Collections question when a lawyer gets involved

Cash advance, Debt collectors

I have an account with citibank that’s been delinquent since December 2014, about 2-3 weeks ago it was sent to a collection agency. Today I got a letter from a lawyers office 2 hours from here(so within the state I live) stating they are trying to collect a debt for citibank, totally not the collection agency that just notified me a couple weeks ago that they had the account. I don’t think I’m getting sued, but I am confused.

The letter is written just like the ones I have received from the collection agencies, pretty much word for word, basically just stating the debt, saying I have 30 days to dispute it, that kind of thing. Nothing about a judgement or that they are sueing or anything. Can anyone explain this more? Is this the first step in getting sued because it’s from a lawyer or is it just part of a collection agency that is using their legal letter head from their legal department to scare me. Any insight would be great.

I apologize in advance if you don’t hear back from me right away when you respond. I’m headed to the hospital in the early morning to give birth to my 2nd son, so I won’t be back home until the coming weekend. I just didn’t want to hold off on asking about this until I got back home. So, anyhow, thanks in advance if you are able to help me out on this.

I’ve gotten them many times, they are trying to scare you into thinking you will be sued. They may still sue, but usually it’s a scare tactic. Still, if you wish, you may get a cash advance loan online to pay for lawyer services. This may help.

Funny this should just come up now. I just got THREE of those letters. I’m at a point of not caring anymore. I’ve done my suffering etc. I have just sat down and wrote letters to all three saying the debts are not valid. They are going in the mail by registered mail and then the ball is in their court.

Re2: I’m in deep trouble! Please advise ASAP!

Debt collectors

Hi,

I am from South Africa and here, the debt collectors are not allowed to access any funds from your account without your knowledge and consent. I am not sure how it works in your country.

I suggest that you check with your bank with regards to their banking policies especially when it comes to who is allowed access to your account and funds. Here, only your bank and the Internal Revenue Service (irs.gov in the US) are allowed access and even then they have to ask permission before taking any funds from the account.

With regards to your debt collector requesting a money order for $9000-00 so that you can get your own money back, this is definately a scam. If you give them the money order, you will never hear from them again and will be $17200-00 out of pocket.

As an ex-police detective, I have dealt with a lot of fraud matters and this sounds like a scam that has been in SA for many years.

I suggest that you query whether the debt collecter, be it an individual or ‘organisation’ is legit or not. This you can do by contacting your Registrar of Companies/Businesses (do not know what it is known by in your country) and querying their practise number or licence number etc. As far as I know, all debt collectors need to be licenced to collect debt or they cannot practise.

If you can find no information what so ever on the debt collector, you are then dealing with a fraudster and I suggest reporting this to your local police department for further investigation.

Like I said above, I do not know how things work in your country and I hope this helps.

If you wish, you can send me more information regarding the matter and I can do a bit of research from this side which might help you more.

Thanks for your advice. My lawyer filed an exemption to the County Sheriff department and there will be a court hearing in the next couple of weeks if they object. Hope my lawyer gets the money back for me at court. The debt collector agency is legitimate. They filed a court order in an attempt to collect debt by suing me and I never showed up then the default judgement was filed against me and this is how it all happened. I guess this is legal in the US if you don’t show up at court. But still… I don’t think this is morally right.

Anyway, I’ll let you know if I get it all back.

Re: I’m in deep trouble! Please advise ASAP!

Debt collectors, Debt consolidation

Please wait for advice from people more knowledgeable in the list, but since you already doubt the sincerity of the debt collector, I would advice you not to trust the scheme they propose that you send them a money order for $9,000, for them to return $8,200 to your bank. It sounds like they will attempt to keep $16,000 rather than settle for the lower amount.

We have been dealing with a debt consolidation program for several years. A couple of years ago Discover took us to court. Since then, they (even though they know that we are working with a debt consolidation company who is trying to work with them) have garnished our checking account several times taking everything out of it each time.

We are only notified of the garnishment after the fact through a letter from the sherrifs dept which usually arrives 2-3 days after the garnishment(the garnishment releases after 30 days and the bank unfreezes the account).

We have limited income and because they garnished our account, there were several times that I was unable to have the money needed for my required heart medications.

We have resorted to only keeping 50 or less in the checking account now, and paying cash or getting money orders for everything just to keep from losing everything again.

If you open another account at a different bank, they will eventually find you there too but probably not for 30-90 days. All I can tell you is what we have done and it’s not easy. We have done away with all our credit cards though, and it feels good to think that hopefully in a few more years we will be debt free.

Thanks for your advice. I went to see a bankruptcy lawyer yesterday (Saturday) and he said he can file an exemption in the next few days since it has not been 10 days yet and try to get the $8200 back for $500 service fee only. The sheriff department or the debt collector will most likely object but the lawyer said we could fight this in the court with a judge if they object. There is a good chance of getting it back because I did not incur the debt. My brother did while I was away for three years. Plus, $5000 out of the $8200 was a tuition check for my wife from the church. The lawyer also said he will make a few calls to Resurgence Financial debt collector and settle the account for me at no additional cost. Think this is a pretty good $500 deal.
I’ll let you know how this goes…

I’m in deep trouble! Please advise ASAP!

Debt collectors

Yesterday, the debt collector took all my money ($8200) from my checking and savings accounts and left me a $0 balance. It was an old chase credit card debt that was charged off about three years ago.

They said they filed a court order and processed the case with the county sheriff’s department to take all the money out. I never received any notice because I was out of the country for almost 3 years. My brother spent the card and never paid it back. I knew there was a charged off account but I never thought something like this would happen. I waited because my brother said he would take care of it through a debt consolidation program. Next day, I called up the debt collector (Resurgence Financial) and he said the money that they took will be frozen for a week or something and asked me to come up with another lump sum ASAP so the account can be settled. The original balance on the Chase card was $10500 and now it’s $16000 with interest. I said I might be able to settle it for $9000 so I could pay $800 more to settle it but he said that’s not how it works.

He said to call him back when I have the money order ready for $9000.

He said if I send a money order for $9000 within a week then he can release the $8200 back into my bank accounts. Is he telling the truth here? What if he takes my $9000 money order and keeps the $8200 he took from my bank accounts? Will he really release the $8200 back into my account? What should I do? Can I still settle for less? What if I do nothing? Will they get the $8200 and try to get more from me? How can I negotiate better with him? Can some expert out there advise me? I also told him that I was not on any company’s payroll or have a stable income and my wife is 3 months pregnant. All the money they took was the maximum amount that I could borrow from friends and relatives before I came back. Please help. I don’t want to be used in a bad way if someone out there can give me a good advise. Thank you.

First, check with your bank to see if court papers were properly filed, if not, close the account immediately and never give that info to debt collector. Actually, close all accounts at that bank and move to a new one.

Second, do not count on ever seeing any of the $8,200 again.

Third, and this is unpleasant, if your brother used your card without your permission, he is guilty of fraud and you must file a police report, then turn it over to Chase’s Fraud division. You cannot be held liable for fraudulent purchases. Will it cause problems with your brother, probably, but he stole your identity abused your good will.

Fourth, tell the debt collection company you will take no action, make no promises, do nothing until you have a written agreement from them. Only when they put it in writing will you discuss the account.

This is your chance to make a deal. Use only money orders to keep the collection company from knowing where you bank and make no payments until you have a written agreement you can live with.