collectors ceasing and desisting

[IOIOIO]

I've diligently and immediately replied to every bill collector's letter with the certified, return receipt cease and desist letter recommended on these forums. Apparently this really works. They each called a few days before I received their letter and kept calling until the date they signed for my cease and desist letter. But after eight months of the phone ringing off the hook, I've now gone about ten days with zero phone calls. I posted in another thread about Mann Bracken continuing to call, but I now believe that was due to their having more than one of my accounts. I sent them a letter for each account. Now that they're all in compliance, my phone is free, my mailbox is clear, everything is smooth--and I have the feeling of impending doom.

I suppose there's nothing left but to wait in peace for judgments and garnishments, but if they do any asset checking before suing I have to assume they won't bother with me. I also presume that my junk debts will get sold and resold and that future collectors won't be so observant of the law, but after talking to a couple of lawyers and CPO, I'm confident the non-complying collectors can be sued into compliance. FYI, here's a list of the complying collectors:

Creditors Interchange
Frederick J. Hanna
Hunt and Henriques
John P. Frye
Mann Bracken
National American Credit Corp.
NCB Management Services
NCO Financial Systems
United Recovery Systems
Valentine and Kebartas
West Asset Management

[lrprn]

I've diligently and immediately replied to every bill collector's letter with the certified, return receipt cease and desist letter recommended on these forums. Apparently this really works.

Glad to know you have peace and quiet at last, IO! Thanks for the feedback - great to know sending these cease-and-desist letters really has worked for you!

[treehugger1]

Amazingly, the vast majority of debt collectors will stop calling you by phone once they have a cease and desist letter. Hopefully, you left it open for written communication via USPS. This way you might get some feeling for what they have up their sleeves.

I am current (under 60 days, LOL) on all my debts at the moment. Unless things improve, I expect to have 6 new judgments against me by October, and the potential for wage garnishment in November. Generally, someone has to sue you (small claims or district court) to get a judgment. If you know you owe the debt, and are not interested in disputing the amount (i.e. you know you owe the debt), you have approximately 14 - 20 days before the judgment takes effect. Then, it takes another 10 - 20 days for a creditor/collector to file a writ of garnishment. Garnishment is generally prorated from the time an employer receives the notice. So if the employer receives the notice on the 15th of th emonth, they can only garnish the amount allowed for the last 15 - 16 days of the month.

If you are still looking for time to file, you probably have a minimum of 30 - 45 days after you receive the summons before anyone can actually get a wage garnishment. In addition, most states are 'first in, first paid" on a 25% garnishment. So, if you have a very large debt to someone who has garnished your wages, the other have to wait in line, possibly for a long, long time. Eventually, the collectors realize there is no fast cash, and send you on to someone new. Just keep sending the C&D letters to whoever, and keep track of who "owns" your debt as this will be important come the day (if/when) you decide to file.

Good news! I paid off my one and only one judgment today! I also told the women who wrote the "paid in full" reciept that I fully expect they will file the appropriate paper work to void the judgment on file at the county courthouse. She said they will attend to it within a week. As I look over other possible problems in my financial future, I see the possibility of up to 8 judgments/lawsuits. So, whatever path you choose, you are not alone. In fact, as us baby-boomers reach into our mid-fifities, I think the sh*t is going to hit the fan in this country. You will not be alone.

Maybe paying off debt through judgment and garnishment is not such a bad idea if you have no real assets. Your credit is runined, but at least you are in control.

If you have some lagre debts (above the small claims amounts) in your state, creditors will have to take you to court to get a judgment. If you receive a summons look it over carefuuly, as it will include the total amount of debt (+fees, attorney fees, etc) that is included in the suit. If you know you owe the debt, and the fees seem reasonable, there is probbaly no reason to go to court, unless you hope the judge will assign an independent mediator to work toward a solution. In such a case, you are free to negotiate with the collector and mediator. Offer only that which you can truly afford to pay per month (after factoring 25%garnishment). If you have run your numbers for a chapter 13 BK, and know your approximate percentage payback, offer this divided by 60 as a reasonable payment. What the heck, if you do decide to file, the creditor/collector will only get approximately this percent, and the y may have to wait untilt he trustee has paid himself and your attorney fees included in the 13. It could be a year or two before th ecreditor/collector actually sees any money in a 13, so they migh be willing to work out a similar payment plan that gives them immediate payments.

Feel free to PM me with any questions.

