Fair Debt Collection Practices Act

I live in Maine and owe a ton of money in "unsecured" credit card debt. Two years ago claiming a hardship for medical reasons I signed on with a company to get debt relief in the form of negotiated settlements. Some debts have been settled but one creditor sought a judgement on each of two seperate accounts and was granted such without hearing after I neglected to get involved in the arbitration process. Now I am scheduled for a disclosure hearing in the local court to determine my ability to repay the debt(the smaller of the two). I am a landlord and am the owner of some income producing property that has enabled me to make payments on the debts that are being negotiated on my behalf. Of course I have paid some fees to the negotiating company as well. My question is this: Can the courts in Maine order me to forfeit my property to satisfy the claims of credit card companies for unsecured debt?

Typically, unsecured debt means that there is no collateral (like a home) to take in case of non-payment of the debt. However, if a creditor is awarded a judgment, that creditor can petition the court to enforce the judgment (by wage garnishment, for example). However, you may want to contact an attorney in Maine and ask about your specific case. Try a local university that offers free legal aid to see if anyone there can address your question if nobody can do so here (HFD is a new website and the the user community is still growing).

I'm with a debt settlement company and was just informed that Citibank doesn't talk w/ 3rd parties. My question is my debt went to a collection agency and they offered to settle for $5000. less than my debt, however, I'm still unable to afford it. My debt company didn't make me feel good when I asked what I should do and the response was "we haven't dealt with something like this before" Now I'm nervous. I don't own any property or anything and I don't want them to garnish my wages if it even comes to that. Should I forget the settlement company and call Citibank myself or wait? I don't know what to do. I'm paying the settlement company and I'm thinking for what?

Based on my knowledge of debt settlement companies and the way everything works, I would think it's best to leave the negotiating to the company. However, have you considered contacting your debt settlement company to ask them if it may be better if you contacted your creditor/collector? Maybe they could provide you w/ some coaching...

The Boston Globe put out an long article about debt collection and some of the criminals who collect debt. In Maine, some debt collectors are even going to the homes of debtors and taking their cars in the middle of the night. Of course, it is done by Sheriff's deputies so it is legal for them to do that in Maine whereas in most other states that would not be allowed unless the debtor had more than 1 car which was worth enough money to make the effort worthwhile. In Maine they are even taking cars from old folks who have no other way to get to the stores or to their doctors or pharmacies.

While telling you to get an attorney is sound advice don't expect them to do you much good unless you have a substantial amount of money with which to hire them and then don't expect that they will do you much good. They may be able to negotiate a settlement for a bit less money but that is likely to be about the extent of it. You would probably be better off using that money to settle with the debt collectors. In the meantime I would be certain to keep my car under lock and key and out of sight if at all possible but that might not even do you any good when the Sheriff arrives at your door with a tow truck.

I would also be certain to keep any bank accounts you might have always fresh out of money. Leave maybe $5 or $10 in your account and no more. Just enough to keep it open because they can garnish your bank accounts.

Are you also on Social Security? Social Security is supposed to be exempt from garnishment but according to the Boston Globe the criminal debt collectors are even ignoring that and all other FDCPA law.

Finding the money to pay them off and get them out of your hair first is probably the best thing to do but in the meantime you should also keep careful records of all contacts from them and all violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and see if you can't find grounds to sue them later for their violations.

That's about the only way we will ever get the criminals in Maine and elsewhere to quit violating the law and abusing people.

if you own real property, you cannot be made judgment proof.

Since they've already obtained a judgment, they simply obtain an abstract of judgment with the court, file the abstract with the county recorder and instant lien on your property. They don't want your car because nothing is better than real property.

The judgment continues to accrue post judgment interest every day, which in Maine is 15%. And they have the option of a forced foreclosure.

Contact an attorney.

1. According to many quotes including those put out by various members of the collection industry and the press there are more than 150,000 people working in the collections industry today. Some sources now say more than 162,000 people are employed in the collections number and most sources say that number is growing every day. Most likely the truth is that nobody will ever be able to know exactly how many are employed as debt collectors at any given time.

2. Most of those so employed actually break the law(s) in one way or another each and every day. Their infractions may be great or they may be pretty minor, simple mistakes of omission that anyone might make anytime, but violations none the less.

Some of those violations are extrememly serious such as failure to pay creditors for money collected from debtors. Stealing money from their employers in other words. Many of those so employed are actual criminals with prison records or long arrest records for whatever felony crimes they have committed. It makes no difference how you break the law or how serious the violation is or whether or not the violator was caught and convicted of anything, he is still a criminal if he breaks the law.

