The bills keep coming in, the phone won’t stop ringing, and now a letter arrives with a court date. You’re being sued. The first instinct may be to ignore it, but this is the worst thing you can do! If you have been sued by a creditor for money, the most important thing to do is respond to the lawsuit…
Have you ever received a letter from a company you’ve never heard of, demanding payment for an old medical or utility bill? Or a scary letter listing a debt owed to a company you’ve never heard of like Midland Funding, LLC or Portfolio Recovery Associates? When you are unable to maintain payments on a bill, it often gets sold to…
If you have been sued by a creditor for money, the most important thing to do is respond to the lawsuit. Never ignore a lawsuit or complaint because if you do, you will automatically lose! The next thing to do is to contact a lawyer to get a free consultation and see what your rights are. Many times, the creditor…
In this blog post in the student loan series, we will be talking about rehabilitation and consolidation for defaulted student loans. You default on a loan when you don’t make full payments on your loan for 270 days. There are very real consequences for defaulting on your loans, such as wage garnishment, liability for lawsuit, inability to receive further federal…
Here at DRF, we regularly get calls from people that are struggling with student loan debt. Many of them have not had the chance to learn about several very powerful strategies that can be used to manage and pay off their student debt. Because of this, we have decided to start a short blog series about these management strategies, who…
Scammers, people trying to cheat money away from you, may pretend to be a debt collection agency that owns your debt to in order to convince you to send them money. Learn a couple of useful tips about how to identify them, and what to do if a scammer calls you.
Another tactic debt collection companies use, is promising relief from debt collection phone calls if a payment is made. So someone may agree to make a minimal payment to stop the calls, only to then get a notice of a lawsuit for the entire debt now that the creditor can once again sue. If you think you may have zombie debt, educate yourself. Consumers have protections in place under the law, but without understanding of these laws debt collectors can manipulate them into giving up these protections. If you find yourself in a situation which you may fear will lead to zombie debt, know your rights as a consumer. Make sure you have all of your debts in writing. If the debt is not yours, write to the collection agency to stop contacting you (Siddons, 2018). Know the statute of limitations for your residing state. In Massachusetts, the statute of limitations is six years for any debt.
Last night on the HBO show “Last Week Tonight,” host John Oliver forgave nearly $15 million in time-barred medical debt. He was able to do this after setting up a collection company and purchasing the debt for about $60,000. This debt portfolio and many more like it, is often called zombie debt, because it cannot be collected through legal action. Even though the debt obligation…