Why am I receiving this letter about a lawsuit?

Hello, this is Jeff Kelly and in this podcast, I’m going to talk about why you are receiving this letter about someone who’s trying to sue you. Well, one of our big sources for potential clients is a list of people who are getting sued. So one of the most common questions we get is, “Hey, this is my personal information; my name, my address, and the name of this creditor that you say is suing me. How did you get this information?” It’s all public record down at the courthouse. So what we do is we try to help people with Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 and we try to come up with plans to help people deal with all of their debts; the entire situation. Try to help get some relief from the stress of dealing with debt. Now another common question we get is, “Hey, I don’t recognize this name of this creditor that you say as suing me. So how do I know it’s true? Or I want some more details here. When am I going to get more detail?”

And usually within about a week of receiving our letter, the sheriff is going to come out to your house and the sheriff is going to serve you what’s called a complaint. Usually these complaints are anywhere between 20 and 30 pages and all the details are going to be in that complaint. Who purchased the debt — A lot of people don’t realize this, but debts get bought and sold a lot by various creditor collection companies. For example, usually if somebody falls behind on credit card debt, typically about six months after they fall behind, the credit card company is going to sell that debt to a debt collector. The debt collector will usually buy it for 5 cents on the dollar. The way the debt collector makes money is they sue you and garnish you and they collect a hundred cents on the dollar. So it’s a very, very profitable industry.

So if you don’t recognize the name of the collection company, that’s probably why. Now, one way you might be able to connect the dots, if you don’t feel comfortable waiting a week for the sheriff to come serve you the complaint is, you can go to annualcreditreport.com and once a year you are entitled to download a free copy of your credit report. Well oftentimes, the name of the debt collection company will be on the credit report and oftentimes, it will show the original creditor as well. So that might help you make some sense of it.

Now, another objection that we often get is people will say, “Hey, this debt that you say I owe, it’s being taken care of by the debt settlement company. I’ve paying them this super high monthly payment for the past year. What’s going on here?” Well, I know this is very upsetting for a lot of people to learn, but there’s a lot of debt settlement companies out there that are complete crooks. They take your money and they don’t pay the creditor what they say they’re going to pay the creditor, and debt settlement companies cannot protect you from lawsuits. The creditors are not bound by this. So the collection companies just end up filing a lawsuit against you at some point and they’re going to try hard to collect. And it’s super important that you don’t ignore the problem because if you just ignore the problem, they’re going to get a default judgment against you. And with that default judgment, they’re either going to garnish 25% of your check until the debt’s paid. Or a lot of people don’t realize this as well, they can come after any checking account that has your name on it; any checking account with your name on it. They can clean out the account balance up to the amount of the debt to get their money. And they are vicious, rough and tough.

Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 stops all that. Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 gets you what’s called the automatic stay and what the automatic stay is, that’s the protection of the bankruptcy court. No one can sue you, no one can call you, no one can harass you. It’s a wonderful tool and that protection you will receive as soon as your case is filed. And anyone who violates the automatic stay gets in big trouble with the bankruptcy court. So take advantage of a free consultation. Give us a call – (770) 881-8449. So here’s how the process works. You give our office a call and during this consult we’re going to go over your income, your budget, your expenses, your assets, all of your debt. At the end of the appointment we’re going to answer all of your questions.

I want to emphasize this. If bankruptcy is not the best option for you, we’re going to tell you and we’re going to tell you why. Honesty is a core value of my law firm. Check out our reviews on Google and you can verify it for yourself. Step two, we will prepare a court filing for you. After this is prepared, we’re going to schedule a two-hour Zoom meeting with you, where from the safety and comfort of your home, you can go through the petition with us page by page. We can make sure that everything is 100% perfect and get you the best fresh start possible. Step three, we file your case and you usually will receive a notice of your hearing within two weeks. And another great thing is right now your court hearing is also over the phone. So believe it or not, you can actually file Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 from the comfort of your home and take care of the court hearing as well. So again, let us help you. It’s a no-brainer. Take advantage of a free consultation with us. Talk to an experienced bankruptcy attorney. Give us a call today – (770) 881-8449. Thank you.