Credit Cards Point

Whether or not you trust the news media about a declining US economy, one thing is for certain, debt collectors are often suits to gather debts. One huge collection firm based out of Atlanta has determined that they file an average of 279 collection lawsuits daily. A lawsuit is often the final strain in the creditor’s attempt to take back a debt. If the harassing and often illegal collection calls were not enough, once an individual is sued the reality of the case is realized. But, for the defendant, not all hope is lost. By the time the credit card company or other creditor files the credit card lawsuit, it can really be too late to legally collect the debt, if it is appropriately secured.

Often times with the help of a lawyer a lawsuit to take back a debt can be secured, negotiated, or won out right for the defendant. Before you start feeling bad for the credit card organization, keep in mind, they are the same organizarion that suggested an interest range of 6.9% and when you were one day late on a payment raised the interest scale to 24.9%.

Back to the defense of the suit:

First, “you must answer lawsuit”. When a law suit is commenced, the name of the game for the debt collector is default judgment. A default judgment is the result of a lawsuit if the defendant fails to timely file a response. Default judgments are important for the collectors because it means they do not need to convince you owe the money, how much you should pay, and most essentially, and this is a secret, the agent for the credit card company or other creditor does not need to come to court.

When a default judgment is entered, all of the potential defenses to the suit are lost, and no one needs to come to court to attest the debt. Thus “always file an answer”. But, you need to be cautious. In several jurisdictions almost all of the defendant’s affirmative defenses should be filed at the time the first response is filed with the court or the defenses are wasted forever.

What type of credit card lawsuit defense are common in debt collection situations you ask? The most common are the statute of limitations, statute of frauds, improper plaintiff, improper defendant, invalid debt transfer, violation of bankruptcy discharge, and violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The last one is not indeed a defense, but it function like one. Of course, most non-lawyers would have some difficulty determining which if any of the defenses are available in a particular case.