Winfrey’s Mom Countersues Store for Its $156K Bill
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AP, October 1, 2008
Oprah Winfrey’s mother says she shouldn’t have to pay a nearly $156,000 debt to a high-end fashion store because store officials shouldn’t have extended credit to her.
Valentina Inc. alleges that Vernita Lee of Milwaukee racked up $155,547 in purchases and interest as of July 1. The company sued, saying Lee fell behind in minimum monthly payments of $2,000.
Lee filed a counterclaim Friday contending that Valentina took advantage of her “lack of knowledge, ability, and-or capacity” when creating her credit account.
(Posted on October 2, 2008)
Comments
Does anyone know what percentage of blacks (rich or poor) have good credit ratings?
Posted by Dennis at 5:36 PM on October 2
The next time Oprah gets on her high horse remember how she must treat her mother.
Posted by Dennis at 5:37 PM on October 2
Oprah Winfrey, one of the world’s richest entertainers, surprised her fans Monday by giving each of her 276 audience members a new car to celebrate the premiere of her show’s 19th season.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/13/news/newsmakers/oprah/
And she can’t help her mother?
Posted by at 5:43 PM on October 2
You absolutely cannot win with these people (blacks). Extend them credit or you’re a racist, break all the rules to loan money for a house which they can’t repay and it’s the mortgage company’s fault when they go bellyup. Loathesome people.
Posted by at 6:13 PM on October 2
“Lee filed a counterclaim Friday contending that Valentina took advantage of her ‘lack of knowledge, ability, and-or capacity’ when creating her credit account.”
This is utterly laughable!
Considering that this ebony probably ran about the store announcing that she ‘be Oprah’s mama,’ to get special treatment and the extended credit, which they then foolishly showered on her, it is doubly amusing. Valentina Inc. most certainly did not take “advantage” of this, however they are guilty of being stupid enough to think that this woman would be any different from her daughter when it comes to entitlement issues; after all, she gave birth to a “great” black woman with a famously “beloved” talk show, so she must be deserving of at least a free $155,547 wardrobe.
Come on Valentina Inc., don’t you people think Vernita Lee should be allowed this considering what slavery’s “legacy” did to hold her family down?
As always, God help us all!
Posted by John PM at 6:20 PM on October 2
This has to be a planted story, nobody is that stupid. Well, maybe. Let her way too rich daughter pay it for her. I’ll stop here, so this will be posted.
Posted by at 6:37 PM on October 2
That takes the cake!! Winfrey’s old lady figures she can do or say whatever she pleases….they are big shots don’t you know, and her daughter invented a new religion….I think it’s a form of witchcraft!!
Posted by ccbrave at 6:44 PM on October 2
I think if she made the response,”Don`t you know who I am? I`m (fill in the blank) ” that she should be liable for the debt.
Reminds me of the time I got a call fifteen minutes before closing the bar that some famous band (wish I could remember which, but I`m talking REALLY REALLY BIG wanted to “party” after hours. I politely demurred. The agent on the phone said, “Don`t you know who they are?” I said, “Uh-huh…Unh-uh!” The next day the bouncer brought a local article that said they had trashed our competition to the tune of about a gazillion dollars.
Posted by Tim Mc Hugh at 6:47 PM on October 2
There`s rich, then there`s rich Dept.”
Contrast this story to the one of Cristina Onassis wandering into Neiman-Marcus in the mid 1960`s. When a clerk observed the teenager pulling $85,000 out of her jeans they escorted her to the security office. When she asked in wide eyed innocence “isn`t this enough to buy a dress?!?” they called the cops! Cue the “Little Girl Lost” soundtrack!
Posted by Tim Mc Hugh at 7:05 PM on October 2
You can’t make this stuff up. If you wrote this into a novel or screenplay, you’d be accused of stretching reality.
And again, damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Don’t give her money. Give her money. Either way you lose.
It’s pointless trying to help these people.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 8:10 PM on October 2
At least she admits that she is not intellegent enough to handle credit.
Posted by Spartan24 at 8:30 PM on October 2
Sorry for posting three on a match, but I feel it important to mention Ms. Onassis went on to run her father`s empire with great success after the death of her brother.
Posted by Tim Mc Hugh at 8:50 PM on October 2
Woe be unto this clothing store if it restricted Oprah’s momma’s line of credit. Oprah would have her legion of lawyers all over that store, owning it within a couple of weeks. Imagine the news releases: “racist store denies Oprah’s mother!” They’d be doomed if they didn’t grant a near bottomless line of credit to the old girl.
I hope this store follows through with their lawsuit. If they buckle, the insanity will continue to grow cross country. It’s bad enough as it is.
