/If you have fallen behind and missed payments

Once you have missed a couple of minimum payments on your credit card or other debt, the bank has probably begun sending you frequent letters that can sound very threatening.  In addition, they have teams of people in a room somewhere who do nothing but try to reach you by telephone to demand payment. 

Here is the important  information you need to know.

 There are certain things a creditor can and cannot do and say when trying to collect a debt from a consumer.  There are federal and state laws that spell out what they can and cannot do and those laws provide you certain rights to protect yourself.  I know these laws and can intervene for you to all but stop the calls from coming to you. 

Once you have missed a certain number of payments the creditor or its computer makes a decision that it is time to stop chasing you and does what is referred to as “charge off” the debt.  This means that in some sense they’ve determined that it is no longer worth their time to chase you for payment.  So, what do they do next?  That depends on the creditor/bank.  Some will move forward and send your account to their lawyers to sue you to collect the debt.  Before they take you to court they will usually (but not always) try one last time to get you to pay something – even less than the full amount you owe.

Instead of suing you, sometimes the bank or credit card company will sell your now charged off balance to a company that specializes in buying these types of accounts to try to collect on them.  These companies buy the debt for pennies on the dollar, meaning they might pay $8 for $100 worth of debt.  So, if they buy this debt and collect anything more than $8 from you they’ve made money.  The companies that do this typically buy hundreds and hundreds of these accounts at a time and now have the same rights to collect the debt as the original creditor did – that means they can send you letters, call you and even sue you for the debt. 

The companies that buy defaulted debt with the goal of collecting it from you by suing in court have hundreds of attorneys spread out across the state who do nothing but represent them in court to get a judgment against you.  I know because I was one of them at one point in my career.  If you have already been sued do not despair.  As soon as you’ve contacted me I will get to work on your case and if I agree to represent you the collectors may no longer contact you – they will be required to deal only with me from that point forward.  That is the law.  Speaking of the law you’re probably thinking:  How does this work?  Well, what I’ve learned from handling hundreds of these cases is that the collectors typically do not have all of the paperwork needed to prove that they have the right to collect your debt or even an accurate record of how much you owe. They may also have waited too long to sue you or there are other technical defects that can win your case.  I cannot promise a win – that is against the rules as an attorney.  What I can promise is that I will use my years of experience to find the way to deflect this lawsuit and get a win for you so that you can move on with your life.  If we cannot win on a technicality I will tell you so and give you options in case you lose.

If you are employed or have another regular source of income

 I will work with you to set up a budget you can live with while putting aside an affordable amount out of every paycheck to go towards your outstanding balance.  As your savings grows in your separate personal account I establish for you I will start to work with the credit card companies to settle your debt for a fraction of what you owe.  If I cannot reach a settlement and you get sued I will be by your side to represent your best interests and possibly even get the debt forgiven entirely.