my wife owes 15k on one of her cards..it was like 11k but with penalties its up to 15k..the collection agency said they will settle for 4k...is this bs? should i continue to ignore..i?still don't know why they did'nt sue...15k seems like alot but its been 2 years.
If the debt is sold to a collection company, you can send them a letter by certified mail notifying them that in accordance with the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, you do not want to be contacted by telephone. They will have to stop phoning you. This applies only to a collection company and not the original lender. If they sue you, do not let the company get a default judgment against you. Answer that you do not owe the amount of money stated. A lot of companies are willing to spend a little money suing but they will not spend the several thousand dollars to go to court. If the company does not show up in court, the suit is dismissed. So why does the company not sue? They probably are not willing to spend several thousands of dollars knowing that any judgment can be wiped out by bankruptcy.
Start with this resource. She has been a pretty good source of consumer credit related issues and it seems that is her sole focus: http://asklizweston.com/
Usually nothing but phone calls everyday, but 15k might make it worth it for them to sue you and get a judgement. If its been in collections for a long time and its gone through a few different collection agencys, many will take 10 cents on the dollar or less because they are still making a giant profit. Look at this link of a portfolio of credit cards that people owe. http://www.debtbuyers.com/portfolio.asp?866 $1.8 million dollars of debt and they are selling it for $3,700. The debts are 7 years old and likely been worked hard over those years. There are over 600 accounts and if you can collect on 10 cents on the dollar on only 30 of the accounts thats about 143% return on investment. Collect on 60 accounts at 10 cents on the dollar and you still make $18,000. So you can see that they will negotiate, but of course they are going to start high. They will ask for all...then go to 90%, then go to 80% and so on and so on. Its a long negotiation to get 10 cents on the dollar.
If someone is foolish enough to even consider restarting to pay an old debt such as these, especially after bankruptcy, they can open up making the debt viable again. Personally, if benevolent dictator, the whole credit reporting industry would be eliminated at one stroke of the pen. Along with black lists and other things dreamed up by others to burden someone else. Courts should be where debts and charges are settled. Not things where anyone can darken someone's reputation, without a legal dispute process. It is just a weird variation if identity theft.
my contention is this: if you fell on hard times (i did). i was using my credir cards to pay my car payments,electric bills,and even mortgage. its sucked but i had no choice and was in a deep dark hole. anyway,the constant phone calls and then calling neighbors is just plain extortion..people say its just to easy to walk away: well,i cannot get credit,not even a car lease so don't say there are no consequences because there are. if we reneg on our credit agreemenmt,just because we cannot pay does'nt mean we walk away scott free.our credit is shot and i know some will say big deal,just have someone get credit for you;;not many people will do that for you which is understandabale.
I dont know about that. I mean if you loaned someone money, you would want to be paid back right? The only problem i have with collections is when they find out they dont own a valid debt and instead of just throwing the debt away, they sell it to another debt collection agency which then continues to bug you. The other thing I dont like about collections is that they try to put the burden of proof on you that you dont owe the debt.(Whether it is not a valid debt or a previously paid debt) I dont like that they can screw with your credit report and you have to go through a letter writing campaign to get the debt off. (At that point they sell your debt and it happens again.)
That is what I was seeing when I defaulted. My plan was to never have credit again and I'm happy as a clam. The way they have you walking on eggshells is not my style at all... I knew people that made every effort to pay, and did.. then years later some joker pops up and is threatening their credit with a debt that has been paid off.. I don't even like to balance a checkbook let alone spend a lot of time messing with s$%t like that... If I had it to do over again, I'd default exactly the same, but I'd set up the recording software and catch all the numbers and record all the conversations and get a lawyer and sue the collections companies.... every one of them broke the California law, they can get away with it because nobody is ready for them...