Susan M Greene’s Notary Business is Here to Shake You Down

There’s a little business in San Diego called Susan M Greene Notary. It’s specifically located in Solana Beach and is owned by Susan Green. Note that his is not the same Susan M Green whom the California State Bar Association has located in Northern California. This Susan Greene is just a notary, not an attorney. This is an important distinction as you’ll soon see. Ms. Greene is joined in this duty by an Assistant named Joseph Click, JD. Yet it turns out he’s not the same Joseph Click who’s listed in the California State Bar Association either. According to Susan Green, he has a law degree, but has not actually passed the bar.

How did I learn all of this? Well, that’s quite a strange story. The beginnings of which are even stranger. You see, this story started in 1991 when George W. Bush signed the Telemarketing Consumer Protection Act. As part of that law, any company that called someone on the “do not call” list or any company who ended up using an autodialer to dial a cellphone or pager number is in violation of the law. As such, according to the law, the offending party owes the owner of the number compensation. Honestly, the idea that a consumer was due personal damages for the crime of a phone call bothered me a bit at the time, because it seemed possible for someone to make it there living to go after people who call them on the phone. It turns out that one such person was James Kinder. 

In order to avoid retyping another news story, I’ll just refer you to the San Diego Reader where you can learn that:

  • James Kinder was a former California Attorney who later resigned rather than be disbarred for numerous ethical offenses.
  • In 1996, Kinder got the pager number (619)999-9999.
  • He was immediately flooded with collection calls. As it turns out, in the age of computers, if a data entry clerk doesn’t know a number, they will tend to enter all 9s. Later the autodialer will actually dial the fake number.
  • Mr. Kinder then decided to start suing the pants off of everyone who called his number. According to the story, he set up a sophisticated computer system (which he calls a pager) and keeps track of every single call made to this number by party calling, time, and date.
  • After the 2006, TCPA Kinder had even more ammunition to go after people. He starting filing lawsuits by the hundreds. Of the cases that went to trial, he lost well, all of them as far as the story reads. However some parties would settle out of court for a few hundred dollars and that was enough to satisfy Mr. Kinder.

Fast forward to last week. My mother’s business, Market Research Dallas, gets a notice from a Susan M Greene who controls a certain phone number in San Diego. Yep, you guessed it: (619)999-9999. Someone at my mother’s firm (allegedly) called this number and here comes the shakedown artist. Except this time instead of James Kinder, it’s Susan M Greene.

Now here’s where I enter into the story. I begin an email correspondence with Susan Greene who started out alleging that Market Research Dallas violated the TCPA. She later conceded that there was no violation of the TCPA, but she was going to sue anyway for “negligent interference with perspective economics relations.” In a later claim, she added on some emotional distress, just for good measure.

Clearly, this is a shakedown, but curiously it’s not by Kinder. So what happened here. Well, as luck would have it, Susan M Greene emailed me this document which explains EXACTLY what happened here, as it appears to be the contract between the two of them. This document sets forth that Ms. Greene has agreed to pay James Kinder $1000 for the use of the number as of August of 2010, plus a monthly charge of $200 plus $.25 per call placed to that number. Not only that, #2 of the document states that Ms. Greene has entered into this deal because her business was “not doing well in the present economy.”

So this document details what anyone by now would have intuitively guessed: James Kinder has outsourced the dirty work of shaking people down to Susan Greene. Lovely. Well as you can imagine, I told her that on no uncertain terms would she get any money from us, when I get a strange phone call at my personal home number this afternoon. In it, a man identifying himself as Joseph Click tells me my phone address, what states I reside in, and that they are doing a search on what properties I own so that they can come after me.

Wow. That’s really something. At any rate, I’m sure this is a bunch of hot air. Furthermore, people that know me know that I’m not the kind to be bullied like this. Still, it’s a strange world. I posting this information here so that future parties can be better prepared to deal with this harassment.

