Wow I'm lost, fallen and need assistance getting up

So you want to pay down your debt and get your credit cleaned up? Well, let me assure you that the two conditions are oxymorons meaning they are two mutually exclusive terms. Pay down your debt and mess up your credit scores worse than they already are is what normally happens. On the other hand, as time goes on and those accounts age the score starts going back up albeit slowly.

I'd recommend that you simply wait until you start getting letters from debt collectors and then send out validation letters and get your informal bankruptcy process going. Keep careful records and don't even throw away the envelopes the letters come in. Learn how to handle their phone calls using my 18questions method. That puts a stop to their phone calls in a big hurry. Start learning how to defeat the debt collectors in court using their violations of FDCPA and FCRA to make them forget about ever collecting anything from you. Learn to dispute the listings in your credit reports if you don't already know how to do so. It isn't difficult, just a bit time consuming is all.

While paying your just debts may feel good from a moral standpoint it should be viewed from a business standpoint instead. All you really have to do is to ask yourself how good it is going to be to pay down your debts and get your credit reports slammed in the process because that is exactly what is likely to happen.

 

DV is Debt Validation. When billbauer and JoshuaHeckathorn has great advice, they said the following,
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Also, DV accounts in collections to try and determine who it is you actually need to pay to take care of these debts.

I'd recommend that you simply wait until you start getting letters from debt collectors and then send out validation letters
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From my experience I actually paid a collection a long time ago and I felt great being able to pay it off. I was feeling like, FINALLY i got them off my back - it's done - I never have to hear from them again! But, now, I have a paid collection on my credit report that looks really freakin bad. Don't get me wrong it can be removed, but it's a pain in the you know what.

This is what I should have done in this case. Demand that the collection agency prove to me that I need to pay them. If they cant, then there are other steps to take but, in short, If they cant provide the documentation that is required then they have no leg to stand on. It gets removed. Never pay a collection or talk to them until you have everything in order to actually deal with them. Silence is golden.

You really don't want to have to deal with a Paid Collection status on your report.

Remember, everything is correctable.

If the OC's charged it off, more than likely it will be sold to a collection agency to collect the debt. Dealing with Debt collectors is actually pretty fun. They cant do nuthin to you. They just talk alot of crap.

I know it sounds immoral to not to do the right things regarding your finacial obligations but hey, life happens! Get that crap removed instead of crappin out your credit report.

Remember it's only temporary!

 

Considering that this debt is in statute, yes, they can do something to you. They can sue you, and if you don't respond properly they can get a judgment against you. Now that can stay a LONG time.

But they would probably give you some warning that they're going to sue. But I just want the OP to be aware that a collector CAN in fact do something to you.

 

Adam blamed Eve for getting them kicked out of the Garden of Eden and Eve blamed the snake and the snake didn't have a leg to stand on.

LOL

 

While it may be easier, we don't know if you can make payments to the OC or not. If they have sold the debt, they no longer have any right to collect. You can contact them, but they may tell you that you have to deal with the collection agency.

The problem is that they may not know who you have to pay if they've sold the debt. For example, the OC sells it to XYZ collections. So they may tell you that you have to pay XYZ collections. In the meantime, XYZ may have sold it to ABC. So now you owe ABC, but the OC doesn't know that.

That's why you need to get your credit report from each of the three bureaus, see who is reporting, and send them a validation letter. See who responds.

Or, as Joshua suggested, you might want to dispute the accounts with the credit bureaus first. Once you've gotten your credit reports, look for fields that are inaccurate and dispute those.

You need to get the individual reports from each bureau, not the 3-in-1 report offered by many web sites. The official site to get your free annual report from each bureau is annualcreditreport.com.

 

You really should have disputed specific fields, such as "incorrect balannce" or "status is incorrect."

Wait and see if they're validated before deciding what to do next. You may hear something more from the creditor. Come back when you get status and we can decide what to do next.

 

While few here seem to want to agree with me, I say file informal bankruptcy on each and every one of them.

One of my students here in OKC did that with a hospital bill that had been turned over to a debt collector who sued in local court and lost on a technicality turned up by my student. My student then filed a federal case on the debt collector and has now reached a settlement with the debt collector whereby the debt collector pays $2500 to keep it from actually going to trial where they wouldn't stand a crying chance of winning. That makes 173 straight wins in federal courts by my students.

If you take all those debts and get more or less the same amount of money out of the settlements you would end up with about 14 times that much money in your pocket instead of all that money and more out of your pocket.

You are telling us that you owe $15,425 at this time. 14 times $2500=$35,000. Which is better. Pay out a bare minimum of $15,425 or more or get $35,000 cash in your pocket? You tell me.

If you decide you would rather have the cash in your pocket you will join the group of 925 other people who made that same decision last month alone. Current predictions are that if that continues at the current rate more than 12,000 people will have taken debt collectors to federal court by the end of 2010.

I'll be taking one to federal court later this year, not once but more than likely at least 3 times before it is all said and done with. At this point in time I have at least 4 separate causes of action with at least 25 violations on each count.

Count 1.
Failure to properly validate the debt as demanded.
Count 2
illegal continued collection activity. At least 50 separate violations so far and still counting.
Count 3.
Providing false and misleading information to a consumer. Haven't counted up the violations yet but they are indeed numerous.
Count 4
Failure to include the Miranda warnings on documents mailed to me.
Haven't counted up the violations yet but at least 4 or 5, maybe more.

Multiply that times the 6 attorneys in the law firm who each made individual appearances in the case and are therefore equally liable for the violations of any one of them.

Then there are also several state level violations as well. They want a little more than $10,000 from me so with all those violations against them who is going to owe who?

Of course, that won't settle the debt so the original creditor will be able to try once again. That's fine with me. I'll be waiting for the next fool attorney who wants to show me how good s/he is at violating the law.

So in the final analysis it all boils down to what you would rather do. Try to pay at least $15K or get at least $35K in your pocket. You tell me.

 

I've seen quite a few people in the same or similar situations. Mostly FBI agents in the San Francisco office. They get into credit problems and possible loss of job because of credit problems. I've also seen a couple of Generals in the military getting the ax because of credit problems like that and also some Colonels as well as lower ranking military personnel. I've also seen some CIA people get into those kinds of problems over the years. I'd say you aren't going to get it done in less than a year or more.

 

I'd try to do credit repair in whatever way the credit repair experts around here recommend and then when the debts get turned over to a debt collector you can start working on your informal bankruptcy process. You can't do much more than that until they get turned over to a debt collector. If you can get rid of some of them by paying the original creditor then so much the better. Remember that you don't normally have to have them off your credit to get the clearance. Usually you have to be in a position of not having unpaid debts on your record. So paying some of the smaller ones to the original creditors might be a good way to go for you.

 

Just do a google search for informal bankruptcy. You will, of course, find some web sites giving out nonsense information. Those are usually by bankruptcy lawyers looking for work and of course they will decry the process because informal bankruptcy beats them out of income. Naturally they can't stand any of that going on so they will say anything to try to discredit the process.