888-696-1900

It's a collection agency "Trauner, Cohen & Thomas".

5901 Peachtree
Dunwoody Road, Suite 500
Atlanta, GA 30328

they claim that they are an attorney office.  Have you googled the company?  Try it out, you will be amazed!

Wanting to take me out to court due to the money that my past business failed to pay to a credit card company.

This call from 1-888-696-1900, x 1622 just came into me and the woman identified herself as Mrs. D with the law office of Trauner, Cohen & Thomas.  Saying it was imperative to call regarding this matter, so Googled the number and low & behold... it's a collection agency.  I thought it is so ILLEGAL to represent yourself as a "law office" when in fact you are nothing but a collection agency.
Sending this info on to the state of AZ to log a complaint.

I justed received a call from a Banietta at this number 888-696-1900 ex 1531. stated she was calling from a law office as well, Saying it was imperative to call regarding this matter, so Googled the number and low & behold, I see the message from everyone. I will as well send this information to our state of TX to log a complaint.

Thanks for the information before i try to call this number back.

We just got the exact same message from a Mrs. D from that "law firm" regarding a matter of importance that they will go ahead with on your behalf. I agree, I thought misrepresenting yourself was illegal.

I received a call from the same number about a month ago on both my home and cell number, they were asking for someone other than me, all them back and I told them they had the wrong number. I do not remember the extension from a month ago.  I just received another call on both my home and cell number from a different person at the same law firm (ext 1511) asking for the same person they were asking for a month ago.  Somebody didn't the message.

Have received several voice mails. from a ms. parks at trauner cohen and thomas "law firm". "me or my legal representation" can reach her until 4pm at 800-430-7124 x1533. She will try other contact numbers. I have only ONE phone. several of the other numbers they call from are: 888-696-1900, 800-696-1900, 404-233-1900. I have these listed in my phone with a seperate ring tone.

They just called my daughters cell phone number ( someone by the name of Marvin) and told her it was imperative that they speak to me and that they needed to obtain a statement from me in reference to our counties superior court. Luckily I have friends at the sheriffs department and the superior court, so I called them. And this is due to a bill that we have been fighting for almost 7 years!

See notes under https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-404-233-1900

They called me before 8am to ask for someone that doesn't live in my household.  They said they were representing this law firm.  My suspicions were found to be correct when I googled the number.

Called my husband's work and told the secretary that "we have been SERVED!"  Thought it was suspicious, don't you have to actually "serve" the papers in person?  Thanks for all the postings, now I know who we are really dealing with.

Monday, November 16, 2009
Collections firm dissolves amid suits

Former clients say Trauner failed to file suits, used funds to pay firm expenses

By Greg Land, Staff Reporter    
   
Trauner, Cohen & Thomas, a Sandy Springs collections firm that operated for more than 30 years, has dissolved amid a whirlpool of litigation from former clients claiming that the firm failed to file suits on their behalf and used funds for those suits to pay its own expenses.

The State Bar of Georgia's Web site shows that partner Robert Trauner has left for a solo practice, while Michael J. Cohen has relocated to the Peachtree Law Center on Roswell Road, and former managing partner Russell S. Thomas is with the Creditors Law Group in Norcross.

The firm changed its name to Thomas & Cohen earlier this year, wrote Kim M. Jackson of Hawkins & Parnell, who is representing the firm in the Georgia cases, in an e-mail response to inquiries.

“At that time, Mr. Trauner was no longer affiliated with the firm,” Jackson wrote. “The firm's operations are limited to winding up its affairs.”

A telephone number on the Web site for Trauner, Cohen & Thomas, which is still online, is answered by an automatic message for Creditors Law Group and includes an extension for Thomas.

Jackson said the Web site is “outdated.”

Trauner's legal woes began in July, when a suit filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia said NCO Financial Systems gave the firm more than $1.3 million to reimburse filing fees and other expenses relating to more than 15,000 lawsuits the firm was to handle on NCO's behalf. Instead, the suit says, Trauner Cohen used the money for its own operating expenses, and inflated its reimbursement requests beyond the costs of actual filing fees.

On Sept. 3, a suit was filed by Midland Credit Management in California's San Diego County Superior Court seeking $1.7 million plus interest, punitive damages, restitution and legal fees relating to “30 boxes of files for which Trauner had submitted requests for reimbursement for court costs for lawsuits that had never been filed,” which were discovered during a May audit.

