"With all due respect to everyone and their opinions, unless you know an attorney that will send a letter with documentation on your behalf for cheap, and that is a real possibility, hiring an attorney outright to fight someone with much deeper pockets than you is 1. very expensive and 2. very, very time consuming. which is something I'd say you are trying to avoid."
This is not the case with many suits. One cannot apply their experience with different needs and think it is the same with all situations. A consumer protection attorney suing on your behalf for FCRA and/or FDCPA violations is a totally different situation than being a debtor on commercial credit situations. Contingency cases do not cost you anything up front, and the attorney takes their fees out of the award. So you don't end up paying them yourself. And time is not an issue--in this case, Joe sued his business partner. Completely different issue and expectations for court.
"I don't know what your life experiences are but unfortunately, I've had the (dis)pleasure of having to use an attorney several times throughout my life, the last time was several years ago when I had to sue a former business partner who tried to stick me with a 6 figure business credit card debt by him simply filing for BK... It took three years, and over $35,000 in attorney's fees to get it resolved in my favor."
Again, totally different. When you sue as a plaintiff and it's not a contingency case, you are going to have to pay a retainer fee to your lawyer, plus you have to pay court costs, plus you have to keep paying the attorney over the life of the case. In FCRA/FDCPA cases, where you can show that the debt collector did violate the law, a lot of these cases are not drawn out because when the other side knows you can prove they did wrong, they like to settle. A big consideration here is that you no longer owe them money, so they have no leg to stand on even in trying to offset or countersue. And, debt collectors don't want to waste time and effort--and certainly not money--on a situation where they cannot get any money out of it themselves.
"It certainly doesn't hurt to speak with an attorney. Any ethical attorney is going to be completely up front with you about what it might cost you and your potential monetary gains (if any) but I would temper any expectations for a massive payday. "
I understand what Joe is saying here, but no one was talking about a "massive payday". FDCPA allows for a maximum of $1000 in statutory damages plus any actual damages, no matter if they committed 1 FDCPA violation or 100. FCRA damages are different but you're not going to become a millionaire off of this case.
That said, it could still put up to a couple grand in your pocket--or possibly even a little more. And let's be honest--you would meet with an attorney, and if they take it on contingency, all you need to do is give them the info and documentation they ask for, and let them handle it for you. Some months down the road, it's all done and you get a check for the award minus the attorney's cut. Even if you had to pay the filing fee up front, you are entitled to seek that money back from the debt collector and credit bureau. Would this be worth it to you to let a lawyer handle it for some months even if you just ended up with, say, a few hundred bucks at the end for basically doing nothing? I sure would say it is. Of course, your attorney would be demanding that they immediately remove all inaccurate credit reporting and so on.
Tempering expectations is important, but so is considering that two very different court cases are going to be totally different from one another.