18 thoughts on “Susan M Greene’s Notary Business is Here to Shake You Down”

  1. Go, Preston go! This story is crazy and I hope you can break the chain! Anyone can accidentally dial a wrong number, it seems to me. Though I will agree that is an odd number to misdial, but clearly seems to be a deliberate attempt to gain funds from unsuspecting people. Now if you could find a way to keep people from texting my cell phone, I’d really appreciate that! Have tried to get texting blocked on my phone, without success. Our provider said it cannot block texting on my phone as the phone is a part of a family plan and all phones on it would have to be blocked, not just one phone! I do not send or recive text messages, nor want to, but the rest of the family do so don’t want to block everyone’s phone. Another scam since many of the texts will automatically retain the phone information and enroll your phone in some program that charges you regularly on the phone’s bill. Also, the Do Not Call list is pretty much a joke, since so many types of calls are exempt from the requirement of following it. To me any call from anyone, be it charity, political, or marketing is an envasion of privacy and I resent them.

  2. Hi Preston. This is so interesting — I’m an attorney and yesterday one of my clients just got the same letter you’re describing from Susan Greene. Perfect timing to see your blog post. I’m not sure if you know this, but the James Kinder she signed the contract with was prohibited two weeks before that August 16, 2010 contract you posted (on August 4, 2010) by the California Court of Appeals from bringing any TCPA lawsuits with the 619-999-999 number. The Court decided he was a vexatious litigation, and more importantly, that he had no claim because he had assumed the risk of receiving such calls by on purpose selecting a number that would receive calls under which he could try to make TCPA calls. A link to the decision is here: http://www.leagle.com/xmlResult.aspx?page=1&xmldoc=in%20caco%2020100802024.xml&docbase=cslwar3-2007-curr&SizeDisp=7

    I’m wondering if you would be able to forward to me Susan Greene’s email to you that included the contract? It would be very useful to me in putting together a response to her demand.

    Thanks! And your Mom is very lucky to have you help stand up to this ridiculous demand. Let me know if the link doesn’t work and I can send you a more formal version of the Kinder appellate decision.

    1. Yea sure. You want me to send it to the email in the comment field or a different one? Where do you practice?

      1. I’m out of Los Angeles. Yes — please send it to my work email, which you can see in the comments, right? I will also send you a copy of the response letter I am working on to send Susan Greene tomorrow, and hope it will help you as well!

        1. Becca,

          My organization just received a demand letter from Susan, any possibility you could forward me your response letter? Thanks!

          1. She never sued us, and a search of the records of the San Diego small claims docket indicates its very rare that she sues anyone. All bark and no bite.

  3. I am general counsel to a university in Florida. Ms. Greene has also sent a letter to our university making the same demands. I would appreciate you forwarding to me any relevant information to assist in my response to her. Thanks for all of your information stated above.

    1. I received a threatening letter three months ago from Susan Green. She demanded that my company pay her thousands for an alleged violation of the TCPA. I took it as weak attempt to extort me and thought nothing more. Yesterday I received a prepared Small Claims Court complaint that hasn’t been filed. May I please have the contract as well? I have retained an attorney and hope this will be resolved quickly, however, it still leaves her out there to do this others. Does anyone have suggestions about what we can do to stop her from continuing her atrocious “business” practice? I am going to get as much info together as possible and inform the CA Attorney General, as well as my state’s AG. The more people that do the same the better. If anyone has any additional information will you please email it to me? I appreciate your time and any help you can provide. You can send it to kalinsemail@yahoo.com.

      1. Really I think that you’re wasting your money on an attorney. She is simply a petty extortionist with no plans to actually follow through. She prepares small claims documents, but she doesn’t file them.

        I was actually putting together a lawsuit to file in CA court to stop her. If anybody wants to contribute to the cause, please let me know.

  4. Preston, you stated you had a copy of contract between Kinder and Greene. Will you please email it to me?

  5. Hi Preston,

    This is post is very helpful. I am in-hoouse counsel for a small corporation and we recently received a demand letter from her as well. At first we ignored her, but she recently sent us a draft claim and has given us 3 days to respond. We have been instructed to respond. Would you be able to send me a copy of your response letter as well as any other relevant information you may have to assist in my response?

    Thank you so much for your help.

    TL

  6. Preston, et. al.,
    fyi, Susan Greene and James Kinder live together at 348 El Pedregal Drive, Solana Beach, CA 92075. You are most likely corresponding with James Kinder not Susan Greene. James (aka Jim) Kinder has quite a history of scams and harassment – try an internet search for him. He is an interesting story (in a sick sorf of way).

  7. update.
    Yesterday Jim Kinder dropped dead of a heart attack. That pretty much takes any teeth out of this phone scam. Susan Greene does not have the wherewithal to do it by herself. Suggest you send her back the letter and tell her to put it where it belongs.

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