Debt Collectors *sigh*

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Time to call up Pheonix Wright Ace Attorney Hehe

Did you get that thing I sent you?

DON'T SIGN ANYTHING!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!11!!!1!11!111111!! !! !!!1111one!1!one

This is what you're going to do: You're going to talk to them. You will be very nice. Keep a very level tone of voice. That p!$$3$ them off to no end. You will tell them that you cannot pay that much money but will be happy to settle with them for $4k payed out over a few years. You will get this in writing, and this is all you are prepared to do. You will be FIRM with them, but don't be an @$$hole. If they proceed to give you a hard time, you hang up. If they use filthy language, threaten you, or verbally assault/abuse you IN ANY WAY, then and ONLY THEN will you call a lawyer. In fact, you actually hope they will abuse you because if/when that happens, you can get a judgment against them and they'll end up paying YOU money--though you'll be happy just getting the debt cancelled.

Let me explain why you're going to do it this way: When bills go to collections, those people are buying your debt for pennies on the dollar. Your original creditor has given up on you, declared you a bad guy, and decided they are done dealing with you. These debt collectors are pond scum. No, they are bottom-feeders. They make a profit off pretty much whatever you give them. $4k is a lot more than they actually expect to get from you, so bring that to the table. Tell them you can pay them $100/month, absolutely NO MORE. Just see what they say. You might work out something slightly more than that, but it's certainly not going to be $40k. That's just insane. You might have to go several rounds with them before they give in. But you will FIGHT this until they give you what you want ON PAPER.

Let me tell you something else that will help your feelings: They are not going to take you to court. They're stupid if they do. There's no way you can pay this. If they sue you, EXACTLY WHAT GOOD is that going to do? They get NOTHING either way, so their best bet is to DEAL with you and get something back.

PLEASE keep us updated on how you're doing. Hang in there. You're going to be fine.

Worst case scenario: because of the type of debt this is, i.e. unsecured, you can Chapter 7 the hell out of this thing. Our thoughts and prayers are with you. Above all, STAY CALM. You're going to be okay.

HOLD IT!! !! Clearly in these documents AspieOtaku has been diagnosed with a mild form of Highly functioning Autism known as Aspergers Syndrome and has a lot of anxiety issues and on top of that from his pay stubs his gross income is only around 14000 a year which brings him well below the poverty line! So to expect him to pay a medical bill of 41000 dollars is out of the question and not going to happen!

I hope you're not serious there. Playing the aspie card won't fly. I've outlined what you need to do to survive this.

If you don't, what will happen is they will take you to court and levy any real or personal property you have as well as your bank account and attach you wages. You need to try to bargain with them before that happens.

Your only alternative is Chapter 7. That will make them go away instantly. But I don't like for people to do thatr because all you're doing is running away from you're problems.

Do NOT sign some form saying you're going to get on a payment plan to pay it back in full, though. Negotiate. You'll give them $4k paid out over a few years. eBay every non-essential that you have and get rid of this thing quickly.

So it's been a year? Insurance is the law, and you have your president to thank for that. Why aren't you on Medicaid? If you can't afford insurance there are subsidies and other programs to keep you in compliance with the law. Pretty soon you're going to have tax troubles on top of debt troubles. You can escape creditors. You can't hide from the IRS.

I know that I was just being silly to try and lighten things up I had a friendly talk with the collector and she is sending an application to something I can qualify for to reduce the debt as well as get cheap coverage based on my low income! As for the penalty of having no health insurance its only 95 bucks which they can take off my tax return next year will be much higher though so ill have to make sure I am covered. As for bank account I closed it and just cash my checks lol! I dont own property I share rent not much they can get from me.

By the way... I wouldn't take legal advice from anyone on this forum. Even if they are qualified! Please contact professionals regarding the situation. You could end up losing your money and belongings to the debting company, save and spend what you do have on professional assistance. At least then it won't go to the evil debt collectors

Both my wife and I were paralegals, and the bulk of our work was with bankruptcy cases. For most consumers, your two federal bankruptcy options are Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. Chapter 7 is the quickest and easiest. It's basically a liquidation scheme. If you have collateral that you're making payments on, you surrender it. The creditor is responsible for getting the money back on it, e.g. selling it at auction, etc., and if they come up short they cannot legally come after you for the difference. Your unsecured debt is *poof* gone.

