Terms of Use

1. Acceptance; Scope

By accessing, browsing, scraping, indexing, querying, or otherwise using IdentityTheftHelp.com (the "Site"), any of its sub-pages, its dispute-letter generator, its inquiry form, or any other interactive tool offered through the Site (collectively, the "Site"), and by submitting any inquiry or other information to the Site, You agree to be bound by these Terms of Use ("Terms"). If You do not agree, You may not use the Site. Each use of the Site re-affirms Your acceptance of the version of these Terms in effect at the time of that use.

"You" and "Your" mean the natural person or entity using the Site, including any agent, employee, contractor, vendor, servant, automated system, scraper, bot, or other process acting on behalf of any natural person or entity.

The Site is published by Consumer Litigation Associates, P.C. ("CLA" or "the Firm") as a public service for consumers.

2. Pro-Consumer Purpose; Prohibited Users and Uses

2.1 The Site exists for one purpose: to help individual consumers understand and exercise their rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and related federal and state consumer-protection statutes. Every authorization to use the Site that follows in these Terms is limited to that purpose.

2.2 The following persons and entities are expressly prohibited from accessing or using the Site, in any capacity, by any means, and through any medium:

2.3 By accessing the Site, You represent and warrant that You are not a person or entity described in any subsection of Section 2.2, and that You are not accessing the Site at the request of, on behalf of, in concert with, or for the benefit of any such person or entity.

2.4 Any use of the Site in violation of Section 2.2 or Section 2.3 is unauthorized, is a material breach of these Terms, and may also be a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030, and analogous state statutes.

3. Permitted Use

Subject to compliance with these Terms, individual consumers and their personal authorized representatives (including non-CRA, non-furnisher attorneys and consumer-protection nonprofits acting solely for the benefit of an individual consumer) may view, read, and use the Site for personal, non-commercial, pro-consumer purposes. Permitted personal use includes printing pages for the user's own records, preparing the user's own dispute correspondence using the Site's dispute-letter generator, and sharing pages with the user's own attorney or with a consumer-advocacy organization to which the user has turned for help.

4. No Attorney-Client Relationship; Information Only

The Site is informational. Use of the Site, submission of an inquiry, or other communication through the Site does not create an attorney-client relationship between You and the Firm. The Firm becomes Your attorney only when both the Firm and You sign a written engagement letter. The Firm reads inquiries and may respond with general information, but reading or responding to an inquiry does not by itself commit the Firm to represent You.

5. Intellectual Property

The content of the Site, including text, layout, selection, arrangement, graphics, and code, is the property of Consumer Litigation Associates, P.C., except where attributed to a third party. Subject to Section 2, You may share or quote brief excerpts for personal, non-commercial, pro-consumer use with attribution and a link back to the source page. Any commercial republication or distribution, any use in connection with the activities of any entity prohibited by Section 2.2, and any use to train, validate, or benchmark any artificial-intelligence system or machine-learning model, is prohibited without the Firm's prior written permission.

6. No Reliance; No Legal Advice

The Site is general information, not legal advice for any particular situation. The law changes; the content of the Site may not reflect the current state of the law or the law as it applies to You. Past results described on the Site (including but not limited to verdicts and settlements referenced on the blog and elsewhere) do not guarantee or predict future outcomes. You should consult an attorney about Your specific situation.

7. Dispute Letter Generator — User Attestation

The dispute-letter generator on this Site is offered to individual consumer victims of identity theft and credit-report inaccuracy, and to no one else. Before any letter may be generated, the user must affirmatively check the following box and click "I attest." The attestation must be displayed in full at the time of acceptance, and the user's IP address, date, time, and the text of the attestation must be recorded.

8. Liquidated Damages

8.1 Each breach of Section 2.2, Section 2.3, Section 5, or the Letter Generator User Attestation set out in Section 7 will cause the Firm and the consumers the Site is intended to serve harm that is difficult to quantify but real. The harm includes, without limitation, (i) the loss of the Firm's investment in developing pro-consumer content, (ii) the dilution of the Site's effectiveness as consumers' communications are used to refine CRA and furnisher detection systems, (iii) injury to the Firm's and its clients' ability to bring meritorious cases, and (iv) the cost of identifying and pursuing unauthorized users.

8.2 The parties agree that fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) per breach is a reasonable forecast of the minimum harm caused by each breach of the foregoing provisions, that calculation of actual damages is impractical, and that this liquidated-damages amount is not a penalty. The parties further agree that if the Firm's actual damages, when proven, exceed $50,000 per breach, the Firm may recover its actual damages instead of the liquidated amount. Liquidated damages are in addition to, not in lieu of, equitable relief and the attorney's-fee and cost provisions of these Terms.

9. Binding Arbitration; Arbitrator Selection

9.1 Any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or related to these Terms, the Site, the user's access to or use of the Site, the dispute-letter generator, or any representation or attestation made in connection with the Site, including without limitation claims by the Firm against an unauthorized user under Sections 2, 7, and 8, shall be resolved by binding arbitration. The arbitration shall not be administered by any commercial arbitration provider. It shall be conducted ad hoc but handled procedurally as if under the then-current JAMS Comprehensive Arbitration Rules and Procedures (or the JAMS Streamlined Arbitration Rules and Procedures where the amount in controversy qualifies under those rules), except as those rules are modified by, or conflict with, this Section 9, in which event this Section 9 controls.

