CREDITWRENCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by apexcrsrv

No, where "I" practice law (TN) isn't much different. However, I have a law firm (completely separate and distinct from Apex Credit Services, LLC, of which I am still managing member (not the whole corporation as some portray it)), am in court almost every day and albeit unfair with respect to self-represented litigants, simply being a lawyer stops the B.S. Hate to say it but, the legal community does not care much for pro se litigants insofar as "generally" they have no clue as to what they're doing

That is unfortunately absolutely true. To make matters even worse, far too many of them try to use fringe lunatic arguments such as trying to claim that the banks can't loan credit, can't loan their own money, and yada, yada, yada ad infinitum ad nauseum. One 'researcher' I know quite well argues that since large banks are not registered with their local Secretary of State they have no standing to sue. Of course that is ludicrous because large banks cannot be incorporated. That is specifically spelled out in Title 12. They are associations and therefore allowed to carry the N.A. designation. Only Nationally Associated banks and credit card banks can use that designation.

Another one that I just got informed about yesterday is that in mortgage foreclosure cases use of a copy of the note instead of the original note itself constitutes counterfeiting and is a felony offense. Now there is a wild theory for you. The idea of Notary Presentment and A4V (Acceptance for Value) is another. The list of such theories would fill a book and of course both judges and attorneys and the IRS have to deal with all the noise and tripe. No wonder they make short shrift of so many pro se litigants.

I also get a bang out of those who proclaim that they are only before the court as a special appearance and therefore the court has no jurisdiction or power over them. Then there are those who use SUI JURIS instead of Pro Se in their pleadings.

Quote:

(unfortunately, I can say the same about many attorney's) substantively, procedurally, and even if they do, they just can't put on a trial.

I get a bang out of attorneys who pray the court to do something for them. Since when did a court of law become a church? Maybe they do that in their capacity as religious nuts. Problem is that the Lord wants religious fruit, not religious nuts. (LOL)

Quote:

With that said, I still advise pro se litigants to file in state trial level courts.

You do make your valid points but my thinking is that if they think they must file in local courts rather than federal then maybe they would be better off not filing in the first place. [quote] Federal court procedures; i.e., 26 disclosures,[/qoute]Are you speaking of Rule 26 disclosures here?

Quote:

scheduling orders, etc., is simply too much to digest for non-lawyers UNLESS you have alot of time on your hands.

True again in most instances but if you have enough experience under your belt then you can have a full blown and properly prepared case all ready to go in an afternoon with no problem. For instance, the following cases:

(1.) CV-00123-RP-TJS
(2) CV 05-J-2360-S
(3) CV-06-C-1579-S
(4) CV-06-PWG-0568-S
(5) CV-04-P-0626-S
(6) CV-06-1577-S
Are all cases won by a man whom I will refer to as Mike who first contacted me in 2000 about a case where a former employer was trying to collect on Mexican income taxes Mike had agreed to pay while employed in Mexico by an American firm. That in itself is a fairly long story but ended up with Mike taking the debt collector to federal court. We conferred many times about this and all of his other cases. When he filed his first case he had no clue as to how to proceed. We have had many discussions about his various cases and others he has also won in local courts. He has never lost a case. I have audio recordings of many conversations about his cases to prove what I am saying.
Mark is another pro se litigant who is currently in court with Sallie Mae in an FCRA case Mark has won 3 cases in Federal court in two different states. Mike's cases span 3 states. I've been involved in long conversations with Mark as well and as a matter of fact spent a half hour or so yesterday talking with Mark about his Sallie Mae case. Mark and Mike both know each other and have also conversed between the two of them and all of us work together to make sure that no mistakes are made. Another Pro Se litigant that has had great success is Larry from Florida. I have no idea how many cases he has filed and won but Larry also gets involved in our group discussions quite often.

