I was an SC and I’m proud of it.

[Andara Bledin]

My brother gets scummy collections agents harassing him semi-regularly who are trying to collect on a debt my father owes.

My father owes a lot of money to various people due to his failing health, his being a speed freak, and the fact that due to a variety of reasons, the rest of us will have nothing to do with him any longer.

My brother was named for my father, so he ends up getting mail that's supposed to go to my father, but they figure that they've got some guy with the same name, and that's good enough. It makes me wonder if they try the same shit with my paternal grandfather, who also has the same name. Except they wouldn't get anywhere as my parternal grandparents are complete freaks who turn the ringer off on their phone so they don't have to answer it and refuse to answer the door most of the time, too.

^-.-^

[XCashier]

The only reason I signed that damned contract was so he'd stop beating me that night. No, I don't know why he needed or wanted me to sign it, I just know my ribs were black and blue and I was half bald when I signed it.

Raps, Andara and Seshat all have very good advice. I hope you can get off the hook with these people. I wish you the very best of luck.

[zzapp the witch]

Yeah, I had gone to a lawyer. They just told me to pay it, but then, I was getting the hint that they weren't very interested in helping me anyway. I need to find a *good* lawyer.

I've gone the route of the women's shelter once, just to see if they could help me in ways that my parents' support and love couldn't, apparently I'm not "sympathetic" enough for them. "My husband's dead, yay, I'm never going to be that stupid again" wasn't whiny and needy enough for them. So I just gave up on that, and I'm back to trying to do it on my own.

[Ree]

For the people who are so far in debt....don't they have debt consolidation/credit counselling services available?

After our daughter's accident a few years ago, because of time lost from work for both me and my husband, and expenses that were not covered by any insurance, as well as the fact that it took over 10 years to settle the lawsuit, we were fairly heavy into debt.
(We had never really recovered after I had to take sick leave 2 years in a row for surgeries, and in the second case, I was off for close to 6 months and could only work limited hours.)

We went to a credit resolution company.

They work with you to set up repayment schedules that you can afford, and act on your behalf with all the creditors.

They file with the courts and send letters to all creditors, explaining what is happening.
In one case, our creditor didn't want to play nice, so they took back our washer and dryer.

The others were OK with it, though. We paid a monthly fee to this company, and they did the work of handing it out to the creditors so we weren't bothered by collections agents again.
Of course, if you default on payments with them, you are forced to file for bankruptcy.

It costs money, of course. They don't do it for free, but all of that is worked in to the payments, and for us, it was worth the money just to know things were being looked after.

[Gravekeeper]

Indeed, its a collections agency in Canada I'm speaking of and they only handle Canadians. Thus it may be entirely different territory then American collections agencies. They have two main types of people they end up after: People who are complete deadbeats and people who have had something go to collections that they don't know about so its more of a surprise to get the call. Then they have no trouble either paying it or getting it consolidated. ;p

True "sob" stories are kinda rare for them but even then there's options for getting it taken care of. Harrassing, berating, etc are *not* part of their policies and they'd get in major league shiat for doing it.

For the people who are so far in debt....don't they have debt consolidation/credit counselling services available?
.

Yep, in fact my company handles one of them. So those are a good bet too.

[trunks2k]

This is a common misconception. It is illegal for the GOVERNMENT of the United States to refuse it's own legal tender, however the collection company had every right to refuse your pennies. Even the government has the right to refuse large amounts of uncounted and unrolled change.



http://www.treas.gov/education/faq/c...l-tender.shtml

I'm sure they took it because they figured it was the only way they were going to get paid.

But that may be different for debt. When it comes to things like bus lines, or stores, they can refuse payment of unnacceptable tender (pennies or large bills) and just outright deny you the sale. But if you OWE them money, the laws may be different. Not sure about that tho.

[trunks2k]

Next time they call just say: "Your company is not to call me again. All contact is to be through the mails."

That should do it (depending on your state laws). Whenever I had a collector being a jerk I'd just tell that that they are not to contact me in ANY way. That stopped them cold and they would have to wait until they could sell the contract to someone else.

Be careful about that. They'll either try to sell the contract to someone else, or bring you to court over the debt. Depending on the amount you owe, court may not be worth it to them.

[bob the goat]

Ok, I missed a lot of posts on here this weekend, I’ll try to hit them all.

1) Yes, there are credit counseling services. However, they are simply a negotiator. They ASK your creditors to accept payments, and to do so at reduced rates. It is up to the creditor to accept it or not. I have tried twice with two different companies, and only one creditor of my 8 would accept it. My wife used one, and it helped her quite a bit. If you are getting into trouble, contact one right away. When you reach the point where you are 2-3 months behind on all your bills you are ok. 6-12 months later you are hosed. She pays $26 a months to use their service, but it is saving her over $100 a month in interest so it is well worth it.

2) You CAN send a registered letter to a collections company telling them to not call you any more. However, they do not have to sue you or forgive the debt. You still owe them, and it is still on your credit record as in collections, which is something like -200 points. There is no statute of limitations on debt. Statute of limitations has to do with committing a crime.

There's a collection's company a floor down from us here at my office and I have a few friends there. 95% of the people they're chasing after ARE complete worthless douchebags/deadbeats that will do ANYTHING to evade them.

