Originally Ms Lavendier was selling insurance for clients until she was caught keeping the money, and providing no insurance coverage. She was convicted and sentence to do community work and ordered to pay restitution to her victims. You can see the details by typing her name Alicia Lavendier in your browser.
Now she is claiming to be a paralegal, who works in a private office, with no supervision by an attorney which is against the law. She collects money to handle your case, again with no supervision by an attorney, which is against the law. She is doing exactly the same thing with a different twist as she did when she was selling insurance.
She is practicing law without a license, claiming she was an attorney in Mexico. Now a paralegal here in California. She accepts your case, charges you a fee. In my case she accepted several small claims cases, where I hired her to collect from the defendants, and she charged me $2,000. One case I asked her to complete papers to file the matter in another state, she kept telling me the case was typed up, but she forgot it, left it at her boyfriends home in Orange County, and many different other excuses, including telling me it was electronically filed with the court in Detroit.
I contacted the court in Detroit only to find out they don't accept electronic fillings, and no complaint was ever filed in their court. Prior to me giving her this job, she asked to borrow $50 gas money, which she promised to pay me back, but never did, and when I try calling her she never returns any of my phone calls, and never picks up the phone when you try calling her, despite all the messages you leave on her phone.
These other small claim cases which she accepted from me, over a year ago, no one has been worked on, in fact one is due to expire at the end of this month, August 2011, and I left her messages on the telephone, written letters and left her notes sitting on her desk to contact me, so I can file an extension before the 10 statue expires. I stand to loose a $5,000 case, because of her neglect.
As stated above, I have stopped in her office on many occasions, she is never there. There are two other people working independently from Ms Lavendier and they say they very rarely see her anymore.
I have spoken with attorney's whom she is associated with and they haven't heard or seen her in several months. In fact they were asking me if I knew where she was, because she was holding several of their cases, holding them up.
I am filing this scam report, so other people won't be victimized by this convicted con artist. A word of advice. Remember never give anybody not an attorney money. It is against the law for a paralegal to collect money from anybody. PERIOD!!!
She still hasn't provided me with a receipt, depite the fact that I constantly asked for one, and she never has provided me with a retainer agreement, despite the fact that I ask for one on several occasions, and she hasn't provided me a breakdown of expensive for the money that I paid her, despite the fact that I ask for one.