Another person from Florida who is a sometimes poster on this board calls himself Retnec and has listened in on many of our conversations, usually on Friday nights. So far the total number of case filed and won in federal courts by members of our group totals 172 cases with never a loss. Retnec is currently helping me set up my Filezilla server system so group members can upload and download files we are working on. We have been spending as much as 3 to 5 hours on the phone working out the bugs for the last week or more. Pro Se litigants trying to file cases in any court, let alone federal courts indeed have a tough road to travel but when one has a support group with many people who have been there and done that helping guide them through the pitfalls then it becomes an entirely different matter. The research done by other members of the group can be preserved and made available to new comers to the group. I'm bringing a lot of our research, links and helps to this forum by posting them on my Google Docs pages and my Google Sites pages. The list of links to valuable research resources is growing by leaps and bounds and even those pages are getting very lengthy as time goes on.
We also work closely with Dr. Frederick Graves of Jurisdictionary. Dr. Graves is a retired Florida attorney and his insights help greatly. Dr. Graves has also practiced before the U.S. Supreme Court on many occasions. Anyone can easily find Dr. Graves on the internet and call him up and ask him if he knows me. He has a private Monday night conference call for his Chapter leaders and I am always on his calls. So far there are 68 chapter leaders in his group scattered across the nation as well as in Canada and Puerto Rico. I was the first chapter leader he ever had by special invitation. Richard Cornforth is another great researcher and has contributed greatly to my education. I am one of his information providers as is Larry whom I mentioned earlier.

Yes, as you say, going it alone isn't advisable but when you have a massive support group behind the scenes helping and guiding then it isn't much of a problem.

Quote:

This has been compounded since the Twombly ruling inasmuch as District Court judge will simply grant a MTD unless the Complaint is perfect.

While that may be true, Twombly's thrust was mainly in the fraud arena and dealt mostly with securities cases while FDCPA and FCRA type cases are basically civil rights cases. Twombly's thrust was against failure to plead with particularity and failure to show that there was more than a reasonable expectation of the plaintiff having a valid claim against the defendant that could be proven. Against conjecture in other words Conjecture that one or more of the defendants might be 'control persons' having delegated authority to act for the defendant corporation. Our types of cases always have a solid proof of misdeeds on the part of the defendant which are well documented and easily proven so Twombly shouldn't have much effect in federal courts where they very well might ih local courts where judges routinely rule just about any way they want because they know they have Pro Se litigants before them who have no idea what the law is or what the law says, who it applies to or under what circumstances.

Lawyers often pull the same stunts, quoting laws or decisions that have absolutely no bearing on the case at hand. They often spout off a bunch of crap knowing the judge is likely to believe almost anything they say and accept it for gospel truth. They get really frustrated and angry when a Pro Se who has done his homework proves to the court that the lawyer is nothing but a fool and a clown.

Admitted that such things don't happen all that often but they do happen so Pro Se litigants need to know how to research their cases and leave no stone unturned.

Creditwrench blog

Quote:

Originally Posted by equinox308

may be as many great lawyers out there as infamous ones

I tend to think that is probably
quite true[/quote]...to that point I would like some suggestions for
finding a great lawyer in my area for a consultation of my case(s)
dealing with creditors/collectors, and possibly an incorrect Judgment
against me. Also I'm hoping this attorney can help me back on the right
track to repair my credit and settle any bad outstanding ones as well.
Thanks for your time and feedback..[/quote]I seriously doubt that you
will be able to find an attorney willing to help you with repairing
your credit. If one did and was not properly licensed as a Credit
Repair Organization they would be in violation of CROA, Even if they
did help you with credit repair they could not ask you for any money
until 6 months after the work had been performed or they would also be
in violation of CROA. Although I can't remember the name at the moment,
I've seen an attorney here in this forum advertising his services as a
credit repair expert. He also does a thing called Authorized users that
is somehow supposed to drastically improve your credit ratings. Trying
to get just any attorney not properly licensed and set up to do those
things would not be a good idea.

One of the first things you need to do before seeking legal counsel is
go to the courthouse and pull your public record then ask to see the
files on any judgments or lawsuits you might have against you. Get
copies of all the paperwork in the file(s) so you are ready to talk to
an attorney if you find one.

Once you have an attorney in mind you should check his/her public
record in the same way you check your own. Look to see what kinds of
cases s/he has handled during the past year or so and what happened in
those cases. How many of them are similar to your case and problems and
what the outcome of those cases was. Did your prospective attorney win
his/her cases or lose them? It is highly unlikely that any attorney
will have won all the cases he participated in but you would certainly
not want to hire one that had no experience with situations like yours
or has a poor record of winning cases.

If you are lucky enough to live in a state or county that has all of
it's court records on line like we do here in Oklahoma that will make
your search much easier and much less time consuming. Just because an
attorney talks a great line and claims to be able to help you is
meaningless. It is their public record of winning or losing cases that
counts. They can't change the facts on record. A great sales pitch
might claim one thing but the public record might tell an entirely
different story.

Hiring an attorney without knowing what his public record has to say
about him is not a wise thing to do. Finding an attorney is easy,
especially in larger cities. Finding an attorney competent and willing
to work for you is an entirely different matter. There public record
will reveal the truth about how experienced they are and how competent
they are.

I wish you the best of luck finding a competent attorney. You are probably going to need it.

	Marie
	Collections Law
	Yes
	Sued by Original Creditor-I think
	Hello Creditwrench! I was checking my local clerk of courts site looking into a erroneous tax sale against our property (predates purchase and was missed by title company..I got it voided). Anyway, I saw that I am being sued on a Discover Card account that I had submitted to a debt settlement agency in February this year. Yes, I know..now...bad idea: It cost me nearly $4,000 for them to "help" me with our credit cards...a.k.a do nothing, and now I am being sued so the money would sure be handy to have toward settling (it was my hubby's idea and I could not talk him out of it). The suit was filed 10/28 by a somewhat local attorney that I have never heard of and sent to the sheriff for service on 11/02; I have not been served as yet. I received no communication of any kind from this attorney prior to their filing the suit so had no opportunity to ask for debt validation (15 USC 1692g section 809 (d) says that legal pleadings are not to be treated as an initial communication-so should I still have the right to validate?). I plan on going pro se and am looking for some help in preparing my answer and paperwork after I finally get served: I will only have 15 days to answer after I get the papers. I have obtained a copy of the local court rules to familiarize myself with the "do's" and "do not's". I know that I will have to answer the claims made by the plaintiff's attorney as either affirm, deny, or lack the knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of the allegation. I also understand that I must provide a copy to the plaintiff's attorney and the original plus a certificate of service to the clerk of court. I have read elsewhere that I should file a affidavit of exemptions claimed and possibly a notice of appearance? Where I get confused is affirmative defenses, discovery, and interrogatories. I know that throwing out too many affirmative defenses that aren't completely relevant can irritate the judge and make him see my side as frivolous (grasping at straws). I have been reading as much case law from this state as possible. Louisiana justices have been giving some credence to credit card contracts being contracts of adhesion, and unfair and deceptive trade practices. I want the attorney to disclose if this is truly an assignment or if they have purchased the debt; if it was purchased how much was paid; how the current balance was calculated including all fees and interest; provide the original contract and all subsequent addendums or updates; that payments in excess of the minimum were applied in accordance with FDIC rules 12 CFR 227.23 and 227.25; that I was provided "clear and conspicuous written notice of all amendments to the card agreement 15 days prior to the change and election to opt-out" as per Delaware Code Title 5, Chapter 22, SubChapter 11 section 224(b)(1), and a few other things that I have dug up. Am I way off base here and they will just laugh at me then throw a piano on my head ala roadrunner and willey coyote? Some other relevant information....The card is within the SOL and I do owe the principal, but they are asking for nearly 2x the balance from February. I am self employed and my only income (very small) is from a multi-member LLC (have been ill and can only work about 3-5 hours a day lately). Since this is a community property state, we set my husband, who is also self employed, up with his own multi-member LLC (I intervened in his operating agreement and held that his interest in the company and all profits or payments were his separate property as well as all capital used to start the company-all are notarized and filed per Louisiana laws): His income is in the form of a guaranteed payment as manager of the LLC. The only assets we have that are not exempt under Louisiana law is one car, and two older motorcycles; all of which are for sale locally for fair market value. We have no cash assets to speak of...most have been used to pay my doctors... and I know that judgements last 10 years and may be renewed for an additional 10 before the first term expires. So, that is our pickle. I have been reading your answers to folks on here for some time and always found you to be very helpful, so though...what the heck, I'll ask. Thanks in advance for any assistance you may be able to offer.
	click here to enlarge You certainly are far more knowledgeable than most. Your first question is whether or not you can demand validation since (15 USC 1692g section 809 (d) says that legal pleadings are not to be treated as an initial communication. So to reach a plausible answer that question we have to understand what legal pleadings are. If we look for the definition of legal pleadings we find that almost all if not all documents including the complaint are considered to be legal pleadings. So how do we get around that section and still have grounds upon which we can logically demand validation and to do that we need to determine what an initial communication is. We can easily arrive at the conclusion that the pleadings are not their initial communication with you in any case. In order to conclude that the pleadings are not their initial communication we have to analyze the sequence of events that occur during the service of summons. The process server comes to your door papers in hand and the first thing they do is hand you the summons and possibly explain a bit about the summons and what it requires of you. Once that has been done he hands you the papers with the summons on top and therefore the summons is their initial communication with the consumer and not the complaint. You get to read the complaint after the process server leaves. So the complaint becomes the second communication with you for all practical purposes. A summons is not a legal pleading therefore I think that you can demand validation and I have my students send demand for validation to the plaintiff's attorney at the same time they send their response to the plaintiff's attorney. I believe that any action on the part of the attorney after that point becomes illegal continued collection activity unless they provide a full and complete accounting of the debt prior to doing anything else including providing their response to demand for admissions which I also have my students send along with their response. So far we have not had any reason to take that concept to federal court but the time will come when we must present the question to a federal judge. At that time we will have the answer to the question of whether or not a summons can be considered the initial contact with the consumer if no other communication have preceded the service of summons and whether or not they must then provide full and complete documentation before doing anything else including responding to discovery demands. You must understand that I am not an attorney so can't give you a legal opinion on that matter. We will just have to wait until someone takes that issue to a federal court for determination. In the meantime, what can it hurt to send demand for validation at the same time you send your response? Next you talk about affirmative defenses. I greatly dislike the use of affirmative defenses because an affirmative defense requires an assertion of facts beyond those claimed by the plaintiff, generally the party making an affirmative defense bears the burden of proof. While an unwaivable affirmative defense is subject matter jurisdiction that too must be proven by the defendant once raised and that can be very difficult to do. On the other hand, an affirmative defense is different from a negating defense. A negating defense is one which tends to negate one or more or all of the essential element of the plaintiff's case therefore I think a negating defense is far better than an affirmative defense. I always have my students use a negating defense. Attorneys hate it when we do that and often object by claiming that the defendant raised no defense at all therefore they should be granted a default judgment. I've never seen a judge allow that argument yet but I have seen attorneys become extremely upset when the judge rules against them on that point. In fact, I went to court with a friend who used a negating defense and the lady lawyer tried to argue that a default should be granted because the defendant had not filed a proper response to their complaint and she became very upset when the judge ruled against her. She became so upset that it was very funny and I made a comic video about it which I put on youtube and other video sites as well as on my www.creditwrench.tv web site. I would very definitely recommend that you use a totally negating defense instead of an affirmative defense. I do think that many of the questions you are planning to ask will get you nowhere at all. They will simply claim attorney -client priviledge or any other excuse they can dream up to avoid response to those questions and you will have wasted valuable quota that could have been put to better use. You can almost bet that you will lose in local court no matter how you respond or what else you do. You can also count on the fact that they will learn about your corporations and will move to pierce the corporate veil and will have no trouble doing so. They will go after your corporations as well so they are of little value for hiding assets as well. It is obvious that you are thinking in conventional ways, well inside the box and if you want to win you will have to start thinking outside the box and get agressive instead of being passive. The defense very seldom wins. If it were me I'd hand that attorney his walking papers in the form of a well prepared federal case against him if he does anything wrong at all. That's the way to win.

