Edward Blum Charged for free initial consultation $625! Inflated and overcharged for phone calls and emails. Los angeles California
Be careful when hiring this lawyer, Edward Blum!! We called him to handle a criminal case, where the chances of the case being dropped are very high. He met us at a location for the free initial consultation (job interview), we decided to hire him and gave him a $2000.00 retainer.
During a period of two weeks, Mr. Blum took maybe a dozen of phone calls, returned VMs, and wrote a demand letter requesting personal property back. Which was returned to us without his assistance.
We were advised that we no longer required his services due to the nature of the case (We needed an attorney who could handle the criminal as well as civil). We requested an itemized bill for services rendered... a few phone calls, and a letter for return of property, the Initial consultation was supposed to be free... with the balance being refunded.
Keep in mind the services performed. The bill came in and we were charged $625.00 for the initial consultation, which he stated the initial consultation is always free. "I Am Waiting To Give You a FREE Consultation and Evaluation of Your Case", verbatim from his website!!
Additional charges were $200 to write a four sentence form letter requesting the return of property, and $400 for no more than a dozen phone calls, each averaging no-more than 5 minutes in duration. although we feel the charges are for the phone calls vm's and letter are justified they are overly inflated to bill the maximum amount possible. The charge for the initial consultation is straight up fraud.
Mr. Blum will justify keeping every penny of your retainer. When we called to inquire about the supposed "free initial consultation" charges, Mr. Blum refused to return calls and/or emails. He is a piece of work.
PS: I felt bad for cancelling his services, so I refered a freind who had just gotten a dui, this was before I got my staement from this POS attorney... Had I known!