Chapter 13 was what I saw the most, though, and I hated seeing people work through those. I hated doing them because of all the paperwork involved. Lawyers love them, though, because it basically turns clients into their slaves. Most of the people I saw filing Chapter 13 honestly seemed incapable of running their own lives, and while I kinda felt sorry for them, I didn't exactly have a high opinion of them, either. What Chapter 13 does is it vaporizes your unsecured debt and puts you on a payment plan to bring your secured debts current. You work out a plan to make smaller, more manageable payments in order to keep your vehicle and your house. Where you might run into problems is if you have luxury items, like a Harley Davidson in addition to your Cadillac hoopty wagon, or if you bought a Jumbotron complete with 256-channel surround sound for your living room. The bankruptcy court is probably going to demand you give that stuff back. People who survive under Chapter 13 are the kinds of people who are making payments on a $35k trailer, the 15-year-old circus clown car with a lawn mower engine they use to get to work, and still watch TV on an analog set, with the antenna hooked up to a convertor box. They have to borrow a friends phone to check Facebook every now and then. As long as they stay employed, they're going to be ok. They are legally prevented from giving up their home, way to get to work, equipment/tools they need for work, and that kind of thing.

AO's issue here is mainly his income, not debt. He got in trouble ONE TIME and has to shoulder a $41k burden. I don't know the circumstances of the accident, but I'm curious as to why, even if he didn't have insurance, there wasn't another side to hold liable for medical costs. If AO doesn't want to answer that, I'm cool with that, and there might be things we just don't want to know. I can honestly say that we've BEEN THERE and it's just pure grace of God that we survived it relatively unscathed. AO and I have a difference of opinion on that bit, but it doesn't matter…this is a mess, and he needs to know his options.

Gotcha. I appreciate humor…just have a difficult time getting the difference. lol And this is a pretty emotional subject for me, as I'm sure you can tell. Look, I'm going to break some things down here...


Of COURSE you did!


No, no, absolutely NOT. If you sign this thing, you acknowledge that you owe the debt. It is a LEGAL DOCUMENT that WILL hold up in COURT. Even if it says "reduce" they can alter that at any time. This is not in your best interest.

What you want to do is what I told you to do. Go ahead and read this thing C*A*R*E*F*U*L*L*Y. Sleep on it, read it again the next day, and sleep on it again. You will offer them 1/10 of your total debt. Now, let's be honest, they're not going to be friendly with that. You're going to end up having to pay more than 1/10, but what I'm hoping for here is to get that down so at most you won't have to pay more than 1/5 or 1/4 of the debt. For you, that's still going to be a lot of money, but it should be something you can manage within a reasonable length of time. And that's what we're going for. Anything more than that should be unacceptable, and you need to stand your ground until they give you what you want IN WRITING.

They're being friendly right now because they've been here before, too, and they know that anything they say even remotely offensive is going to get them in trouble. They're not stupid. Which is good. But the squeeze is coming. Time to suit up and boot up. Negotiate this thing down as far as you possibly can.


OK…um…GOOD. Lemme drop some actual GOOD news on you: They're not going to sue you. MAYBE they'll try, I dunno, I mean, that's a pretty large debt. But it's a dumb idea on their part.

Here's why: You have NOTHING. No real property to seize, no personal property to turn into cash, no bank accounts to levy, etc. Let's assume they actually do sue you and get a judgment. Um…exactly WHAT good is that judgment going to do them? Seriously, think about it. It's a piece of paper. They can show it to you. Look! See how pretty it is? Tell them they can wipe their a$$es with it, because that's exactly how useful it is. No, I mean, don't ACTUALLY tell them that, literally. Be nice to them.

If they try to take you to court, all you have to do is file an answer making them prove the debt. It's just a piece of paper you sign that says "I deny this debt." All it does is prolong the inevitable, but that will give you more time to negotiate the debt down. What the company will do is actually show proof that you owe the debt, which they likely will do. The time it takes for them to do this will give YOU time to prove to the court you have NOTHING with which you can pay the debt. Depending on the judge, of course, it is likely this will get thrown out of court because now the debt collector looks like a big bully. And, like I said, even if they win the judgment, they have no way to collect on it. So…if you don't get a judgment against you, you win. If you get a judgment against you, you win.

And don't think for one second the debt collector is unaware of this. They know this already. Which is why they're trying to get you to sign $#!+. DON'T DO IT. The nicest thing you can do for them is negotiate the debt WAAAAAY down to next to nothing, pay it out over a plan you both agree with. That way, it comes out on your credit report as "Settled," and you don't have anything to fear if your circumstances change. The only way a judgment against you is going to kick you in the b@lls is if you actually do win the lottery or your income goes up through a job, monetizing your youtube channel, or whatever…there's no time limit on judgements. You could inherit $500k from your long lost uncle in Nigeria when you turn 90 and you'll have to pay every penny back. Which is why negotiating is the best middle road.

