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Illinois Attorney Faces Discipline for FDCPA and Credit Restoration Referral Fees Paid to Non-Attorney

An Illinois attorney faces disciplinary discipline charges allegeing the attorney violated the Rules of Professional Conduct when he paid referral fees to a non-lawyer.

The attorney was a principal in the “Consumer Credit Defense Network” (CCDN) self-styled as “a network of attorneys across the nation the nation . . . that specialize in the unsecured debt relief, negotiation and litigation arena (sic).”

In addition to the referral fees, the Board alleges that the attorney deceived his clients in the nature of services provided. A client would receive a “Debt Reconciliation Program Enrollment Manual” after paying a fee between $2,500 and $4,800. The Manual outlined three stages, 1) credit restoration; 2) “reconciliation” and 3) “federal lawsuit.”

The “credit restoration” portion of the program was simply to refer clients to “The Fulfillment Center” an entity in which the attorney was not a participant. The complaint alleges neither CCDN nor the attorney provided any credit restoration service.

The reconciliation service is alleged to amount to providing clients with form letters to send to debt collectors. Although the CCDN’s Manual and website stated that it would send the form letters, the Complaint alleges none were ever sent

The website, which is still running today, is at http://www.ccdn.cc/default.asp

A link to the complaint is below.

CCDN_Lock Hearing Report

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  1. How I wish it were true already–but this is only a complaint, not a final order. Note how it says “COMPLAINT” at the top, and the first paragraph goes “[blah blah] alleges that the Respondent has engaged in the following conduct [blah blah]”, and at the end there are no findings of fact, conclusions of law, or disciplinary measures imposed. No member of the Hearing Board signed it, just counsel for IARDC. Until that order issues, Bob Lock is free to keep on doing the same thing, selling it with truthful claims that he is an Illinois lawyer in good standing with no disciplinary history in 25 years.

    But yeah, I can assure you that every word they allege about Bob Lock is true, and then some. Just Goog this cat, or better yet, visit his old homepage http://www.ccdnlaw.com (the site you link to was just one of many advertising pages). My lead plaintiff in our second federal class action bought the site and it looks rather different now. Thanks for bringing the CCDN mess some long overdue attention. We can’t understand why it took this long even to start disciplinary action against him.

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