Beyond their reach?

[vodkaburner]

Background: I owed just over 3000 to Chase when I finally stopped paying. I ignored calls and letters while I tried to come up with a plan to pay them. I abandoned that plan and just said “screw it” just about a year ago. Several months later the debt was given to a third party collection agency with whom I’ve ignored all calls and never answered any letters.

I don’t care about what happens to my credit score – my concern is a law suit/garnishment. My thinking is that if Chase was going to sue, they would not have sold it off or permitted it to “charge off” on my credit score. Now that the debt is in the hands of some other company does that mean Chase wants nothing more to do with me and I can ride out the statute of limitations with my 3K in hand?

[Freddy03]

Are you sure it was sold? What does your credit report state? I thought some of my accounts were sold too but later found out they were just transferred to collection law firms to collect the debt, the org. credit card co still owned the debt.

[treehugger1]

Freddy's question is a good question. Original creditors have four choices:

1) Keep the debt inhouse and attempt to collect; chargeoff or not
2) Assign (do not sell) the debt to an outside collection agency
3) Package the debt with other debts and sell to debt buyers
4) Write the entire debt off as a complete loss (different than chargeoff.)

If you do some research on this forum, you will find that Chase will often sue before they would sell your debt. Chase is known to sue.

If Chase did sell your debt, do not assume the junk debt buyer (JDB) will not sue you. This happens a great deal of the time.

I would contact Chase and find out what the status of the debt is. Is it in outside collections? Was it sold? Do they show a zero balance, etc? This is just me. I call folks all the time. I like to know the status of all my defaulted accounts. I don't want to be blind-sided.

[tyson24]

I owe on a Chase card as well, and they have never come after my husband. He makes decent money too. We haven't paid in over 2 years and all we have gotten were collection notices. On my credit report it reads as "Closed by Grantor." I do not think they sold it, they just have someone trying to collect it for them, but not very hard.

Just my opinion, but I think you have a while to wait before they would come after you. We owe a few high balance unsecured debts and I think maybe they wait because they do not want to be the last in line for garnishment or they get the lesser of the state maximum garnishment. The first creditor to get a garnishment gets the most. Again, just my opinion from experience.

Oh yeah, they do not even have a judgment yet either. Last activity Nov. 2008. Mine reads on my report as still owing a balance and not charged off.

Hope this helps.