Texas Consumer Complaint Center at your service

It's been about a year since the student lawyers at the University of Houston started answering consumer complaints.  In that time the Texas Consumer Complaint Center have helped more than 1,500 consumers and saved them more than 1 million dollars.

To get the student lawyers on your case, log onto their web site

www.texasccc.com/

Comments

[Jaime Martinez]

Actually I have question about agencies that offer services for debt consolidation. I recently called an agency and they said that they would negotiate with my creditors to have me pay back only 60% of my unsecured debt. I am uncomfortable with the fact that they want me to stop paying my credit cards only to show a hardship in making payments. I was also told that after a 3 year pay-off at a lower monthly ratethat my credit would suffer for a while but would take about three months to get my credit status in good standing.
How risky is it to use these types of agencies?

[Natalina Harrison]

I'm in the process of renting a house thru a real estate company that represents a landlord. I've recieved a lease agreement but have not signed it yet. My first question is the payment of repair cost; in the lease it states the tenant will pay landlord or any contractor landlord directs tenant to pay the first $50.00 of the cost to repair each condition in need of repair, and landlord will pay the remainder, Is this legal, I assumed that if I am renting this house then the landlord is responsible for the repair cost if it is not of my own negilence. Also is there a difference of legal rights on renting an apartment or a house? Should I have legal rep. look at the contract before I sign? Is there an legal rep. you can recommend that will review the lease. Another question, the landlord that owns the property, her boyfriend takes care of the paperwork on this house, but his name is not on the property or the lease agreement, does it matter if his name isn't on any of the paperwork?
Thanks

[Tamara Juckett]

I have a severely handicapped 16 year old daughter whose Dad continues to avoid paying child support, taxes, lives with his parents and stays on the golf course. Do you help with any actions against Dead Beat Dad's? We had two children when we were married for 10 years and the older child is in college studying Petroleum Engineering and minoring in Spanish. Two great girls for what they both have been through. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated.

Kindest regards,
Tamara

[Rachel]

I have a family member that rents an older home and upon moving in notice there were no phone jacks installed within the home. The landlord stated that it was their reponsibility to install if needed. They were concerned that they did not have 911 accessibility so they ended up having to pay the additional costs of the jack installation fee. Is it a requirement that the Landlord provide the phone jack within a rental home?

[Dale Lee]

I inherited land several years after I married and have never commingled funds associated with this property. A few years later, a judgement was placed on my inherited land because of a community property debt. When I divorced my husband, the presiding judge ordered my husband to pay the judgement, which now amount to about $3,500 plus 10% annual interest for the last 28 years. My ex-husband refuses to pay. Was it legal for this judgement to be placed on my separate property? Do I have any recourse regarding the debt or my ex-husband's refusal to pay it?

[isidra Veve]

I am renting a house and no phone lines inside the house work. My landlord says this should be part of my phone service contract. However, it is not. Who is responsible for repairing the phone lines inside the house me or the landlord?

[Tamika Pope]

I am renting an apartment in Stafford Texas. The landlord said that my contract was stating I agreed to get renters insurance. However, my lease does not state that. There is a paragraph on the lease that states if the box is checked, I am required to obtain renters insurance. The box is not checked. There is an addendum on the back of the lease that is in reference to that paragraph, stating that that paragraph makes obtaining insurance a mandatory thing, however that paragraph does no such thing. The entire lease document is not signed by the landlord, only by me. Is this even a valid contract? Can they evict me if I do not obtain renters insurance? The landlord has given me until 04/30/08 to obtain the insurance or she will kick me out. I do not agree due to the fact that the lease is an incomplete document. They also stated that the lease does not have to be signed by both parties to be valid, only by me, is that true? If I sign an addendum, and the reference in the addendum goes back to a paragraph that is not filled out by management and that paragraph clearly states that if it is not checked it is not a requirement, does the addendum change that? Also can a landlord make you get a certain amount of insurance in the eviction letter, if the lease does not specify the amount?

[Tiqua]

I have a complaint about one of my former employers. I was given a number by a manager and it was a hot line speaking with a computer... The other number given to me was a chat line.
Now heres the situation. A manager had said somethings that was way out of line and inappropriate.
I want to know if this is something that should be dealt with a dead end cooperate line or if I might have a case here?
There were witnesses and the mgr did admit in front of witnesses that these things were said...

[Mildred Chenier-Glaze]

I have a complaint about an individual that keeps calling my home phone. I've asked her to stop several times, she is still calling. I have depression, sleep apea, high blood preasure and most of the time I have trouble getting to sleep. Can I take her to small claims? Changing my number is just raising my bill. I need legal action taken aganist her.