Posted by Proactive at 9:07 PM on October 2
Posted by at 5:43 PM on October 2
Opray was the middleman, she didn’t give them anything. They were donated.
“The cars, priced at $28,400 fully loaded, were donated by Pontiac, according to the carmaker. Pontiac, a division of General Motors (GM: Research, Estimates), has also agreed to pay sales tax for each membr of the lucky audience.”
Posted by GetBackJack at 9:57 PM on October 2
It seems if Oprah is generous enough to buy every member of her audience a new car she should be able to bail out her own mother. However, let’s be fair to Oprah. We don’t know how many times this crazy mother of hers has been involved in an escapade like this. But Oprah should certainly arrange to pay the bill, on the condition that her mother agrees to have her credit frozen for the rest of her life. Most certainly the store should not have to foot the bill for this. And what is O’s mother saying when she claims that the store took advantage of her “lack of knowledge, ability, and-or capacity.” Is she claiming retardation in the inability to understand the simple concept of credit?
Posted by Tim in Indiana at 12:08 AM on October 3
Oprah Winfrey’s mother says she shouldn’t have to pay a nearly $156,000 debt to a high-end fashion store because store officials shouldn’t have extended credit to her.
If Valentina had not extended credit to her the company would have been sued for racial discrimination.
Lee filed a counterclaim Friday contending that Valentina took advantage of her “lack of knowledge, ability, and-or capacity” when creating her credit account.
Yes, it was obviously unreasonable of Valentina to have expected an adult black woman to be able to add and subtract, or to realize that when she borrows money she is expected to pay it back.
Posted by Heteronormatively Privileged White Male Oppressor at 1:08 AM on October 3
“The cars, priced at $28,400 fully loaded, were donated by Pontiac, according to the carmaker.”
if those Pontiacs cost $28,000, then that means that Oprah’s idiot mother spent the equivalent of five fully loaded automobiles at a clothing store. Why does this behavior somehow seem all too common for blacks?
Posted by Tim in Indiana at 1:25 AM on October 3
I wonder what on earth she bought for $156,000.?
I haven’t spent anything close to that (total) in my entire life on clothes, and won’t even for the rest of my life, yet I somehow manage.
Posted by at 3:46 AM on October 3
I have absolutely no respect for Oprah.
Now Paul Newman is a man to respect.
Guess what is different………Ya you guessed it skin color and intelligence and character.
Posted by at 3:49 AM on October 3
In 2006, Oprah gave $58,300,000 to charity to the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy, Oprah’s Angel Network, and other groups.
In 2006, Oprah earned an estimated $260 million in salary from her various interests including syndication, cable television, and print magazines.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001856/bio
And she can’t help her mother?
Posted by 5:43 PM on October 2 at 5:37 AM on October 3
Oprah can’t be bothered with keeping her po’ old mama out of the stew. She’s too busy trying to teach little black girls in South Africa to curtail their text messaging and to steer clear of sexual predator male instructors and administrators.
Posted by Flaxen-headed Strumpet at 7:32 AM on October 3
Pontiac donated the cars to the Oprah fans, and yet General Motors is screaming that they are going under. Hmm, sounds like big business to me. Hey, maybe we can bail-out G.M. also. Whitey is gonna have to pay for those cars they gave away. They gave away 7.8 million dollars worth of vehicles. And then paid the sales tax on top of that. And yet, the are closing plants all over the United States. My brother-in-law just lost his job in Moraine, Ohio. Only in Amerika.
Posted by at 7:55 AM on October 3
It’s my guess that Oprah knows full well that if she pays off her ma’s shopping bill this time, there will be a bigger one to pay next year, and an even bigger one the year after. With these people bad behavior, rewarded, just escalates, and you can be damned sure the smarter ones like Oprah know it.
Posted by at 9:13 AM on October 3
Maybe, just maybe, Oprah has had to bail her Mama out of a jam one time too many. Maybe O just got fed up and said “Mama, you are gonna have to work this one out on your own.”
I was married to a drug addict for 30 years. I know that sometimes the most loving act you can do for a person is to let that person experience the full consequences of their own actions.
Posted by at 9:27 AM on October 3
Of the talented 10th who actually have their acts together; unless there are a few that have cut off all contact with friends and family, virtually every reasonably functioning black person has someone in their life who is an albatross. It should come as no surprise that Oprah and Condi Rice have never been married. I’m sure that there a number of other examples of successful blacks who have never married. They can only do so much about mom, dad, siblings, uncles, and aunts; but they can avoid the series of headaches that comes with a spouse who just never will be up to their speed (and comes in the PC color).
Maybe Oprah will wake up and say, “You’re on your own for this one”.
