Complaint Review: Briggs And Baker - Valencia California

Most college freshman business majors believe the old lie that if the check says above the endorsment line "For payment in full" or "By endorsing this check you accept this as payment in full" that that will discharge the debt. This is nonsense. As a former credit card banker, I can tell you we saw thousands of these checks a month. It doesn't mean a thing. Any time someone offers you the chance to settle debt for pennies on the dollar you have to realize this can't be done without destroying your credit rating.

It truely amazes me that people are actually still signing up with this company. Between the massive complaints here, and the over 250 complaints with the BBB...how they manage to sell their product is beyond me. The problem with Briggs and Baker is that they didn't earn any of the knowledge that they are "reselling". They were once customers themselves of a man named Rick Murkey, who himself did Accord & Satisfactions. However, Rick only charged 10% total, not 36%. Briggs & Baker basically took that idea and ran with it..but didn't bother to actually learn how this system worked..and even more so, as this process became obsolete (accord & satisfactions no longer work and rarely stand up in court), didn't bother to see if there is any way to improve on the system. Briggs & Baker are just 2 morons who screwed up their own credit & accounts, went through the process over a decade ago when it actually did work...and figured they'd steal the idea and make their fortune. Whenever you deal with a company that provides services in this type of field...whether it's debt settlement, credit repair, debt councelling (which I would never recommend...bankruptcy is actually less damaging)...you have to investigate certain things. Always make sure that they're bonded...registerred with the attorney generals office. Make sure they don't have a million complaints against them.. and make sure that they're not in the process of being sued by the FTC. Briggs has had several government actions against them...several of them ordering Briggs & Baker to cease and desist on all work...permanently. Just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents so you actually know who and what kind of people you're dealing with here. Hopefully these scumbags will be out of business soon. If not..it's only a matter of time before the court marshalls come in and physically close them down.

My story is similar to Liz, whom I am sure I have been in contact with as well as a lot of other suckers who were scammed by B&B. I was told in no uncertain terms on two separate phone calls with ernesto Mello , one which my wife was listneing to as well, so there is no mistaking what was said. I was way over my head in debt and was told my Ernesto that my debt caould be satisfied for 36% of the total I believe it was. B&B got 22% of the amount and the creditors got 11%, which they claime was a lot more than they would have gotten if I filed a BK, That 22% totaled about $13,000 with a total cost to me of about $23,000 that was totally wasted. I might as well have set fire to it. This was April 2001, and I had received the attorney that was retained for me that my debt was settled according to the "accord and satisfaction" laws which was their method of dealing with it. I began to wonder months later when I kept getting bills from the companies and I was told that it "takes them some time to catch up with things", which as it turned out was total BS. Later I started getting calls and mail from attornies representing crredit cards, one of them MBNA ( which suck as a credit card anyways), who ssent me letters regarding a court proceedin to which I faxed B&B the papers for them to handle. Well they did nothing at all and a judgfment was actually given against me for a total of approx $25,000 to pick a round number after late fees and others were added to it. My calls, letters and faxes probably went straight to file 13 and they put me thru hell, as they totally ruined my credit, while oferring every BS excuse they could think of. Todd even said that I was not elgible for my quote 100% money back guarentee, becasue they had doen their job. Yeah right I could have done more than they did for FREE. I wouldn't have even had to borroe the money I gave them to do that. I could have quit paying the credit cards an ben better off. Well as anyone who has dealt with these slithering peope knows that they have been effectively put out of business and most of the had to file a BK too bad that is not all they got. Prison sounded better since even the FTC knew that they were not operating legally , hence their compkaint and many, many lawsuits. Now oen of them has ben told that he has sufficnet assets to make some restituion, but like a corned animal he is doing his best to get out of that as well. Far be from me to wish bad things for any person but in this case that rule does not apply.