Thank You

[Felipe j. Vasquez]

the apartments i live in a fining left and right to tenants for petty things such as a broom being left on the patio, a small ice chect being on the patio, etc. i have asked several other tenants that more things on their patios if they were fined and they stated that they had not been fined or told anything. a neighbor who does some volunteering for the apartments said that the office has told her several times that she didn't ned to place all the papers on every door, so long as she did some. anyway times that i have gotten a fine, it was always the final notice, i would never receive the 1st warning. there is still more to this, but to make it short i want to get a letter together and have other tenants sign it and turn it in to the area or district office about complaints we have concerning the running of the apartments, like the infestation of roaches, i call and report them and no one ever comes out to fumigate, i have molld like stuff on a few of the vents in my apartments, i have told them several times and still no one comes out. one of the other tenants said she called about the same thing, and all they did was come out and clean it off and repaint the vent. there are so much things wrong here at the apartments and i just want to know what can i do.

[Barry Mitchell]

Please help me!!,
I realize the hurricane messed up a lot of things, but I have been a Comcast customer for 7 to 8 years with many complaints in the past, nothing like what I'm going through now.
My power was out for 16 days after the storm, when the power came back on everything worked fine, phone internet etc.
4 days later it went out AGAIN and is STILL out. Comcast has continued to bill me for services I havn't received, being kind enough to subtract the hurricane power outage, but I should only owe them for 4 days.
When you make an appointment they give you a wide time span that they should arrive, so they are supposed to be at my home tomorrow at 8 am .
I"m writing this to you IN CASE they don't show up. I have been without phone./internet for all but 4 days after the storm . Thanks. B

[Kuricen]

For those seeking a contractor for misc work I would like to share some info about a bad experience concerning a particular contractor. The name of his company is "Prefer Construction", the name of the contractor person is James Stricklend residing in Spring, Texas. The intent of this letter is to advise people to steer clear of this company. I made the unfortunate decision to hire him to replace woodrot from several areas of my house exterior and completely repaint the exterior including the brick. I called 2 persons he had supplied to me for references...both gave a good opinion and recommended I use him. I was told the job would take no longer than 2 weeks. James showed up to work a total of 5 days over a 4 week period, and worked typically 2 hours a day, worked by himself. The quality of his work was poor and careless; he had many areas of overspray on the pavement (not able to remove) and spilled paint on large landscape rocks (not able to remove); large gaps where two pieces of wood were to joint up; a poor job of caulking....I had to caulk and recaulk his work. And after 4 weeks and the job only half done I had enough and fired him, actually grateful he did not complete as his work was of such poor and careless quality. I hired another company by the name of Bashans to complete the job, which they did so in one day, and fine job as well. Just want to save others from a bad and costly experience.

[Marcilio David]

hello

some days ago i purchased a logo design from gotlogos.com where it only said that the price was

25.00USD.

after receiving my logo, it was so AMATEURISH that i HAD to ask for a revision.

it was only THEN that the owner, daniel, told me that every revision would cost 10.00 USD!!!!

he should have explained this RIGHT ON THE ADVERTISING. not in a fineprint FAQ.

when i asked for a refund he was very unprofessional and showed no respect for a consumer.

he even confirme that ALOT of people complain about his services, because of THE SAME business

practice of hiding the revision fee.

when i filed a complain in paypal, he immediatly scalated to a claim, never giving me the chance to

explain to paypal what was going on.

i ask you to investigate because if you do a search, there are a lot of complains all over the

internet about him.

i have all the emails showing his foul language and unprofessional behavior, if you want to read.

please take a look.

thanks a lot

marcilio david
M.D. - Cardiology.

[Roger & Diana Davis]

We contracted with Tax Masters to resolve an IRS dispute from an audit. We had to complete paying installments which totaled $4100.00 before they would lift a finger after sending all our documents into them we had been instructed to call the coulslor Teresa Pelta.
The first contact with her she told us that since we now had an additional letter from the IRS showing they deducted our prepaid taxes from 1040's that we now had to pay an additional $2500.00 or they would not work on our case. We refused and said to please go ahead and work on the orignal contract. At this time we were instructed to call back later. After we called back we could never talk to anyone again until late 2008. At that time we decided since Teresa stated we were harassing her that we wanted a refund and asked for it.
Now the refund department is only a message number so we mailed letters and faxed letters explaining since they quit us and the IRS said they were never in touch with Tax Masters that we should return all all our money. This year June issue we saw a notice in AARP magazine written by Ron Burley page 18 about another couple who had the same thing done to them.Like them we paid upfront for nothing.
We hope you can help resolve this mess as we are seniors and can sure use that refund!