Debt collection companies have no qualms about breaking our laws because the chances of getting nailed for it are slim and even if they are caught and fined the fine is of such a small amount that it amounts to no more than a slap on the wrist. Even a fine of $1.5 or so million dollars is nothing to a company like NCO or ALLIED or Sherman Acquisitions or any of the large agencies who make a lot more money than that. What is a fine of say $1.5 million to a company making more than $100 million a year? Nothing at all. The only thing that even comes close to hurting them is the adverse publicity and that not much.

3. Debt collectors usually like to hide their physical address or other contact information from debtors and the public. Why? One reason is that when the debt collector calls he don't want to wait for his money. He wants it paid by online check or credit card right then and there. If a debtor wants the contact information he has to dig it out of them and that is often not easy to do.

Law enforcement officials are also out there trying to hunt them down so that they can be brought to justice. I know that to be a fact because I often get calls from various law enforcement agencies from around the country wanting to know if I can help them find some collection agency or other.

4. I say that easily makes debt collectors like you America's Most Wanted Criminals and I think most people who ever had to deal with a debt collector would tend to agree with me when I make that statement.

Most people are not aware of all of the stories about criminal debt collectors and the violations they commit every day. Stories put out by such reliable sources as The Boston Globe, KDKA TV, Channel 6 in Denver and many, many more all across America but I'm starting to put together a compendium of those stories which will be put on a new website featuring all the stories I can find about America's Most Wanted Criminals.

In New York, the Federal District Court held in Foti v. NCO Financial Systems, Inc., that a telephone message saying only the agency name was not enough the inform the least-sophisticated consumer that the call came from a bill collector, even if a collection letter had already been mailed out to the debtor.

NCO alone has lost more cases than can even be imagined, let alone enumerated yet they and most if not all other collection agencies and the people who work for them break the law each and every day. Obviously, if there are at least 150,000 people working for the collections industry and they even make so few as 10 calls a day on average (not a bad estimate since not all of the people who work for the collections industry make phone calls) that would amount to at least 1,500,000 violations a day. Not even the United States Government can possibly keep up with that level of criminal activity.

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Get Rid of Your Debt Negotiation Company! They only have themselves in mind when it comes to negotiating a debt with OC's. Remember, Debt Negotiation is big business to them and their only out to enrich their own pockets without the Debtor's best interest in mind. I know because I enlisted a debt negotiation company myself, and they proceeded to get me sued, when all they had to do was call the OC and talk to them prior to things getting out of hand with the Collection Attorney. You'd be better served to gain knowledge on your rights as a consumer, and going from a more knowledgeable standpoint in seeking a solution on your debts.

We are contracted with a debt consolidation company for our credit cards, in July 06 we were informed that a judgement was being submitted by Citibank for the debt we owe them, we informed our debt company, and we were told that they would contact them and negotiate. A judgement was submitted and a final judgement was signed in October 2006, when we received this, we immediately contacted our debt company and requested an investigation into why this was not handled, and why we had not been informed of the outcome of their conversation.We were then informed, that Citibank does not deal with a third party.
How do we go about handling this situation now? We have no collateral, and we are paying a substancial amount monthly to our debt company. Please could you give us some advice on what to do in this case, and what could they do to us, we do not want our wages to be garnished, and do we contact Citicard ourselves to negotiate or do we leave this in the hands of our Debt Company?

I opened a few credit card accounts while living in one state (State A) that had a statute of limitations of 10 years on written contracts - 5 years on oral agreements and open ended accounts. Because of a lack of jobs and medical insurance, I was forced to move to another state (State B) and because of the move became delinquent in my payments at that time. the State B has statutes of limitations on written contracts of 5 years - oral agreements and open ended accounts of 4 years. Here's my question, I know generally under Section 811 of the FDCPA a creditor can sue you in either the court where the contract was signed or the state court in which you reside. Since credit card accounts are generally (and these would be since they fit the definition of opened ended accounts in both states) considered opened ended accounts and not contracts, can the debtor sue me in either state A (SOL of 5 years) or are they required to sue me in State B (SOL of 4 years) since there is no actual contract (definately under STate A's jurisdiction there has been case law on their definition of contract and these credit cards do not meet that definition, but no litigation on the definition of "contract" in debt collection in STate B) if they wish to collect on the accounts. I have been looking for case law on the matter, but have been unable to find any.

My husband and I live in Nevada and have been making on time monthly payments to a collection service. We called last month to get the payments reduced because my husbands hours at work had been cut. They would not accept our offer but instead reduced the payment $45.00!!! Now, we need to get it reduced again (for the life of the payments) I am wondering if they can refuse a partial payment?

Depends on the terms of your contract with them and their contract with the original creditor. They get a percentage of what they collect, so anything is better than nothing... but some debt collectors don't always see it that way.