SettleYourBill was created by Julian Tepper, a 1965 graduate of Columbia Law School and the holder of a post-graduate Dip. Crim. from Cambridge University in England. He is married and has five children. While a trial attorney with the United States Department of Justice, Mr. Tepper handled school desegregation cases in Indianapolis, Texas and Florida, and cases that ended racial discrimination in the trucking industry and several building unions. Later, as director of the NLADA National Law Office, he and his team won the Constitutional right for children mentally retarded or with other learning disabilities to an education suited to their needs. He and his staff also brought an end to horrible and unconstitutional conditions in state institutions warehousing mentally-retarded residents and in jails and prisons throughout the United States (including Maryland’s famous "Clockwork Orange" facility, the Patuxent Institution for Defective Delinquents). In 1971, Mr. Tepper was a negotiator at the Attica State Prison (New York) and District of Columbia Jail uprisings and inmate takeovers. He also directed the District of Columbia's civil poverty law program, after which he entered private practice in 1974. The idea for SettleYourBill (SYB) came to Mr. Tepper several years ago while he was fighting a long battle with and recovering from heart ailments, cancer and an almost-fatal staph infection he caught in a hospital. While he was convalescing from six operations administered over a three-and-a-half month period, he saw that some of the medical bills did not correspond with the treatment that he received. It didn't take long to find out that the billing offices of some of the doctors and hospitals were not exactly eager to correct their "mistakes." He learned since that many other patients experienced similar problems. So he set out to deal with it. And, that's just what he did. Mr. Tepper was recently apprised of a Consumer Reports study on hospital care, according to which billing errors are rampant. The magazine surveyed thousands of readers about the hospital care they received in 2001. Although seventy-eight percent were happy with the care, hundreds who actually reviewed their itemized hospital bills found major errors. Patients with uninsured costs of $2,000 or more were twice as likely to find billing errors, including charges for procedures that were more costly than the ones they actually received, bills for work that never had been performed, separate charges for tests that should have been combined and overcharges for operating room time. But, billing disputes are not limited just to hospitals and doctors. Incorrect and improper bills from just about every area of billing that exists are not infrequent or unusual. SYB believes that everyone has had a brush with billing disputes or has received bills that they wanted to dispute. Bills, even wrongful bills, that are ignored can result in damage to credit ratings. Whether bills are disputed or paid, they need to be taken care of effectively to protect your credit. If you just send partial payment for the part of the bill you agree with, that most likely will not have the effect that you want. Mr. Tepper's medical treatment bills amounted to well into in six figures. In dealing with the ones that were wrong, it helped that he was a lawyer. He found that battling the creditors was time consuming, but he also found it therapeutic during his convalescence to develop effective and legal ways to get fair treatment, to avoid unnecessary expenditures and save a lot of money, all while protecting his credit rating. And, the idea of using the Internet to help others do the same crossed his mind. After a healthy period of consideration and planning, Mr. Tepper created SettleYourBill, whose purpose is not to provide legal services (or to charge high fees), but to try to do for others what he was able to do for himself. SYB does not claim that we can resolve all of your financial problems. In fact, we make no guarantee but one: we will make a strong and sincere effort to help you settle any bill that you honestly dispute. Have you received any bills like these? For work that was not as professional or complete as it should of been; For work that was not finished by the time promised; For a product that was damaged when you received it; For something that does not work as the seller represented; For an amount greater than you agreed to pay; or For an amount that was not reduced to take into account that you were made to wait beyond your appointment for an unreasonably long time. These are only a few of the kinds of unreasonable bills that people receive every day. But a lot of them get paid because people just don't like disputes or having to deal with them. So, if you want help to deal with a bill that you have an honest reason to dispute, SYB wants to help you. We hope you'll let us try. Now, go to "Please Settle My Bill," and send us what we need to try to help you. As soon as we receive it, we'll begin our efforts to SettleYourBill.