Will A $100 Collection Hurt Your Credit Score?
A $100 collection may seem insignificant, but even a small collection account can negatively affect your credit score and impact your financial health. Understanding how collections work—and how they influence your creditworthiness—is essential for avoiding unnecessary damage and taking control of your credit profile. What Is a $100 Collection? A $100 collection occurs when an […]
How to Deal With Debt Collectors That Threaten You
Q: I was talking to a collection agent about making payment on a bill and she kept saying “how much can you pay, I cannot guarantee it will stop further action.” I felt I had to say an amount but I cannot afford it. She wants me to call her back and tell her how […]
Debt Collector Harasses Consumers, Slapped With Record Fines
Have you ever had a crazy debt collector who just wouldn’t leave you alone? I’m talking about the kind of bill collector that calls you at all hours of the morning and night, who calls over and over and over again, or who calls you on your job – even after you say you can’t […]
Money Grab: Beware of Banks’ Right to Set Off
Q: What can I do about a credit union that took money out of my account (my SSDI) to pay off a past due bill I owed them? A: If a credit union took your money to collect past due payments it’s likely because they have the right to set off or the automatic right to combine accounts. […]
How to Stop Bill Collectors From Harassing You By Using a Cease and Desist Letter
It’s no picnic when your bills are overdue and debt collectors are calling you at all hours, harassing you non-stop at home or work. But just because you may (or may not) owe some company money, that doesn’t give an overly aggressive bill collector a free pass to violate your legal rights, intimidate and harass […]
Learn How to Deal with Creditors and Get Out of Debt Forever
Dealing with debt collectors is stressful. They call at all hours of the day and night. They hound you for money – whether you’re working or unemployed. And they generally make life unpleasant when you owe them, or one of their clients, cash. But just because you owe a company money doesn’t mean they have […]
Do I Have To Pay an Old Debt That Is Past The Statute of Limitations?
Q: If there is a debt that that does not appear on my credit report and it is past the time that they can report it do I have to pay it? What can I do to stop having this company call my home. A: Two different set of laws apply to how long a […]
3 Easy Steps To Check Out a Debt Collector
When a debt collector contacts you, one of the first things you need to do is verify that their claim is legitimate and if it is, confirm that the debt collector is actually licensed to collect on that debt in your state. You must remember that debt collectors are trained to persuade and encourage consumers […]
How To Handle Credit Card Accounts In Collections
Q: “I have two credit cards that went into collections. I went through some financial difficulties and fell off on paying them due to having to pay other bills first, like my home and car, et cetera. Now one of them, BofA, was referred to a lawyer. He is harassing me by calling every 10 […]
Beware of Calls and Threats From Fake Collection Agencies
Beware of calls from shady, unlicensed collection agencies and their verbal threats to garnish your wages. I recently heard about people receiving repeated calls from the PDLR Group. Apparently representatives from PDLR were threatening to garnish people’s wages and consumers wanted to know if this was legitimate. One individual questioned the legitimacy of the PDLR […]
Record Number of Lawsuits Against Debt Collectors
Fed-up consumers are fighting back against overly aggressive debt collectors, slapping collection agencies and creditors with a record 7,923 lawsuits from January 1 through August 15, 2011, according to a report in Collections & Credit Risk. By comparison, in the same period from a year ago, consumers filed only 7,169 such lawsuits. That means lawsuits […]
What to Do If a Creditor Will Not Renegotiate the Terms of Your Agreement
One of the options you have when you can’t pay an outstanding debt is to renegotiate the terms of your agreement directly with your creditor. You might choose to do this before the account goes to collections so that the incident doesn’t go on your credit report and negatively affects your credit rating. Some creditors […]
What to Get from a Bill Collector Before You Make a Single Payment
If a bill collector has started to contact you about an outstanding debt and is using some intimidation tactics to get you to pay up fast, you need to be very careful about what you say to them and when you actually make a payment. In some cases, you could be relieved from the debt […]
Using a Statute of Limitations Law to Eliminate Your Debt
When debt collectors are contacting you regularly and you’re wondering if you should just pay off the debt to get rid of them, stop! Many consumers don’t realize that the debts some bill collectors are chasing after aren’t the consumer’s responsibility anymore. How is this possible? Because of the Statute of Limoutstanding debtitations that exist […]
Know and Assert Your Rights Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
Have you ever been harassed by a bill collector because of a past due bill? If the answer is ‘yes’, the bill collector is in violation of a Federal law. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the country’s consumer protection agency and enforces the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to prevent “abusive, unfair or deceptive […]