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Expert: Creditwrench - 7/11/2009


Question
Hello, I recently received a settlement agreement to pay off gateway. I got the letter and we agreed upon 452 for 4 months and the account would be settled. The letter i received from them stated this. I paid the account off and it has been over 40 days ago. They said i would receive my paid off as agreed letter in the mail 30 days after. I paid as agreed and I keep calling this company to request my letter and they keep saying they mailed it. I have not received the letter and everytime i call i keep getting the run around. I wish i could threaten them with a attorney call however i don't have the money to pay an attorney to contact them. Is there something i can do to get my letter as promised. I paid off as agreed, the amount and the exact dates at agreed, now they keep placing me in voice mail.
thanks
patty

Answer

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Funny! I had a student that came to my office asking the same exact question this morning. He has 2 judgments against him for a total of just over $25,000 and the lawyers offered to settle for just over $16,000. They sent him a letter making the offer and in that letter they said he couldn't use the words "Paid in Full" on the obverse side of any check or money order used to send the funds. They said they would mark the account as "settled in full" but they didn't say anything about giving him any kind of receipt for his money. Now why would they care what he put on the back of the check he sends them? I'd say their reason is that they may want to sell the remainder of the debt to some collection agency and if he has a check marked paid in full they couldn't do that. The big advantage he has is that he hasn't paid them. I've advised him not to pay if such a condition is placed on him. There really isn't any reason he should pay under those conditions. He is self employed so they can't garnish his wages, he don't bank anywhere so they can't get any money that way, the IRS has a notice of lien on his property for $150,000 and Toxic Assets Recovery has another lien on that same property for over $80,000 so they can't get any money that way,he only has one vehicle in his name and they can't take that so all they could possibly do is to send the sheriff to his home to see what they can seize and sell at auction and he has everything in his home under a rental contract so they can't get anything that way. You aren't in that position. You already paid them so you don't have any grounds to complain that you can enforce. You are just out of luck if they won't give you a receipt. Now you know at least one of the reasons why I advise people never to pay a crying dime to a debt collector. There are many more reasons never to pay a debt collector as well. I sincerely hope they don't ever play any nasty tricks on you in the future. If they do just let me know and I'll teach you how to deal with the nasty skunks.  

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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