Strategic Financial Solutions, a financial services firm with 264 employees in the Buffalo area, has been shut down as the result of a civil case brought by a federal consumer protection agency, in conjunction with seven states’ attorneys general.
Strategic Financial Solutions is aiming to reopen its operations, pushing back in federal court against the suit filed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in conjunction with the seven attorneys general, including New York State Attorney Letitia James.
“(The company) tricks consumers into paying exorbitant fees by claiming that the company’s network of law firms will negotiate down their debts, but most work is done by non-attorneys,” the New York State Attorney General’s office said in a statement. “Since 2016, (Strategic) has swindled thousands of financially vulnerable consumers out of more than $100 million.”
A lawyer for the company denied those claims. Strategic Financial Solutions is based in New York City and expanded to Amherst in 2017, with the goal of eventually employing 1,500 people.
The government last week secured a temporary restraining order and the appointment of a receiver to take control of the company. Dennis Vacco, an attorney for Strategic Financial Solutions, said those steps were taken without giving the company a chance to tell its side in court. The receiver shut down Strategic Financial Solutions’ operations on Jan. 12.
“(The receiver) has shut down bank accounts, frozen employees out of Strategic’s IT systems, cut off all access to email, refused to provide service to Strategic’s law firm clients,” Vacco said in a court filing. “In general, the receiver has taken every step possible to ensure that Strategic cannot function. In short, the receiver is not managing Strategic, he is killing it.”
Vacco is asking U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. to dissolve the temporary restraining order and remove the receiver, to…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply