collectors ceasing and desisting

[treehugger1]

This is an informative thread. I just reread every post here, and was stunned by my post back in July of 2007, when I was only 60 days late. LOL Now, I have CO's and a couple fo small claims judgments, but other than that, no summons for large debt. I know its coming, but the amount of time taken to get there is more than I would ever have imagined.

[GoingDown]

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...

Yes, I think once they get a Cease and Desist letter in the mail they know that their primary way of getting paid-- calling you on the phone and scaring you into paying-- is not going to work, so they put you on low priority status playing a bit of a waiting game to see if your credit reports starts showing a sign of improved financial condition like buying a new car or applying for a mortgage, etc. or they simply sell the debt off to a new junk debt buyer. Once they get the letter they know that you know your rights and won't be an easy target for them, and that in fact, you might end up costing them money. The debt collection industry calls people like us "toxic debtors" because their normal methods of collection by telephone don't work and we might end up suing them if they continue to violate the FDCPA.

I go a step further and tell them in my C & D letter that I am judgment proof and I describe exactly why I am judgment proof letting them know that even if they do file a lawsuit it will be uncollectable. So far, out of all my many, many charged off creditors, only one has bothered to sue me, and that was way back when I had a steady job and they called me on the phone at work. So, I think telling you are judgment proof, if you really are judgment proof, works well. They don't want to waste their money and time on you if there is very little chance of ever getting paid back. Court costs and attorney fees are not cheap. Thank God for temporary jobs! They are nearly impossible to garnish.

I only use certified mail if a third party collection agency keeps calling me after I sent them a C & D by regular mail. In all my vast experience with collection agencies, regular mail almost always works. And it is so much cheaper. And I don't have to bother going down to the post office. I just pop it in mail box and usually in about a week or so, the collection agency stops calling.

[GoingDown]

My Chapter 7 case is no assets, which means I don't own a home. After getting levied from a small claims case years ago, I use my checking account in a very limited way, mostly only writing a rent check to my landlord. So the best estimation so far is that collectors were able to determine I don't own any real property based on filed deeds, and that I don't have a work phone number, and that's enough to make me low priority to be sued. I'm surprised: you'd think they'd routinely sue and once they have the judgment, they could easily garnish wages. They'd be entitled to 20% of my wages, and even though my wages are meager that 20%, year in and year out, would still be more than worth it to them since they could get it very easily, and then automatically get 20% of any increase in pay. Or do they reject all that and simply go after the big score of people with real property?

Even more surprisingly, of 31 collection agencies only 1 was local, which means almost all of them probably wouldn't sue me in any case. Why do non-local collectors buy out of state junk debts?

It doesn't matter whether the collection agency is local or not. If they decide to sue, they merely hire a local attorney in your area to sue you. One of my relatives thought she was safe from a lawsuit because she lived in Arizona, and the collection agency that was after her was located in New York. She owned real estate and she had a steady job and they knew about it because they called her at work. They hired the law offices of Hammerman (a local Phoenix attorney) to sue her.

But here's the thing... most of the time they simply do not sue people. Only a small percentage ever get sued. If they don't think they will have an easy time collecting the judgment, they probably won't sue.

There are exceptions to this of course. Unifund is known to buy junk debt and sue everyone and then try to collect the ones that are easy to collect after the judgment, and the rest of the judgments are just sold off to other debt collectors.

[IOIOIO]

My Chapter 7 case is no assets, which means I don't own a home. After getting levied from a small claims case years ago, I use my checking account in a very limited way, mostly only writing a rent check to my landlord. So the best estimation so far is that collectors were able to determine I don't own any real property based on filed deeds, and that I don't have a work phone number, and that's enough to make me low priority to be sued. I'm surprised: you'd think they'd routinely sue and once they have the judgment, they could easily garnish wages. They'd be entitled to 20% of my wages, and even though my wages are meager that 20%, year in and year out, would still be more than worth it to them since they could get it very easily, and then automatically get 20% of any increase in pay. Or do they reject all that and simply go after the big score of people with real property?

Even more surprisingly, of 31 collection agencies only 1 was local, which means almost all of them probably wouldn't sue me in any case. Why do non-local collectors buy out of state junk debts?

[All Cash]

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?

Very easily. Own a home? Any person can access your counties Recorder of Deeds records. If they have judgment against you. They can place a lien against that property. The next step is to research your account for payment history. If you paid the account at any time by check they have your information from that check. They forward a bank levy with a copy of the judgment to your local bank that the check was drawn on. If the account is active with funds. Guess who gets your funds?

Best thing is to have a checking account that you pay your bills with that you have not defaulted on. Or, get MO for all your bills and plan to live your life like that until the statute of limitations is up.

[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?

[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.

[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...

[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.

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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]

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.