“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 »

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has published five letters consumers can use in certain circumstances to deal with abusive debt collection practices. It is important for consumers to be aware that while these form letters may be helpful, the letters are best used in the right situation and to accomplish a specific task. For example, asking a collector or creditor ... Read More »

If you have been contacted by a debt collector that is not the original creditor or representing the original creditor, I think it would be smart to ask the debt collector to validate the debt and prove you actually owe it if there is any doubt on your part you owe the debt. Many debts were sold to debt buyers ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, Last month I received a letter from a 3rd party collector saying I owed $786.00 on a cell phone account. So I practiced my rights and sent them a letter requesting full validation of the debt. It has been almost 40 days and I never received any letter or documents back showing they owned the debt, could collect ... Read More »

So much stuff has been written advising people to get their debts validated. I’ve asked professionals and lawyers all over for a definition of what this actually means and until now, nobody really knew. Was validation of a debt achieved if the lender simply acknowledged an account was present or did it require documentation of all transactions in the account? ... Read More »

Defendants in a payday lending case have been ordered to pay more than $294,000 for illegal garnishment of consumers’ paychecks. A federal court has ordered, at the request of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), one of the individuals behind a payday lending scheme and two companies he controlled to pay $294,536 for illegally trying to garnish borrowers’ wages, and for ... 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 »

“Dear Steve, Due to taking a cut in pay and not getting any raises for 3 years I started using my credit cards for everyday living. Now, 2 years later I’ve got over $25k in credit card debts and I have no way to pay even the minimum amount each month. I stopped paying my credit cards (about 10 of ... Read More »

“Dear Steve, I have received a summons that I’m being sued for an old credit card I’m not even sure from how long ago the summons just list the name and an amount.The amount is 10,000 I don’t have that to pay or even a reduced amount in a lump sum. My questions are how likely is it that the ... Read More »

Today I’, talking with consumer attorney Jason Rapa from Pennsylvania. We talk about both debt validation and debt collector behavior. Today, bad debt buyers are unable to cough up proof a debt is valid and actually legally collectable but depending on where you live, the inability to validate the debt can’t be relied on alone to prevent you from being ... Read More »