw.com

Helping consumers protect themselves from lemon cars, and lying manufacturers.

Every day since 1978.

Some car dealers are having consumers sign "waiver" forms that say if their trade in doesn't get "approved" for the Cash for Clunkers program, then the consumer will pay the dealer the difference. Well, now the government is telling consumers not to do it.

Bloomberg News is reporting that the U.S. Department of Transportation is advising consumers taking advantage of the "Cash for Clunkers" program not to sign contingency agreements promising to pay back up to $4,500 if dealers don’t receive payment from the government.
No contingency agreement is required to participate, the Transportation Department, which administers the $3 billion Car Allowance Rebate System, is reported to have said on its Web site.

To enable its dealers to get more money out of consumers, the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association apparently posted a form on its Web site that car dealers can use to make new car buyers reimburse the dealership the incentive amount if the dealer is unable to obtain the credit from the government "for any reason." The consumer can also return the car to the dealership and pay "a reasonable charge" for use of the new vehicle, according to the form.
Consumers signing the agreement also acknowledge their trade-in vehicle may have been destroyed and can’t be returned. The result? You sign and you're stuck. You give them back the new car and get zippo in return.

Be careful with this Cash for Clunkers program. We are hearing stories of car dealers getting consumers to sign everything and then calling the consumer up days later and saying their trade in wasn't "approved" for the program and now the consumer has to either come up with more cash or return the new car and (surprise, surprise) the consumer's trade in is already been sent off to the crusher and can't be returned.

The whole thing reminds us of the spot delivery yo-yo "your financing wasn't approved" rip off scam where the only thing that really wasn't approved was the amount of greed running rampant at the dealership.

The simple fact is that if the car dealer does it right, they should know immediately whether or not you will get approval and a credit. So don't trust any car dealer who calls you back and wants more money down, no matter what the excuse.

If you think you're the victim of a Cash for Clunkers rip off, call us. We help consumer protect themselves every day. It's what we do.

Burdge Law Office

www.CarSalesFraud.com

Because someone needs to be on your, side for a change.

We've talked before about how forced arbitration sucks and now it appears that maybe, but only maybe, someone is doing something about it.

The Center for Responsible Lending is reporting that Minnesota's attorney general may have scored a victory for consumers nationwide in the "forced arbitration wars." A Minnesota Attorney General lawsuit against the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) ended forced arbitration in credit card contracts in that state. You can read more about it here: Credit-Card Disputes Tossed into Disarray.

NAF had processed what is estimated to be 200,000 forced arbitrations a year so it clearly was the "king" of the forced arbitration game.

At the same time, the Minn. AG lawsuit was strangely settled almost immediately with a press release announcement that came out the Sunday after the case was filed in court and just days before a Congressional committee release its findings which scalded NAF's forced arbitration program. It appears that the lawsuit, and the settlement, may actually have been intended to take some of the "bite" out of the Congressional committee's report. It would be a shame if the Minn. AG was somehow party to actually aiding NAF's agenda, but we'll have to wait and see on that one.

Meanwhile, apparently the American Arbitration Association (AAA, another private group that, like NAF did, also claims to be independent) told the Minn. AG that they did almost no credit card debt forced arbitrations and had put their own 'safeguards' in place to try to avoid some of the obvious bias and self-interest problems that rampantly ran behind the scenes, suspected but unproven, to consumers. Still AAA said it would no longer handle credit card debt forced arbitrations.

Meanwhile a class action was filed in Illinois on behalf of Illinois consumers who lost their "rigged" forced arbitration cases since 2007, sueing credit card gian MBNA/FIA and the debt collection law firm Mann Bracken. According to allegations NAF had direct ties to both the debt collection industry and the Mann Bracken law firm, and even had special nick names for the debt collectors that it routinely favored with its arbitration decisions against consumers.

If you're a victim of the NAF forced arbitration game, contact us about your legal rights.

It appears that millions of consumers may have been forced to pay millions of dollars to debt collectors who had paid NAF handsomely to give them money judgments against consumers, in the NAF forced arbitration ripoff.

These forced arbitration companies aren't going away any time soon. There's too much money to be had, so you can expect the forced arbitration game to continue to be rigged in favor of big business. Like we have said many a time before, forced arbitration simply sucks.

Burdge Law Office

www.ArbitrationSucks.com

Helping consumers get even, since 1978.

There was a time when cars were king. Every model was a wondrous work of art, styling, and powerful engineering. Maybe it was because we were young. Maybe it was because they were just a different kind of car.

