“Dear Steve, I recently attended at Case Conference Meeting at my local courthouse for an old credit card debt and judgement. Prior to the conference I contacted the attorney (listed on court docket) representing the debt buyer and was informed the attorney no longer represented the firm and it now with a new debt buyer. At the meeting an attorney ... Read More »

What I’m about to offer you can be used for good as well as evil so please use this information responsibly. Additionally, I always urge all of my readers to consult with an attorney licensed in their state for legal advice. I am not a lawyer. But over the decades I’ve been helping people with problem debt there is one ... Read More »

This guide will give you some fabulous resources for dealing with debt collectors, debt collection, and debt buyers. There are two ways to approach being in collections. Most approach it with fear and stress. A few learn how to deal with it in the right way, with education and a positive attitude. A positive attitude? Yes. You see the debt ... Read More »

I’d love to take credit for the tips that are made here but Peter Holland of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law is the one that deserves the credit for writing a fantastic paper outlining the process. Holland provides amazing advice here and I wish we’d see more such academic papers posted to help consumers. How ... Read More »

Thanks to Jessica Silver-Greenberg from the New York Times we get a great look inside the credit card lawsuits that are rolling out today, and they reek. Judges interviewed for the piece say that if consumers actually appeared in court, they might actually win many of these suits because the debt buyers suing can’t actually prove the debt is valid. ... Read More »

A recent court case in Tennessee went all the way to the State Appeals Court. In this case the court ruled that debt collectors and secondary debt buyers need actual proof of the debt owed before they can recover it. The case involved LVNV Funding, Resurgent Capital and Sherman Financial Group. “In December 2009, Plaintiff/Appellee LVNV Funding, LLC, (“LVNV”) as ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, I turned over one of my credit card debts to a debt negotiation company. I currently checked my credit report and this credit card shows status of closed. Write off of $xxxx. A credit collection company now shows up on my report as a debt purchase account – and has $xxxx – $100 listed as the balance but ... Read More »

I have debt with Wells Fargo, I’ve received a court summons from an Attorney’ Office which is representing a company called “Security Credit Services, LLC” which must have bought my debt from Wells Fargo. I do admit that I had a loan from Wells Fargo some time ago and ran into some hard financial times and was unable to make ... Read More »

Here is a great research paper worth reading. It certainly helps to focus the robo-signing issues we’ve all heard about with mortgages to a problem that debt relief providers will need to deal with. For a while we’ve talked about the issue of a debt relief provider that either sets up a payment plan or assists a consumer to settle ... Read More »

“Dear Michael, When I was in college, I couldn’t find a job in the summer of 2008. I was unable to make any of the payments on my credit cards and my auto loan. I buried my head in the sand and ignored everything. The car got repossessed and the collection calls started with the credit cards and the repossession ... Read More »

The following guest post was contributed by Michael Bovee of Consumer Recovery Network. If you would like to contribute a guest post, click here. In the wake of robo-signing scandals involving home foreclosures across the country come the reports of similar behavior by debt buyers who file court actions in order to collect on delinquent unsecured debts such as unpaid ... Read More »

In recent days stories out of New Jersey and California have both reveled that lawsuits by credit card companies are on the rise. The New Jersey story, stated there has been a 25% increase in case filed between 2007 and 2010. In California the courts in Santa Cruz Superior Court are dealing with historically high levels. The Mercury News story ... Read More »

It is not unusual for me to hear from people in the debt relief world, “Oh the creditor won’t want to sue the consumer, it costs the creditor money.” I chuckle inside when I hear that. It’s so not true. While that might be logical, logic and creditors have never walked hand-in-hand. Out of New York comes a story about ... Read More »

The problem of zombie debts, that’s debts that come back to life, is well known. What is becoming more of a problem is what happens when an old debt has been sold, sold, and sold again. The current debt buyer can’t really prove they own the debt at all. In fact just recently we published an article about this problem. ... Read More »

The Municipal Employees Legal Services of New York’s District Council 37 has seen an increasingly startling number of cases cross their desk over the past few years involving cases pertaining to debt buying lawsuits against consumers. Given that these sort of cases have doubled over the past 10 years, they took a special interest into the matter and conducted a ... Read More »