:	Carolyn
	Collections Law
	No
	Response to Interrogatories
	I got a summons on a debt I owe to the Bank of America for approximately $10,000 in September of this year. The loan was sold to Midland Funding and a local law firm here in the Washington DC area was suing on their behalf. I answered the summons, within the allotted time frame, by saying that that the Defendant is without knowledge or information sufficient to admit or deny the allegation contained in the complaint. The law firm has now sent me a certificate regarding discovery whereby they indicate that I had a revolving loan account with Bank of America and that it was sold to Midland. No mentioned is made of the fact that the last payment on this loan was made well past the 3 year statute of limitations in Washington DC. They also sent a request for interrogatories where they asked all kind of information regarding whether I made debt and How should I answer them since my position is that I had the account and made the purchases but that the statue of limitations has been reached for the debt? I am pretty sure that I have not paid on this loan since 2004. Do I have to prove this or do they have to prove that I made payment since then? Thanks for any assistance.
	click here to enlarge You need to be able to prove when you made your last payment to the creditor,Add 30 days to that and you have the start of the statute of limitations. It runs until they filed the lawsuit against you. Your problem now is not only that you have to prove your argument. If you had been a creditwrench student you would have known to send them your demand for admissions at the same time you sent your response thereby immediately putting them behind the curve instead of the way it is now. You definitely need to send your own demand for admissions and make them tell you when you made your last payment to the creditor among other things. I have a somewhat similar situation going on right now. On Monday, November 9th, Allied Acceptance called me and informed me that I owe a credit card debt and that I made my last payment in 2001 and wanted to know if I wanted to take care of it now. Statute of limitations in Oklahoma is 5 years. Needless to say I didn't want to take care of it or at least in the way the lady had in mind. Of course I was recording the call. I told her that I wanted them to send me a demand letter which she agreed to do. She wanted to know if the address she had was correct and I told her it wasn't and gave her my current address. So from that point on they had 5 days within which they must have had their demand letter in my hands since that was their initial contact with me. They called the next day too but I couldn't take the call at that time. Then she called again today. Of course I was recording and we went back and forth a bit and then I told her that I dispute the debt and demand that they validate the debt. "What are you disputing?", she asked. "All of it", I replied. Then she wanted to know how come I thought I could just say I don't owe the debt and get away with that. (LOL) Needless to say, I didn't tell her the real reason I can get away with doing that. I want to lead them on. You see, since I said I disputed the debt and demanded validation every call they make is illegal continued collection activity. A federal offense. When and if their letter comes I'll dispute the debt and demand validation all over again. I am thinking it might be a while more before I get that letter and of course I also hope they forget to put the Miranda warning on it and maybe make a few other mistakes. There are other ways they can violate and I'll make sure they do. I'll even beg them to sue me and I sincerely hope they do because as soon as I hear from some attorney about this I'll sue them in federal court and start in on the lawyer, building him/her up to a federal lawsuit. I'll sue the lawyer and the debt collector all over again. Of course, I'm watching my record down at the clerk of the court online so they don't pull a fast one there. I want to catch them filing a lawsuit on me and get my response in to the court the same day they file or the next at the latest. I'll have my response in and I'll have my demand for validation and my admissions in the mail to them so fast they won't know what hit them. You see, if it is out of statute as they said it was then they have violated federal law by even filing the lawsuit out of stat. Now that is the way I teach people how to deal with these kinds of problems. That lawyer has probably already violate your civil rights too and you can learn how to treat them the same way I would. It isn't hard to do. Just takes some learning. That's all.