The suit, filed by Kirk A. Pasich of Los Angeles' Dickstein Shapiro, accuses Trauner Cohen of breach of contract, negligence, legal malpractice and fraud, among other charges, and notes that many of the non-filed suits have languished beyond the relevant statutes of limitations.

That case has since been transferred to federal court in California's Southern District.

And on Oct. 2, a suit filed in federal court in Nashville, Tenn., accuses the firm of defaulting on a 2006 loan of almost $1.5 million, and includes separate charges that an affiliated company, National Asset Recovery Inc., defaulted on a $249,084 loan made at the same time. Thomas is listed as NAR's chief executive officer on the Georgia secretary of state's Web site, while Cohen is listed as chief financial officer and secretary; both are named individually as co-defendants, as well.

The suit, filed in Tennessee's Middle District by Roger G. Jones and Austin L. McMullen of Nashville's Bradley Arant Boult Cummings on behalf of plaintiff ACF 2006 Corp., accuses the defendants of breach of contract and conversion and says the loans were secured by collateral including all of the accounts and intangibles belonging to the firm and collection agency.

In a new suit filed Sept. 18 in Fulton County Superior Court, Zenith Acquisition Corp. and Northstar Capital Acquisition claim the firm failed to pay $124,005 in court filing fees for the companies' collection actions, including $64,490 that plaintiffs say they had already paid the firm.

The new complaint also says an unspecified number of “bad checks Zenith had purchased” were turned over to the firm for collection, but “upon information and belief, the bad checks were never even loaded into [Trauner's] system.”

Jackson, the Hawkins & Parnell partner representing the remnants of the Trauner firm, wrote in his e-mail, “The firm no longer does business with the parties to these lawsuits.”

“The firm has cooperated fully with all of its clients and former clients, and continues to cooperate fully with them,” he added.

As to Robert Trauner, he said, “Mr. Trauner had nothing to do with any of the issues raised in the lawsuits and is no longer associated with the firm.”

Bryan Cave-Powell Goldstein partner W. Scott Sorrels, who filed the Fulton County suit on behalf of Zenith, said his client did not wish to comment.

Stephen E. Baskin, managing partner of Kilpatrick Stockton's Washington office, who is leading that firm's team for plaintiff NCO, earlier declined to comment on that case; and the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the California and Tennessee cases did not respond to requests for comment.

Another Hawkins attorney, K. Lynn Finateri Silbiger of the firm's Los Angeles office, is representing Trauner in the California case.

The cases are: in Fulton County Superior Court, Zenith Acquisition Corp. v. Trauner Cohen & Thomas, No. 2009CV175307; in U.S District Court for Georgia's Northern District, NCO Financial Systems v. Trauner Cohen & Thomas, No. 1:09-cv-01787; in U.S District Court for the Southern District of California, Midland Credit Management v. Trauner Cohen & Thomas, No. 3:09-cv-02187; and in U.S District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, ACF 2006 Corp. v. Trauner Cohen & Thomas, No. 3:09-cv-00928.

Staff Reporter Greg Land can be reached at gland@alm.com

http://www.collectorsexposed.com/forum2/index.php?topic=390.0

Michael J. Cohen is no longer associated with Trauner & Thomas.  That Law firm has been disbanded, and the webpage should soon be removed from the internet.  The lawyers who remain at that firm are not the culprits.  Michael Cohen at Peachtree Law Center is the problem.

If you get harrassing calls from these people at Peachtree Law Center about someone else, or they try to collect a debt from you that you dont owe, or no longer owe, call the State of Georgia's Federal Trade Commission, 877-382-4357 and register a omplaint.  They will give you a ref# that you should keep and refer to if you need to call them back with further additions to your complaint.

I would also suggest that you send a "Cease and Desist" letter addressed to Michael J. Cohen, Peachtree Law Center, 6075 Roswell Road, NE. Suite 118, Atlanta, GA 30328.    In the letter, give your name and the phone number they have been calling, and tell them you "want them to cease and desist calling you".

That should get them to stop, and also put the FTC, who is the correct reporting agent for this kind of bad practice, on their case.  If enough of us do this, maybe we can get them to stop.

I have delt with this law firm and payed off a debt with them and they have never turned it in that i paid it and 6 yrs later im still getting collection notices from different agencies for what i already paid off throught them.....ITS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!1

These people called my mom and asked if she was over my money she siad no but they keep calling her trying to get ahold of me and will not say why they need to speak to me so she tells them smoe line to get them to leave her aloan she is in her 70's these people have no heart to call all hours of the day and night and I am going to sue them