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Expert: Creditwrench - 12/10/2008


Question
Any help please!
I currently am paying a bill off through a debt collection agency whom I have agreed verbally to pay $250 dollars a week off until the debt is cleared. I chose this option over paying half one week, and the other half the next. I asked the rep if $250 dollars a week could be reduced, she said no, so I was forced to agree.
I cannot physically afford to pay off 250 dollars a week as it is half of my weekly wage. One week has passed and I have managed to pay 200 instead of 250. I emailed and phoned the agency to ask if it could be reduced, and they told me I had entered into a verbal agreement and that if I didn’t meet the payments further action could be taken on the account.

I am going to struggle to buy food etc and pay other bills if for the next 3 weeks I keep paying this 250 dollars. Half of my salary. What obligations do I have and am I able to Pay as much as I possibly can. I have expressed to the agency that I am more than willing to continue to pay as much as a possible can back each week. But I simply cant afford to live and get to work etc, and I will just fall further behind with other bills etc.
What can I do?  

Answer

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You should never have allowed yourself to get suckered into such a crazy deal in the first place. Now the only thing you can do is either suffer the consequences or refuse to pay and deal with what comes later which will be a lawsuit. That's still better than what you have now because they can only get 25% of your wages through garnishment plus you have the great chance that you can win against them in a lawsuit if you go at it right. What was the debt for? A credit card?

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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