	Lisa
:	Collections Law

	3 year old debt
:	Hi, when I was 19-20 years old, I opened a credit card with Chase Bank and maxed it out (I know, dumb move)...I had a child when I was very young with a guy that was much older than me...blah blah...so this made me rebel a little. Anyway, I got a few bills in the mail for this card, but never paid them because I didn't have a job at the time. I then got a job that paid really really good under the table, but the guy I was with wanted me to give it all to him so that the other bills could get paid. I am now stuck with this debt of almost $1,400. I was taking a shower the other day when the sheriff brought me a civil summons for this debt. The person suing me is First Resolution Investment Corp. Is this real? It doesn't show a court date anywhere on the paper. It just says "unless a written defense is made by you or an attorney in your behalf within 20 days following the day this paper is delivered to you, judgment by default may be taken against you for the relief demanded in the attached complaint". I have no idea what to do here. I've heard lots of bad things about First Resolution Investment Corp. I am now in college, taking care of my two young children, and I do not have a job at the moment, but I am actively searching for one. Thanks for your help, Lisa
:	click here to enlarge Sorry to hear of your problems. I'm sure you really didn't need this one added on to the rest of them you have however you will have to deal with it one way or another. It really sucks to be in a situation where you don't have enough funds to take care of all the problems that come your way. Being poor is far more expensive than being rich. Lack of knowledge is even more expensive. Put the two together and you really know what trouble is. Regardless of your circumstances you have to meet this one somehow because if you don't they will get the default judgment and then they can go for garnishment of any assets you may have including freezing all the money they can find in any bank account. If that happens you will go out to buy groceries or pay rent or whatever and find you have no funds. Checks will bounce, your debit cards will be declined and all of that will cost even more. Then the bank will charge you a hefty fee for responding to the garnishment. That often runs anywhere from $100 to maybe as much as $200. If you don't pay that and the bounced check charges they will close your account, report you to Checksystems and other reporting agencies and send you off to another debt collector who will eventually try to sue you for that. More misery heaped on top of what you already have. Then when you get a job they can garnish up to 25% of that. There are even more things they can do to you such as taking your car in some states. So you can expect a great deal of abuse if you don't learn how to deal with it now and do so within the 20 days. You won't even be able to find an attorney to help you deal with it because you haven't enough money to pay them and they really couldn't help you even if you did. The problem is that when you get to court the only question before the court is whether or not you owe the money and of course you do. The judge knows that because if you didn't owe the money the plaintiff would not be there complaining. You know you owe the money but if you admit that you are sunk for sure so the trick is to never admit that you owe the money and try to force them to prove that you do. If that don't work then you have to find some other way to force them to go away empty handed and leave you alone. It is possible to do that and even make them pay you to go away and leave them alone instead of you paying them anything. Yes, I know that sounds impossible but it just so happens that many of the things that lawyers either do or don't do can subject them to federal lawsuits which they can't possibly win and that is just about the only way to get the upper hand in these types of situations. Getting grounds to sue the lawyer and his client is very easy to do. If they provide you with any kind of false and misleading information either in or out of court you have grounds to sue them in federal court and maybe in state court as well. And that is just for starters. You just have to know or learn how they can violate federal or state laws and be willing to go after them for their violations just as they are coming after you for your failure to pay what you owe. But for right now what you have to worry about is how to respond to their complaint in the proper way. In order to give you a good general idea of what you will need, I will outline it for you. First you will want to prepare a response to the complaint which denies all their allegations. Then you will need a certificate of mailing. You will want them to admit certain facts you can use in your defense so you will want to prepare a list of admissions. If the summons was the first communication the lawyer ever had with you then you will want to prepare a good dispute and demand for validation letter to send to the plaintiff's attorney as well. You will need at least two copies of each document. You will want to have a large brown envelope with you and have your certified mail return receipt green card all made out and attached to the envelope. Once you have prepared all of those you will want to take your response (two copies) to the clerk of the court who will stamp both copies and return one to you. Put that copy in your brown envelope and seal it and go to the post office and send all of the documents to the plaintiff's attorney. If the summons was your first communication with the attorney then they cannot move forward with the case until they have provided you with the required documentation. They must respond to your demand for validation within the time limit allowed by the Rules of Civil procedure for them to respond to your demand for admissions. If they fail to do that and respond to your demand for admissions before they provide you with the required documentation you demanded then they have violated by engaging in illegal continued collection activity and if they wait on their response too long then you can move to have your demand for admissions deemed admitted by the court and they lost that way. They must comply with both laws or they are in deep trouble and you can win. There are many other ways they can violate and if you know how to do it you can be certain of getting a clean kill once you get them to federal court. They always violate one way or the other. Maybe that's why they only claim to be practicing law. If they really were the professionals they would like people to believe they are then they would not commit the glaring errors that they do and would never have to worry about getting sued in federal court. Need some help learning how to do all that and much more? Just use the image and learn how to do it.