You can do this. Stay calm. I'll repeat this as much as I have to: You're going to be ok.

From what I understand you don't have to send them anything, aside from a letter asking them not to contact you...then their only option is to try and take you to court but that costs them money so much of the time they do not pursue that action, if they do then I'd say get a lawyer and fight it....if you have no way to pay it you likely would not have to. Though not sure if they can do anything f***d up like take it out of your paycheck, I am on SSI and apparently that is untouchable by anything like that from what I looked up...I also have debt and just refuse to answer calls or send them anything, if they want to take me to court they can and it will just be a big hassle and the judge would rule I don't have the means to pay it.

But don't let them scare you into sending a dime.

That is what you get a lawyer for if they even take it to court, to help ensure that you win the case and don't have to pay anything unreasonable in cases where the person clearly has no means to pay, though the insurance company would do their best to push their case so having a lawyer is good...and I thought collections agencies where privately owned not IRS related.

Ramble alert: I'm feeling feisty today!

You don't really NEED a lawyer for that, though. What you need a lawyer for is to walk you through court procedure and all the filings. Legalese is easy to pick up. I've got styles for federal bankruptcy court (chapter 13 trustee) and chancery court seared into my brain, and any paralegal worth anything can rattle off this stuff.

In the Federal Bankruptcy Court, district _____ for the [Northern/Southern] district of the State of Mississippi (for example), blah, blah, blah, blah etc.,
.
Case No.: XXXXXXXX

Answer
Comes now the debtor, AspieOtaku, to DENY debt to @$$wipe Medical Billing.

Signed,
AspieOtaku
this, the 20th day of January in the year of our Lord 2015.

That's pretty rough, btw, and would require some heavy tweaking before a court clerk will accept it. But that's the gist of it. And that's approximately a style for federal bankruptcy court. It depends on the jurisdiction and the type of proceedings, but pretty much all legal styles follow a similar format.

If it were filed in, say, chancery as part of a civil action, it would be

In the chancery court of _____ County, state of ________

Case no.: XXXXXXX

Answer

Comes now the defendant, AspieOtaku, to DENY, etc. etc., blah, blah, blah…

Signed,
etc. etc.

You get the idea.

Oh, and if you want to learn how to do it, just go to your local chancery clerk office and say you need to research some public documents. You just go right in, pull some random petitions and motions that have been successfully filed with the court clerk, and make notes of the style and formatting. You'll look like you have a law degree even if you don't. I mean, seriously, how do you think REAL newb lawyers learn how to do it? They don't teach this stuff in law school. lol That's why your more successful independent attorneys started out in the basements of big firms, moved out to towns with populations less than 1.3k, and started their practice out of their living rooms writing wills and probating estates. A teenager can learn this stuff.

I don't mean to make it sound like he DOESN'T need an attorney. He obviously will need a lawyer if he gets sued or gets threatened with a lawsuit. It's one thing to learn facts about the law and basics for properly filing paperwork. It's entirely something else navigating courtroom procedure. I was never allowed in the courtroom. My wife was, though, and she'll tell you she became a more effective paralegal when she could actually SEE her work come to life in a hearing. She could also spot her mistakes and correct things as soon as she got back to the office. It was also cool because the trustees, clerks, and judges had a face to put with the name, and many times the clerks' secretaries were willing to walk her through procedures even her boss didn't know how to do. Seriously, if you're having money trouble, put my wife together with your lawyer and your creditors would regret the day they met you. I really wish she'd reconsidered and gone to law school, but she told me she was just too afraid of courtroom discipline and she'd probably eventually go insane. I think you have to be a little bit crazy to be a successful attorney. Sweet, I think you'll appreciate this…you'd be amazed how many lawyers and judges are chronic pot smokers and Xanax droppers. There's a LOT I'm not going to share, but WOW…


Speaking of my wife…she's out of the paralegal biz. Now she works for a bank. How's that for irony? lol

Yeah…AO needs a lawyer on speed dial just in case. I won't argue with that. But before he lawyers up, he needs to negotiate with these people to get the debt DOWN as low as possible. It's far better to settle and pay it out than have to take it to court. His collector CANNOT win this battle, which is why I doubt they'll go to court. If they want any hope of getting money out of AO, they need to agree to take pennies on the dollar for what he owes, and NO MORE. If they can't be reasoned with, AO has no choice but to file bankruptcy. AO will end up paying a lawyers office $50/month for a year or something in filing and lawyer's fees. But he won't pay the bill collectors one red cent. His collectors KNOW this already. So they want to commit him to something that's not in his best interest NOW, take whatever money they can get from him in the short term, and then screw him for the long term when the money runs out. They don't care about HIM. If he can convince them to take a drastic cut, AT LEAST they make a little money off him. Let's say AO manages to talk them down to $8k (hopefully worst case). Better $8k and they own him for a few years than 5 times that and they own him for life. For the collector, it's better to get $8k than NOTHING if he bankrupts it. I repeat, they KNOW this already. You might have to get tough with them, but they WILL eventually give in. You just can't back down.

