Maine AG Squeezes $250K+ Settlement Out Of Debt Resolution Outfit To Resolve Complaints By 300+ State Residents

In Bangor, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reports:

• [L]egal Helpers website trumpets that it is “the nation’s largest debt resolution law firm” with “offices in 50 states.” When Eric Wright went looking, he found an office in Thomaston but had a lot of trouble finding the attorney who was supposed to be there.
  
  Wright is staff attorney for Maine’s Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection. He was looking for the attorney on behalf of our southern Maine consumer, who was less than pleased with the iceberg-like progress Legal Helpers seemed to be making.
  
  Wright investigated complaints from about two dozen Mainers, most of whom had dropped their business dealings with Legal Helpers.
  
  “They didn’t appear to have done anything,” Wright told me last week. “There never seemed to be a method to the madness of what they were doing” in terms of getting clients’ debts reduced.

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• There was also the matter of registering to operate in Maine, which the company refused to do even though Maine law requires registration by debt settlement companies. Attorneys are exempt, unless those attorneys’ sole activity is settling debts. Legal Helpers claimed it had “partnerships” with attorneys who were licensed in Maine, and so should be exempt.
  
  Wright turned the whole matter over to Maine’s attorney general, William Schneider. Last week, Schneider and Will Lund, superintendent of the Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection, announced a settlement with Legal Helpers and with The Mortgage Law Group LLP, a sister company of Legal Helpers that claimed to have a national reputation for representing homeowners in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure.
  
  Under the agreement, the firms will pay $250,000 to be equitably distributed among more than 300 Maine consumers. The companies also agreed to stop charging monthly fees to present clients and will pay the state $15,000 to cover part of its administrative and investigative costs.

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• In July, the state of Illinois reached a $2.1 million settlement with Legal Helpers.

For the story, see Debt settlement firm settles with Maine for six figures.