Question:	QUESTION: Hello Bill. I received a letter from an arbitration company telling me that a civil lawsuit from Discover card is on its way regarding some credit card debt. We don't deny the debt and paid our bills until we ran out of money. My husband and I have been unemployed for a few months now but we are actively looking for work. The only asset we have is some computer equipment and a car we are still paying (in other words, it still belongs to the lender.) We have a couple hundred dollars in the bank which we are using for food. Our situation is desperate and we have told the collection agents so but to no avail. I guess they have heard similar stories so many times from so many people. The company sending the letter even mentions the civil suit by number so I will go to the courthouse tomorrow to learn how far along the civil suit is. I read your comments posted on your website and most likely, in civil court, Discover card will win because we don't (and never have) denied the debt. My question is: If I don't have a job and virtually no assets, what will happen after the judgement is entered against me? Your response is welcome and greatly appreciated. MAR :( ANSWER: What arbitration company did they use? NAF? It isn't because you have never denied the debt that they will win. And you want to know what will happen after the judgment is entered against you? Next they will probably go for an assets hearing and force you to go in to court and tell them where you bank, where you work and all about your assets, income and the like. They can and probably will grab any money you have in your bank account and you will go to the store one day to buy groceries and you won't have any money in your bank account to pay for them. Count on that and keep your bank account drained down to nothing or next to it. Then one day you will get a job and find out that your check has been garnished too. And just what do you mean by "virtually" no assets? Now then, since you have already assumed that you probably can't win in local court then maybe you would do well to learn how to beat up on them in federal court. But on the other hand, don't forget to tell me what arbitration company they used because that can be the key to keeping them from getting a judgment in the first place. I wouldn't give up on winning in local court just yet. Maybe all isn't lost just yet. image: Collections-Law-912/2009/08/click-enlarge_313.gif ---------- FOLLOW-UP ---------- QUESTION: Hello Bill, Thank you for reply. I'm grateful for the information you provided. It helps a lot. I was afraid but thanks to you I am learning about this process which is new to us. WHAT ARBITRATION COMPANY DID THEY USE? The arbitration company turned out to be a scavenger agency trying to "help us reduce the debt" for a fee. I went to the courthouse to check if the case was active and learned there is a hearing later this month. WHAT DO I MEAN BY VIRTUALLY NO ASSETS? We don't own a home nor do we have a mortgage. We are paying a car which is our only means of transportation. We incurred the Discover card debt to buy a printer, a computer, and some computer accessories so my husband could start a business. We have been unemployed for a few months now. The money we had saved was used to pay bills until the money ran out. I assumed we could not win in local court because I read all the answers you provided in your website. Specifically that 94% of the cases brought to court are won by the credit card companies because the judge only cares if the debt is valid. While at the courthouse I went into the court room and spend a few hours listening to the cases presented that day and all the cases before the judge went very rapidly. Of the 30 cases before the judge that day all 30 were won by Chase and Capital One. The only case that required postponment was a man who filed for bankruptcy. It seems the only solution available is to file for bankruptcy. We don't have the funds to pay a lawyer for bankruptcy nor are we well versed in legal proceedings. Denying the debt will only delay the inevitable. This is the reason why I decided to contact you. You seem to know a lot about the law. Any information you could provide will be greatly appreciated.
Answer:	I'd advise you to start learning by checking out some of my comments at which is a links page leading to many other docs pages which I and others have written. There is a great deal of information in those links that will be helpful to you. I'd like to get a look at the papers you get from the courthouse. You can scan them into image files and send them to me at ceo@creditwrench.com or you can also copy them then redact all the personal information then scan them and upload them to your own Google Docs page and either email me the links or post the links here. It is not necessary to file bankruptcy at all. Doing so is very expensive, time consuming and the results are usually pretty devastating in many ways. The only way it is worthwhile is if you have a huge amount of debt and a great deal of assets which are still insufficient to pay off all that you owe. I'd say that if you owe less then $50,000 it probably won't be worth filing BK. I wouldn't worry much about smaller debt because you can easily make those and resulting judgments go away by catching them breaking the law and filing one or more federal lawsuits against them for those violations. That's what I teach people how to do as well as how to do battle with them in local courts. Fighting in local courts is well worthwhile even if you end up losing which, as I predict, is probably inevitable. That is because they always violate federal law giving you grounds to take them to federal court and make it all go away. It really isn't all that hard to do. Just takes a bit of time and effort and you will learn very quickly how to win even though you might lose at local court. Again, I'd like to get a look at the court paperwork because the statement you made about some outfit ostensibly trying to help you and now filing a lawsuit against you is intriguing to say the least.

CREDITWRENCH

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Creditwrench Debt Validation Letter

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