Firstsource Advantage Letter

[JCSanDiego]

Hi all

Today I received a letter from Firstsource Advantage, representing AMEX. I owe the CC $1,700. It's been 90 days since I stopped paying the card. My fist thought after reading the letter was that it is simply a collections notice - not a notice of pending judgment or summons. But the wording they used got me wondering... summed up, it says unless I respond to dispute the amount in 30 days the office will consider it valid. It then says if I choose to dispute the debt the office will obtain verification and provide that verification or a copy of judgment. The word I don't like is judgment.

Am I correct to assume the use of the word judgment is in a different context than an actual legal/court judgment? This cannot be a summons?

Should I respond to this? Perhaps use the dispute example bcohen provided in another post, for the sake of buying more time? Or can I just ignore it?

The "plan" was to wait until all my debts reached the 7-8 month mark since last payment OR unless I received a summons for a suit. Half the debts are about 4 months old now since last payment, the other half, about 7 months. So I was going to let it ride another 4 months if possible, before pulling the trigger on a chapter 7. I know... it's probably time to consult a lawyer.

Anyway, just wanted to see what you all thought and perhaps offer some advice? Thank you!

[flashoflight]

This is not a summons, lawsuit, or judgment. If you dispute, a judgment can be verification that the debt is yours or it could be something else. In your case, it would be something else. The dispute example should buy you a couple of weeks or a month extra. It doesn't cost anything other than a stamp so why not.

Amex is pretty bad. You probably have around 8 months from last payment to summons if Amex knows you have bank accounts, wages, or real estate. Your plan to wait for a summons is OK but not great. There are a LOT of crooked process servers in California who will pretend to serve your summons but don't actually do it. I would say if you have a bunch of legal advertisements in the mail, assume you've just been sued and you need to check all of the nearby superior courts and not rely on a process server to show up at your door with a bunch of papers. As you may know, you must file a legal document called an answer to avoid a default judgment within 30 days in California once you've been allegedly served, but answering lawsuits in California can be expensive. You might as well file BK at that point rather than implement extra delay tactics which costs you money you need to pay your BK lawyer. If you let it default, you have a few weeks after the 30 days expires before the default judgment is entered in your case. After the summons, you got around 7-10 weeks left to raise money for the BK lawyer before the default.