[IOIOIO]

I'm chapter 7, not 13. I thought once I get a court summons (probably have to be superior court, not small claims due to the amount) I'd then do simple things to delay the process, like request a Verification of Debt and answer the complaint with a general denial. I can honestly deny owing all the fees they tack on since I believe I only owe the amount on my last cc statement. The idea is just to buy time, but spend as little time as possible doing it because I do indeed owe the money. Eventually, I wouldn't bother showing up in court since I have no rebuttal, and they can then go ahead and garnish my wages and take 25% of a very small number.

Once I secure a decent income, my motivation to file to end the garnishments goes way up. It's highly unlikely that my next real job will put me into Chapter 13 territory, so I have no real motivation to file as long as my income is so low. I have some concerns about selling possessions for living expenses. I'd like to sell some stuff, but if I sell before filing I'm afraid a trustee might want the proceeds from the sale. I believe I'm better off filing, then selling the stuff while it's covered under my exemptions.

[CPO]

I've diligently and immediately replied to every bill collector's letter with the certified, return receipt cease and desist letter recommended on these forums. Apparently this really works. They each called a few days before I received their letter and kept calling until the date they signed for my cease and desist letter. But after eight months of the phone ringing off the hook, I've now gone about ten days with zero phone calls. I posted in another thread about Mann Bracken continuing to call, but I now believe that was due to their having more than one of my accounts. I sent them a letter for each account. Now that they're all in compliance, my phone is free, my mailbox is clear, everything is smooth--and I have the feeling of impending doom.

I suppose there's nothing left but to wait in peace for judgments and garnishments, but if they do any asset checking before suing I have to assume they won't bother with me. I also presume that my junk debts will get sold and resold and that future collectors won't be so observant of the law, but after talking to a couple of lawyers and CPO, I'm confident the non-complying collectors can be sued into compliance. FYI, here's a list of the complying collectors:

Creditors Interchange
Frederick J. Hanna
Hunt and Henriques
John P. Frye
Mann Bracken
National American Credit Corp.
NCB Management Services
NCO Financial Systems
United Recovery Systems
Valentine and Kebartas
West Asset Management

Glad you have some peace in the interim.

Understand, your creditors will forward your debts to new collectors in some cases.

So, calls are bound to return, but probably not in the volume you had before.

I've had a couple of accounts with two or more collectors tied to them.

Those certified return receipt costs pile up, don't they!

Interesting info on Mann Bracken and NCO.

These were some of my worst violators, and we caught them with their own documents and recorded calls.

I've successfully sued both, although we are waiting to sign anything until after my 341 meeting. The cases are highly contingent, and we want to see what the Trustee says about them. The awards should be covered by a "wildcard" exemption.

Congrats on your victory,

CPO

[IOIOIO]

calls are bound to return, but probably not in the volume you had before.

I have a phone recorder installed and tested, am prepared with your "I'm recording this call for FDCPA violations" statement, and have talked to a lawyer who will sue them for $1000 per violation if I rack up enough violations.

[treehugger1]

Sometimes the "do-nothing" approach is a reasonable response, as long as you can deal with potential collection efforts and don't mind judgments. C&D letters are very powerful, but as mentioned, the $4.00 - $5.00 return receipt letters can get spendy.

I can't say enough about how important it is to protect your paychecks and be smart about how/where you bank. In this age of information, you are not that hard to find.

As I go through this process myself, I sometimes feel like a deadbeat. Its hard to go from paying everything on-time for 30 years, to not being able to pay everyone. On the other hand, if creditors/collectors will work with me on my proposals, then I don't feel as if I'm a deadbeat. Still, the sense of not paying, and the "impending doom," as you put it can really knock you back a step. I have to keep telling myself that it took two parties to get me here; myself and creditors. They can share some of the responsibility.

Best to you.

[IOIOIO]

I haven't had a single lawsuit. Whatever they do to determine whether or not you have assets obviously works. I wonder how they know I don't have any wages.

[GoingDown]

Glad you have some peace in the interim.

Understand, your creditors will forward your debts to new collectors in some cases.

So, calls are bound to return, but probably not in the volume you had before.

I've had a couple of accounts with two or more collectors tied to them.

Those certified return receipt costs pile up, don't they!

Interesting info on Mann Bracken and NCO.

These were some of my worst violators, and we caught them with their own documents and recorded calls.

I've successfully sued both, although we are waiting to sign anything until after my 341 meeting. The cases are highly contingent, and we want to see what the Trustee says about them. The awards should be covered by a "wildcard" exemption.

Congrats on your victory,

CPO

In most cases, from my experience, sending the cease and desist letters by certified mail is a waste of money. Sending them by regular mail-- 42 cents-- usually gets them to stop calling in most cases. The ones who ignore a C&D Letter sent by regular can then be followed up with a certified letter. But in my experience, I have never had to do that so far. They all eventually stop calling after they get the letter in the mail.

