Sometimes a client may be unresponsive because they are in an unique life situation. However, we are experts at locating them. Here is one of many examples where we have been successful in times of complexity.
Joy was not responding to the law firm’s letters and they were not able to find any new addresses. We did find a new address and a phone number. We left several voice messages and sent a FedEx letter, but there was no response. We sent a messenger and there was no answer at the door. We contacted the management company and some neighbors at her very large apartment complex, but no one was able to give us any information. We kept on calling morning, noon, night, and weekends.
Finally, during one of our many calls, a man answered the phone. He identified himself as Frank, Joy’s boyfriend. He said Joy was in the hospital and he just happened to be at her house to feed her pets, but Joy did not want anyone to know why she was in the hospital. He had heard all our messages so he knew that we had to have the settlement signed by Joy right away or she would lose her money.
Frank said he would take the documents to the hospital for Joy to sign. Frank gave us his address for us to FedEx the documents and his cell number. We pressured him little more and then Frank revealed that Joy was in a burn unit.
Before we sent the FedEx, we checked the address Frank gave us and the phone number. Both belonged to a Maria Cabrera. We traced Maria’s landline. Under guise of having a job for Maria, her teenage son told us that Maria had just been arrested, Frank was Maria’s boyfriend, and that Joy was a disabled woman who hired Maria to help her with house chores. Frank lied!!!
Joy lived at the edge of Los Angeles County, so we called every burn unit at every hospital in the tri-county area until we found her.
The hospital informed us that we were not allowed to talk to her because she was under the protection of ADULT PROTECTIVE SERVICES (APS). Against policy, a nurse informed us that Joy was very badly burned under suspicious circumstances and Frank and Maria had visited Joy many times at the hospital and were making her sign all kinds of documents. APS had ordered no more visitors, let alone signatures of any kind. The nurse did allow us to speak to Joy because the next morning she would be going through an operation that would leave her incommunicado for 2 weeks and absolutely no visitors for fear of infection.
We spoke to Joy, who was in a lot of pain. Joy told us her only family member was a sister who she had not spoken to for more than 15 years. APS did not want to help us in any way, even though they called the law firm to confirm that our purposes were legitimate. They, too, were looking for her sister.
When we found Joy’s sister, she immediately contacted the firm, became her sister’s representative, and signed the settlement. Our job was done.