[Abdullah Amed]

I am living in Harris county MUD # 238, and have a complain against my water company named as Severn Trent Services, Inc. The company is very unethical and unprofessional. They have charged me with wrong and excessive water billing. Even I over paid them they are harassing me by sending Disconnection Notice.
Before you give contract to any company check their business record and ethics. They hae "F" rating on BBB website. They waste more time and tax money for correcting errors and have no idea what they are doing?

Please help me and let know what to do? I have contacted almost every where in Harris county and they have told me they have no control over them. Everybody is asking me to knock some other department's door. This is too frustrating that whole Harris county is helpless.

[Abdullah Amed]

Severn Trent Services, Inc is very unethical and unprofessional. They charged me with wrong and excessive water billing. Even I over paid them they are harassing me by sending Disconnection Notice.
The company have a very bad business record and ethics. They have "F" rating on BBB website. They waste more time and tax money for correcting errors and they have no idea what they are doing?
It is too frustrating that whole Harris county is helpless to replace them with a reasonable great company. I think they give kick backs to the big bosses, I mean just $$Billions.

[Abdullah Amed]

Can somebody please help me to take legal action against Severn Trent Services, Inc , Houston , TX 77084.
They charge you with all kind of fees like connection fees, application fees, and so on. Then they send you wrong and excessive bills. Then they keep making correction in bill by charging you previous balance. And surprise, even I over paid them I received a Disconnection Notice. & When you write them, they do not reply you.
They shoud be working in Afghanistan, I have no idea why Harris county hired them and do not keep an eye on these type of business.
Please HELP ME !!!!
Thanks

[Amna Ahmed]

Wheeler Associate Inc, Houston, TX
This company is just a TAX payer sucker. We are paying to much MUD TAX and crap to government.
I bought a new house in Mud # 238. Wheeler Associate Inc never sent me any Mud Statement and than charge me interest and penalties.
Do any body know why we are paying Mud Tax twice.

Help Help from these TAX SUCKERS !!!

[Barbara Winfree]

In March of this year my husband passed away form liver disease after a very lenghty illness. At the time of his death he had an auto financed through Capital One Auto Finance. In Feburary the auto was on the repo list and they were trying to pick it up, so I contacted them and explained my husband was in the hospital in terminal condition and what could I do to take care of this matter and stop the repo. They acknowledged at that time my name was not on the account, but they would go ahead and work with me anyway. To make this short I continued to work on this account and send them payments through my bank account until it was caught up. They continued to speak with me after my husbands death and they were fully informed that he was deceased. They excepted thousands of dollars then refused to talk to me and turned it over to Estate Department. I have faxed a copy of my husbands death certificate and will to them 3 times before they finally they acknowledged it after the payments we paid up to date. They now tell me they will not extend the note to me and I can either sell, trade , or turn the auto back to them. Isn't there anything I can do to make them give my money back or something illegal they have done? Someone please help me, I am on social security and there was no money when my husband passed and I desperately need to find someone to help me and not let companies like this take advantage of the eldery.

[carlo e]

Today for the second time (7/15/10 and 7/16/10) UPS failed to deliver my montly refill for my medication.
They have never had issues and suddenly they said "we need an apt number"... well I live in a house not in an apt. and again this has never been a problem.
After calling both UPS and the specialty pharmacy with whom the refills are arranged with each month to be delivered to my residence, UPS then said: "well if you need your package today we can give you the address in Houston where you can go pick it up"...
That is the answer I got from UPS, who is in charge of my medicine as we speak....
What should I do?... thank you for any advice.

[satyaranjan]

Hello,
We understand as contractors you work hard to earn your money and therefore we want to help you retain as much as possible. Historically lenders have penalised contractors when it comes to sourcing a mortgage. They see permies as a better bet.

http://www.contractormortgagesuk.com/

[Josephsharma]

Hi
Contractor Mortgages Made Easy are experts in sourcing Mortgages for Contractors. We can help you find the right contractor mortgage quickly and we make it as easy as possible by doing everything we can to simplify the process for you.

http://www.contractormortgagesuk.com/

[kamagra online]

I have a complaint about an individual that keeps calling my home phone. I've asked her to stop several times, she is still calling. I have depression, sleep apea, high blood preasure and most of the time I have trouble getting to sleep. Can I take her to small claims? Changing my number is just raising my bill. I need legal action taken aganist her.

[kamagra online]

Oh hell!!! You are just too cool man. I never knew that there could be something better to know about than from this piece of article. I shall have this forwarded to all my friends and even my dad, I am sure they too shall enjoy reading this piece.

[generic viagra]

I have a complaint about one of my former employers. I was given a number by a manager and it was a hot line speaking with a computer... The other number given to me was a chat line.
Now heres the situation. A manager had said somethings that was way out of line and inappropriate.
I want to know if this is something that should be dealt with a dead end cooperate line or if I might have a case here?
There were witnesses and the mgr did admit in front of witnesses that these things were said...