Pre-Paid Legal ripoff deceptive false promises Ada Oklahoma
Pre-paid legal promises to "be there" no matter what you need a lawyer for, that if you need a lawyer and you need to pay fee's for what isn't covered, it will be 25% off because "you are a member".
What they don't say when you sign up, is that "what they cover," is what you will seldom ever need, and the "free" hours you recieve, you will in all likely hood never use.
The things you do use a lawyer for you are charged a huge fee upfront before they will ever go to trial. I called after joining to see about a lawyer helping with a child support modification (a simple, maybe 1-2 hour at most) and was told this was "under section 5" not covered, so I had to have $750 up front and this reflected a discount for being a member.
I called around and other lawyers charged an average of $200-$375 for the same service. I called the free consult about another issue I had and got no help at all, they couldn't give me a concrete legal help I could use.
So why was I paying $300 a year for something I could do cheaper on my own? FORGET IT!!!!!!!! I called and canceled, asking for a refund due to being falsely promised services and still couldn't get a straight answer.
Mary
Hagerstown, Maryland
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
James
Ada,Oklahoma,
U.S.A.
Contract Terms - Custody nearly bankrupted my 14 year old business
#2Consumer Suggestion
Wed, June 08, 2005
I -deeply- sympathize, having a fight to ever see my sone again due to a parental kidnapping and court order in violation of Federal law that has nearly bankrupted my 14 year old business.
My child was taken just before 9-11, 8-18 is my day of terror, and I sought help from 911, local police, Federal Authorities, the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the FBI directly.
Pre-Paid legal specifically bars custody disputes because, like my case, they can quickly spin out of control and cost an average $100,000 to resolve matters like my own (based on 1999 studies by the American Bar Association which cited 300,000 Parental Kidnappings per year on average in their study).
States like California have correctly -criminalized- Parental Kidnapping as a felony with obvious financial motive (support of 25%-55% of the left-behind parent's income, death benefits exceeding minimum wage full time employment for the costodial parent, and emotional harm against the left-behind parent similar to hate crimes like rape).
I agree that rates quoted by Pre-Paid legal reps are high, as they use leading firms and toute those very same rates as 'savings' for credited hours of legal services.
However, I must also say that as a business owner their services and backing are very valuable for low-level out-of-court correspondence and fact-checking. Business plans are a good value, as no firm should go without attorney services on retainer in todays litigous merchant environment and few if any firms offer reasonable retainer programs or interstate coverage.
As far as personal use, they are also good for basic defense of misdemeanors and tickets, as well as a 'competent' defender in serious criminal cases for initial consultation. Much of my suffering resulting from my child's abduction might have been prevented if my representative had taken my case to the court as I presented it and carried out my pleas. Finding an attorney to sue another attorney is almost as hard as finding Osama Bin Laden's next of kin today.
My suggestion is to use the provider that serves your needs and understand when you sign the contract that custody is clearly excluded in their policy. Disregard sales and marketing people, as is common in this sales strategy, and read the value proposition of the service agreement before allowing yourself to draw any conclusion.
Again, I am sorry, and wish you luck and all the best in your dispute. I, myself, still cannot rally funds to bring an attorney into my own case nor solicit correct investigations of the violation of Federal Law and written death threats against me by the abductors of my child. I would ask you to direct any anger you may be feeling presently at that sort of disservice to parents and parental rights. The fact you have to pay to plea for rights to your children should be the first sign something is deeply wrong.
A supporter of The Bill of Parental Rights,
and fathers-4-justice.org,