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Expert: Creditwrench - 11/3/2008


Question
My husband received a phone call this morning from a medical collection agency asking us to pay $563.  He told the lady that he needed to speak with me to find out what we can do about it and she started threatening him with our home and contacting his employer then said have a nice day and hung up the phone.

I called her back approx. 30 min later and at first she was nice and I explained we live paycheck to paycheck and I can not pay $563 however I would like to make payment arrangements with her.  She asked what Arrangements I could make and I told her $50 now as a good faith and $25 monthly.  I explained I had the $50 dollars to pay another bill but would be willing to pay them instead.  She said they wouldn't accept anything less the $75 and I told her I don't have that.  I told her I could give her $50 or pay the other bill.  She started yelling saying don't try to use that with me.  I will just contact your employer and your husbands employer and then hung up the phone.  I contacted them again asking for her supervisor and they just gave me another employee that started yelling at me and telling me that I can recite what ever laws I think I know but they would call our employers and use our home as an asset.

Can they do this?  Aren't they harassing us?  Aren't there laws to protect us against this?  What can I do if they won't even talk about things?

Answer

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Yes, that is harassment. I hope you recorded the calls. If not why not?

If you don't have the means to record calls then I suggest that you get set up to record calls.

It isn't all that difficult and it need not be very expensive. Your computer will record the calls and the total cost is less than $20. All you need is a $17 plus phone recording controller. It is a little black box about an inch square and hooks to your computer and to the telephone.

Then download a free program called wavepad and install that and you can record calls and the recordings go directly to your hard drive.

Creditwrench

Expertise

Debt Collections law, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), federal law, how to properly answer court summons for collection cases, how to prepare federal cases against debt collectors, how to deal with debt collection phone calls.

Experience

I've been an active consumer advocate for more than 40 years and have helped hundreds of people win cases against debt collectors as well as helping them defeat demands for summary judgment lodged against them by banks, debt collectors and defeat mortgage foreclosures and keep their homes.

Education/Credentials
Paralegal courses for the most part.
I have been teaching people how to deal with judgments, mortgage foreclosures and other such problems both on and off the internet for many, many years. I am a Richard Cornforth information provider ever since 2000 and worked with many other organizations and causes since 1980. I was Oklahoma State Chairman for the nationwide drive to defeat the Constitutional Convention which was proposed by various factions within our federal government such as the Council of State Governments and the National Organization of State Governors who were working hard to organize a Constitutional Convention to be held in 1995 for the purpose of rewriting our American Constitution to be more acceptable to the United Nations. I worked with Senator Charles Duke of Colorado and Senator Don Rogers of California and many others across the nation to keep them from getting the number of delegate states required to lawfully hold a Con-Con and we were successful. I have worked with many other legislative issues in Oklahoma and have always been very successful.

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