Back then I had one of these. A '59 Chevy Impala that I modestly called "Big Sam." It wasn't new when I got it, not by a long shot. But it was something else.

The jet style fins jumped into a short-lived automobile fashion with the General Motors 1959 models, although hints of what was coming sneaked into a couple of concept cars and the subtle model lines of several mid and late 50's cars. But with the '59, GM just went wild, admirably so.

Big Sam was a car I had back in my college days. It had a trunk that was bigger than whole cars I would later own and an engine compartment that was so big and roomy that you could actually climb in to work on the engine and you actually could work on the engine too. And when you pressed on the gas pedal, there was no turbo hesitating to get up to speed and there was no 4 cylinders looking for the rest of the engine either. It just got up and went. Fast.

I named Big Sam after an old grizzled man who frequented a family neighborhood bar nearby, named Sam. His face was time-worn and his hunched over stance, leaning forward slightly, reflected his sixty some years of a hard struggling life that led to his then-current daytime job as a mechanic for a local family amusement park, at a time when there still were such things.

He looked older than his years, but every day he quietly left his small two room dusty cabin next to the park and walked over to start his day changing oil and tightening chains on kids' rides that were easily as old as him. At the end of each day he just as quietly left the park to walk to Andy's Bar, where he'd drink a small bottle of cheap red wine, or two, before the night air turned dark and damp and he'd start his walk home.

Sam was a tired man but he was kind too. He tried to be friendly with everyone and seemed to understand when occassionally his time-roughened appearance caused strangers to ignore his soft "howdy." It was a greeting that marked his exit from another place in time no one else remembered. He had a warm smile that he seldom found a reason to show, but when he did, you knew it was real. He was a lot like that big old lumbering 59 Chevy Impala I had. It was a remarkable aged icon of another, earlier time that still was unique with a well-worn sort of dignity too. It was so like him that I got some paint and painted "Big Sam" in small print just beside the door handle. I never named a car before that one. I never named one after that either.

A lot of things have come and gone over the years. Some have hung around. Honesty. People trying to do what's right. That still matters. Being proud of what you do, that does too. And doing your job right, that still matters too. The line workers in Detroit and elsewhere, they know that too. Somewhere along the way, though, the bosses became bean counters and the only thing that mattered was profit. When that happened, the Big Three started to slide. They've been sliding ever since.

What we need from GM, and Chrysler too for that matter, is some of what used to matter in Detroit. A sense that people matter --- more than profit or the cost-cutting machines that replace them. Efficiency matters, but quality matters more. And maybe not forgetting that quality is something that starts with the hands that work the assembly line. And we need cars that are a thing of beauty again. It has taken GM decades to realize that maybe we don't really need cookie cutter boxes with wheels on them that have interchangeable labels, some Buick, some Pontiac, some Chevrolet, some Oldsmobile.

Motor vehicles have aged in the last 100+ years from a thing of convenience and necessity, to Beautiful Art on Wheels and then back to convenience and necessity again. There is a place, I'm sure, where cars are still a work of art that stirs emotion. If GM and Chrysler can find where that is, they'll survive and probably prosper. If they don't, well they'll probably survive anyway.

That place is what made the cars of another generation fun to drive, amazing to just look at, and sell with excitement. And it wasn't all that bad either.

I still remember Big Sam. Somewhere along the way I went on to other cars and other bars. I never knew what happened to Sam. Not him. Not the car. Years later I went by the street corner where Andy's Bar had been and it was gone too.

My wife and I don't drive a GM or a Chrysler now. Sometimes I wish I did. Whether I will in the future depends on them more than me. Still, I'd hate to lose GM or Chrysler. They're sort of like that uncle that everyone in the family talks about but doesn't know what to do about.

I'm a lawyer who has spent his entire career representing consumers against motor vehicle manufacturers and dealers. If manufacturers just built them right in the first place, and their dealers were just honest folks, I probably would have spent my career doing something else. I still wouldn't mind it now, but I suspect neither of them will change anytime too soon. Unfortunately, hard economic times don't get rid of all the crooked car dealers or the bumbling manufacturers. In the meantime, consumers need to be careful out there. And if something bad happens to you, call us. Getting rid of lemons is still what we do. Everyday. Since 1978.

Burdge Law Office
http://www.newcarlemonlaw.com/

Because life is too short to put up with a bad car or a bad dealer.

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