Even most original creditors will stop calling-- voluntarily-- once they get a cease and desist letter in the mail.

[GoingDown]

I haven't had a single lawsuit. Whatever they do to determine whether or not you have assets obviously works. I wonder how they know I don't have any wages.

Have they been able to call you on the phone at work? That seems to be the main predictor of whether or not they will file a lawsuit. If they think you are unemployed, then they know it is going to be really hard to get any money out of you, and most of them won't bother with a lawsuit at that point.

[GoingDown]

Not to revive an old dead thread but I think more people should know the power of a C&D. I had spent much of my time doing DV's. Then I realized, I have nothing to lose and BK will be my future. I read way to many posts about people freaking out about getting a judgment against them. I think it really needs to be stressed that yes, it will impact your credit more so than not having any, but at this point it really is the least of your problems. Second, it takes months to over a year to get a judgment in most places. Third, they need to be able to try to collect on it and unless you have something like assets or a garnishable job there is nothing to get. And finally BK will wipe out any judgment.

I switched to C&D's months ago its been all quiet but just started again since we are almost at the one year mark. It will run with phone calls until I can get the dunning letter and C&D them again. But I block all those calls after they have called once and I do talk to everyone of them.

No, I am not looking forward to being sued, but really who cares, no I am not going to stress about it and no I am probably not going to fight it, depends on how well I feel. I really don't want the stress of going to court to only lose in the end since I have no real defense.

Again the ultimate weapon is BK, so I say let em rack up default judgments against me I have nothing for them to take or garnish. When the time comes I press the nuke button.

I feel the same way.

I have one small judgment against me from Capital One, but so far they haven't been able to get a penny of it from me. I will just eventually discharge it through bankruptcy anyways, so I don't care about it. It's not the big deal that most people make it out to be.

[IOIOIO]

Have they been able to call you on the phone at work? That seems to be the main predictor of whether or not they will file a lawsuit. If they think you are unemployed, then they know it is going to be really hard to get any money out of you, and most of them won't bother with a lawsuit at that point.

No they never called me at work. When I stopped paying my credit cards I removed my work phone numbers from the banks' records via their web sites. I didn't think it would work, but it did and apparently they never passed that information on to the collectors. Sounds like the law is working. But half my accounts only had the home number anyway, and with cell phones lots of people don't have a reason to give a work number (and shouldn't). You'd think collectors would rely on better information to determine whether or not you're employed. I've been employed the whole time, just way underemployed, and I don't know how they'd know that. What's more, only 1 or 2 of the dunning letters I've received have come from local collectors who could actually sue.

I responded to each of 31 dunning letters with a Cease and Desist within one business day, so that's $150. If I had know I could get almost the same results with a first class stamp (31 x 0.42 = $12) I still might spend the extra money for the bit of extra surety the certified provides. They never called at work and a relative only got called once. I've had numerous violations left on my home answering machine, messages that merely say to call a number about an important business matter. It's still a violation if the intent was to collect a debt, but they'd never leave the account number and I never called back, so I can't sue. I've had 6 written violations, 4 from a place called CIR. At $1000 a pop, I was going to hand them off to a lawyer in CIR's locale to go shares with once I had $10,000 worth of violations, but CIR stopped calling. After all CPO's posts around here, and after talking to one lawyer about it, I was really looking forward to being massively violated so that I could transfer my winnings to my debts, but alas my collectors are law abiding.

[treehugger1]

A good thread to revive now and then. I have CD'd several CA's and never received another phone call. I have received additional written comunications from a local CA. I think when the CD is received by a large out-of-state CA, your acount goes to the bottom of the priority pile. It probably should as many accounts an dfolks simply panic and roll over for the CAs.

I still don't trust a non-certified return receipt, so I will continue to submit DV and CD via return receipt. However, it sounds as if this may not actually be necessary. I've heard that solid "home" records of what you sent and when you sent it have validity. Still...

[All Cash]

I haven't had a single lawsuit. Whatever they do to determine whether or not you have assets obviously works. I wonder how they know I don't have any wages.

Once a judgment is in place. They can research any property in your name, bank accounts, brokerage accounts, cars owned out right. Then attach those assets if available.

I know of a few people that have gone thru this process without a bankruptcy filing. They just made it appear they owned nothing. Waited out the statute of limitations and move on in life.

[IOIOIO]

Once a judgment is in place. They can research any property in your name, bank accounts, brokerage accounts, cars owned out right. Then attach those assets if available.

I haven't had a single lawsuit. That means no judgment is in place. How could they research any property in my name, bank accounts, brokerage accounts, or cars?