If Oprah was smart enough to figure out how to market herself to bored housewives and make $1 Billion+ in the process, she will find a way to make this issue quietly go away.
Posted by Howard W. Campbell at 10:09 AM on October 3
Why does a woman in her 70’s, that really hasn’t been heard of until this, need $150,000 worth of clothes?
Posted by Kellie at 10:18 AM on October 3
Maybe Oprah can send her mother to her African academy for a class in second-grade math.
Posted by Cassiodorus at 10:32 AM on October 3
As to why Oprah so far hasn’t covered her mama’s clothing charges, mutual familial support doesn’t seem the long suit of black Africans, who have the highest rate of illegitimacy on the US and probably everywhere they’re found in sufficient numbers to provide a statistically accurate data base.
Note Omaba’s hovel-dwelling half-brother (does he have any full brothers or sisters?)allegedly subsisting on a dollar month.
Posted by john at 3:22 PM on October 3
If I were worth a billion dollars or so, I’d pay whatever it took to keep my family members names OUT of the press. If that meant paying off ridiculous amounts of money… well, if you’re worth a billion, what does that even come to?
Posted by SeenItHappen at 4:26 PM on October 3
It’s funny. I posted this article on another website as a follow up article to the initial one from a number of weeks back when the store was first suing Ms. Lee.
And I posted a few comments of my own about Ms. Lee’s so called “defense” about not paying her bill. (Snicker, snicker)
And I’ve gone around to various White websites and all the comments are identical. We all know the score and the scam here. We all know the race card is subtlely being played by Ms. Lee.
We all know this is a lose/lose proposition for any company. Deny credit to someone black and you’re accused of discrimination. Give them credit and they soon run the bill up, can’t pay, and squeal like a stuck pig, eventually blaming everyone but their own behavior, i.e.race.
Living with blacks in this country is a lose/lose proposition for Whites.
Posted by Susan at 5:20 PM on October 3
“I don’t know what I signed. They fooled me.”
“I don’t know who I voted for. They tricked me.”
“I don’t know who my daddy is or who I is.”
The story is always the same, even for the wealthiest of all. What won’t they do?
And some Whites wonder why America sank into the gutter of socialism.
Posted by at 5:52 PM on October 3
“Why does a woman in her 70’s, that really hasn’t been heard of until this, need $150,000 worth of clothes?”
Posted by Kellie
At 70, that’s when you really NEED the expensive clothes, make-up, hair-dos to make you look good.
Posted by at 7:00 PM on October 3
Note that there is absolutely no mention of Oprah’s mother being willing to RETURN the merchandise. Apparently, she wants to keep the goods and not pay for them.
Posted by Douglas in Charlotte at 1:10 AM on October 4
Douglas in Charlotte is absolutely correct.
Blacks believe it’s “authentically black” to not pay for a service or a product. I’ve seen it for many years among black diners, shoppers, and even black lawyers.
Posted by Proactive at 12:48 PM on October 4
OK. Many of you are speculating what Oprah MIGHT do if her mother were limited on the credit. Do you KNOW what she has done, if anything? I’m serious here does anyone know?
As for the “do you know who I am?” bit one can read almost daily of some politician, brainfried rock star, actress, model, or someone famous for being famous shoplifting, hitting a cop, refusing instructions from flight attendants, or bracing against some building and publicly barfing up their lastest binge for the paparazzi. Last I looked, the Kennedys and the Lohans aren’t black.
Her behavior is reprehensible but is far from exclusive to “those people”.
Posted by the friendly grizzly at 8:14 PM on October 4
Oprah Winfrey’s mother says she shouldn’t have to pay a nearly $156,000 debt to a high-end fashion store because store officials shouldn’t have extended credit to her.
The reason is logical and simple as to why Ophra mamma need not pay; Oprah is America’s Black Goddess and Obama,s good buddy.
Posted by Walter at 8:47 PM on October 4
It just shows you the Black sense of entitlement and lack of shame. The store “should have known better” then to give her credit. How dare the store assume a full grown adult black women would behave responsibly! Like a killer blaming the gunstore owner for his shooting crime. By the way, Oprah didn’t “give” free cars away to her audience. She gave them NOTHING. The cars were given away by the car company.
Posted by at 1:33 AM on October 5
Perhaps they should have extended credit based on her credit report and her annual income. A $250.00 line of credit plus an upfront $75.00 annual fee to hedge part of the losses they’ll incur.
Posted by at 4:57 PM on October 5
These blacks are really getting on my nerves. I used to support them and have written extensively in their defense but Im changing my tune after reading this especially since the jewish stores are relatives of mine. Good luck. Tim Wise.
Posted by Tim Wise at 9:27 AM on October 6