Even if AO signs the papers they send him, that doesn't mean he can actually repay it. If he breaks the agreement and they sue, it won't REALLY have that much more strength than if he'd refused to sign to begin with. What I'm trying to do is keep AO out of what is already a bad situation. Signing papers NOW before negotiating is only prolonging the inevitable. When he finds out he can't make the payments, he can't go back and deny the debt is his…he already acknowledged it. Legally, it's a slam dunk for the plaintiff. AO needs to save himself the emotional and mental distress that this is going to cause. Which is why it is SO IMPORTANT to negotiate before calling up a lawyer. Bankruptcy is a last resort.

My wife and I have been there before. We didn't file bankruptcy. We actually managed to pay all our debts in full, no settling. We're still over $50k in the hole for student loans. We're not paying any of that back. Why? We worked it out. Oh, and btw, you can't bankrupt student loans. The feds will take you down if you pull a stunt like that. They'll follow you around even if you're homeless and take the cup of coffee on a cold day that some kind stranger just gave you. You'll wake up one day and the college degree you earned? Revoked. Don't mess with these guys, you WON'T win!! !

Oh, and no, bill collectors don't have anything to do with the IRS. I was referring to the IRS as a different kind of situation. There are certain situations that bankruptcy won't help you. I mentioned student loans. Those guys are brutal. IRS is even worse. Mess up bad enough with these people and you can't even leave the country. AO really needs to get this insurance thing resolved before the IRS gets involved.

And, oh, speaking of the IRS and Obummercare: There are a number of tricks that will get you out of the penalty. The most obvious one is how the IRS intends to enforce the penalties. The only way they can enforce it right now is just take it out of your tax refund. EASY solution if you have the financial discipline for it (I don't). All you have to do is make ONLY the correct claims on your tax documents with your employers. What WE do is have employers withhold the max amount, no tax credits, NOTHING, and then we check the CORRECT boxes on the tax forms. You basically turn the IRS into an non-interest savings account, so you get these obnoxious tax refunds every spring. If you want to avoid the Obummercare penalties, all you have to do is give your employers the correct numbers at the beginning of the year. That way, you get your "refund" every pay period instead of once a year. Since the IRS doesn't "owe" you any money at refund time, they can't attach penalties. There's no refund to attach. No refund, no penalty. Where you might run into trouble is when the IRS actually decides to put some teeth behind its enforcement of the law and you might be heading to prison. But for the time being, the penalties are unenforceable.

It's a political scheme. They know that once the penalties kick in and people start losing their refunds, attitudes are going to shift out of their favor…and p!$$3d off poor people are going to take their votes with them. The penalties are there for those who HAVE money, not for those who don't. Folks claiming the 13 kids in their homes as dependents aren't going to lose their $20k or whatever tax credits to healthcare because they are magically "exempt." People like myself who depend on tax refunds to keep our 2 oldest kids in safe schools would find ourselves screwed.

So, two things: 1) Comply with the law whether you like it or not. It will make life less complicated and more livable. 2) It's just a good idea to have health insurance anyway. My wife just had a massive polypoidectomy last week. She can breath for the first time in YEARS. Cost to us? JUST over $1k, and we had an emergency fund to cover out-of-pocket (actual cost: over $5k). Add another $100 (out-of-pocket) for antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, painkillers, stuff to wash out her sinuses, etc. We have very little margin in our budget, and we are STILL debt-free outside student loans. We couldn't have said that 5 years ago.

Insurance is expensive, I don't care what they do…but you can't really live without it, either. It is unfortunate that AO has had to learn this lesson in this way. I hope it won't be repeated. But this isn't the place to judge anyone. AO needs support more than anything else, and I truly hope he can get the help, whether through us or through someone closer to home, he needs to make it through this ordeal. I repeat: He's going to be fine.

The messed up thing is when I worked at my other job I had insurence but once the place transferred from corporate to franchise my benefits were gone and I got into the bike accident shortly after! I got screwed over big time! Life sucks ill live with it no need to panic it is what it is. I cannot afford it and suing me wont get them anything its like having collectors collect a debt with a homeless person!