3) I will only agree with this statement if I can reply that then 95% of debt collectors are re-incarnated Natzi’s that go home after work and set fire to small animals.

Obviously, we are both exaggerating. Yes, there are deadbeats, but there are two types of deadbeat. Type One are the ones that ran up credit because they wanted to buy a bunch of stuff disregarding the bills that were to follow. Type One does not care about re-paying their debts, and does not care about their word that they are breaking by not paying the debt. Type Two deadbeats are like me. They borrowed money with every intent and means to re-pay the loan. Then the situation changed beyond our means. We could no longer pay back the loan in the time we said we would. We DO have concern for paying back the money as fast as we can. We DO plan on making good on our word, but we are forced to play with the cards we are dealt.

[MadonnaC]

http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpa/fdcpact.htm#805

You can tell them to stop calling you, and any further communication is an offense

You still have to pay the debt, just you don't get afraid to answer the phone.

From experience, I would recommend registered letter.

[powerboy]

I am in Debt. I am paying Capital One, right now. The Debt company that they are using, are taking $168 a month from me. Now, when I pay that debt off, I just have my Repo to take care off. That is $5000, just right there.

I don't blame you for taking all those pennies in. But that is messed up. I would have told you, we will not accept them.

[Andara Bledin]

Ugh. Capital One has the worst record-keeping ever!

I owed them money (about $500, the then-husband's fault), and then I paid it off to their collection agency. That was the end of it, right? Right?!?

They changed agencies, and I got another call. I told them to go away, because I'd already paid. I told them it was a year and a half ago and I couldn't even begin to figure out where the receipt was, if I even still had it. (yes, after 18 months of silence, they try to get me to pay a debt I'd already paid) They never call back. Then, another 6 months down the road, yet another collection agency calls me for the same debt. I told them the same thing I told the 2nd crew, and again, never heard from them again.

I don't know what my boss' beef with them is, but he immediately tears anything from Capital One up into tiny little shreds with great relish. Since he's fairly financially savvy, and has family who do financial stuff as their careers, I suspect he has a good reason for not liking them.

^-.-^

[PetStoreKate]

You're my hero, Mr. Goat. Really and truly, good for you. I mean yes, it was a sucky thing to do to the poor people who had to count the money BUT I think that every now and then an act of defiance has to be done. You weren't threatening a life, you weren't throwing the pennies through a window one by one, you were simply paying your bill with 340 lbs. of pennies. Herein is my standing ovation!!! *cheers*

[Girly]

There is no statute of limitations on debt. Statute of limitations has to do with committing a crime.

There is a statute of limitations on debt, however it varies by state:

linkage

Also to keep in mind, there's a whole lot of stuff that will bring a very old debt back within the statute of limitations. It's not when the debt was incurred, but when the last activity was on the debt.

[shawnlowe]

being a debt collector, acording to the fair debt collection act, i can call your house up to three times a day. I can leave a message once either on a machine or with someone, but i can only leave the message of who i am, who i am with and a number to call me back at. I can call work once a day. I can call any family member or friend that I can find that will answer the phone but same rules apply as to message, though i can ask them for new information. Once i reach a contact that is not the debtor or workplace, i can never call that debtor again unless i specifically ask if I can call back. I can send as many letters as I want. Also, if you ask me to stop calling you at home or at your cell phone, I can still continue to call there as long as i follow the rules concerning harrasing amounts of calls ie: three times a day. The fair debt collection act is in place to protect both the debtor and collections company, so there are rules in place to help us be able to collect our money. If you were allowed to tell us to not call back, that isn't fair to the company that you owe the money to. At my work, I would immediatly hang up the phone and head to the courthouse and file a lawsuit to get it taken care of, then you are looking at court costs, interest in my state, attorneys fees and with a judgement i can be a MUCH more aggressive collector, up to making you sell your car if you own more than one, making you sell personal property out of your home (you are allowed to keep $3000 of valule of stuff to live on, clothes, dishes, beds and whatnot), I can garnish up to 25% of your bring home pay, I can intercept taxes, I can actually place floating liens on real property so that anything that you buy or try to sell you will have problems due to a lien being placed upon it. Truly the ones that i work with are the ones that actually answer the phone, tell me the truth. I understand if you don't have the money, just let me know when you will have something. If you say that you will call back, then please call back, if I don't hear from you then i just moved you from customer who needs help to deadbeat category. If you agree to make a payment on a certain date and for whatever reason can't. once again, call me please. That is the biggest problem I have with people. They say I will be in to make a payment then i don't hear from them for 2 weeks later.

[csdrone]

Shawn I just want to give you some friendly tips for calling family members. Firstly, you are NOT allowed to inform the family members the reason you are calling (some collectors were stupid enough to explain themselves. Too bad for them that I worked for a bank and had a little info about the collection laws: we learned about this under fraud training). YOU ARE NOT allowed to harrass the family members. And most importantly, collectors are NOT going to get anywhere calling said family members liars: they may very well NOT have a forwarding number for you. There also may be this funny thing called Identity theft that has occurred. We get calls from time to time for relatives. Generally they are polite but there are a few few stupid assclowns that try to be aggressive and rude... They get cussed out with no guilt attached.