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…