The arbitration shall be conducted by a single arbitrator who, at the time of appointment, is a member in good standing of the National Association of Consumer Advocates ("NACA").

9.2 Arbitrator selection. The parties shall first attempt to agree on a NACA-member arbitrator within thirty (30) days after the initiation of arbitration. If the parties cannot agree within that period, then within ten (10) business days the parties shall jointly cause a verifiable random-selection process to draw five (5) arbitrator-selectors at random from NACA's then-current membership roster. The random selection shall be conducted by a Virginia notary public or other independent neutral mutually agreed upon by the parties, using a verifiable randomization method (for example, a publicly recorded random-number draw against a numbered NACA membership list). If the parties cannot agree on the neutral within five (5) business days, the random selection shall be conducted by NACA's then-current Executive Director (or designee) acting in a purely ministerial capacity, with written certification of the method used and the identities drawn. The five (5) selectors so chosen shall, by majority vote within twenty (20) days, designate the arbitrator to preside over the dispute.

9.3 Disqualification. None of the five (5) selectors and no person designated as arbitrator pursuant to Section 9.2 may, at any time prior to or during the arbitration, have (a) co-counseled with the Firm on any matter, (b) been associated with the Firm as a partner, shareholder, of counsel, or employee, or (c) represented any party adverse to the respondent in the present arbitration in any other matter. Each prospective selector and arbitrator shall, before accepting the assignment, certify in writing that the criteria of this Section 9.3 are satisfied; the Firm shall in good faith disclose any apparent disqualifying relationship known to it. A respondent in arbitration may, within ten (10) business days of notice of a selector's or arbitrator's identity, challenge that person's qualifications for failure to meet the criteria of this Section. Challenges shall be resolved by a neutral selected jointly by the parties or, failing agreement within five (5) business days, by the Chief Judge (or designee) of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, acting in a purely ancillary capacity under 9 U.S.C. § 5; the determination shall be final.

9.4 Fees and costs — one-way allocation. Notwithstanding any contrary provision of the JAMS rules incorporated under Section 9.1, the fees and costs of the arbitration shall be allocated on a one-way basis in favor of the claimant. Specifically:

9.5 Award against the respondent. If the arbitrator finds in favor of the claimant in whole or in part, the arbitrator shall award against the respondent, in addition to any liquidated, actual, or other relief awarded under these Terms:

9.6 Hearing location. The arbitration shall be held in the Eastern District of Virginia, or remotely by video conference at the arbitrator's election, unless the arbitrator orders otherwise for good cause shown.

9.7 Class-action waiver. The arbitrator shall hear only the claims of the named parties. No claim may be brought or arbitrated as a class, collective, or representative action. This Section 9.7 may not be severed from the rest of Section 9; if any tribunal of competent jurisdiction holds the class-action waiver unenforceable, then the arbitration agreement in this Section 9 shall be void in its entirety as to that claim, and the claim shall proceed only in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

9.8 Enforcement. Either party may apply to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for an order compelling arbitration under this Section 9, for emergency injunctive relief preserving the status quo pending arbitration, for the appointment of an arbitrator under 9 U.S.C. § 5 if the Section 9.2 process fails, or for entry of judgment upon any award.

9.9 Discovery. The arbitrator shall manage discovery under JAMS Rule 17 (or the corresponding Streamlined Rule), but is empowered to enlarge the scope of discovery on the claimant's application where necessary to develop the claimant's case (including, without limitation, by requiring the respondent to produce records reflecting its access to or use of the Site, the identity of persons or systems used in that access, and any data extracted from or derived from the Site).

10. Equitable Relief

In addition to any other remedy, the Firm may seek and obtain injunctive and other equitable relief from a court of competent jurisdiction to enjoin any threatened or continuing breach of Section 2, Section 5, or Section 7. The non-prevailing party shall bear the Firm's reasonable attorney's fees and costs in any such action.

11. Consent to Electronic Signature; Attestation Record

By clicking "I attest" or otherwise indicating acceptance of these Terms, You consent to the electronic recording of Your acceptance under the federal Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (15 U.S.C. § 7001) and the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act as adopted in Virginia (Va. Code § 59.1-479 et seq.). The Firm may introduce that record in any subsequent proceeding as evidence of Your acceptance of these Terms.

12. Jurisdiction; Venue; Governing Law

These Terms and any non-arbitrable dispute related to them shall be governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Any non-arbitrable action shall be filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Newport News Division) or, if federal jurisdiction is lacking, in the Circuit Court for the City of Newport News, Virginia. Each party submits to the personal jurisdiction of those courts and waives any objection based on forum non conveniens.

13. Changes; Severability; Assignment; Waiver

13.1 The Firm may amend these Terms at any time by posting an updated version at /terms. Users are bound by the version in effect on the date of their use of the Site. The Firm will display the effective date at the top of the Terms.

13.2 If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable (other than the class-action waiver in Section 9.7, which is governed by its own severability rule), the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect.

13.3 These Terms are not assignable by the user. The Firm may assign these Terms to a successor.

13.4 The Firm's failure to enforce any provision shall not waive that provision or any other provision.

14. Contact

Questions about these Terms may be directed to:

Leonard A. Bennett, VSB #37523, responsible for content.