Hi everyone! I'm a newbie, and have done alot of reading, both here and other places on the net. In a nutshell, here's my situation: I have three major debts that I have no way of paying: 1) $2200 to a hospital physician's group, 2) $3500 to a hospital (both of these date back to 2001, have yet to go to collections, and do not appear on my credit report at all. I have not paid anything on them), and 3) $6600 that was originally a Providian Visa debt that was just sold to a collection agency. I have no assets. I spoke with an attorney on the phone who basically said I shouldn't worry about these debts. He "dictated" a letter to me that he said I should send to the collection agency that has the $6600 debt. The gist of the letter is "Don't contact me again", "Validate this debt", and "If you mess with me I'll use the law against you." He said that it's likely I won't hear from them again. As far as the medical bills go, he said to use the same letter if and when they go to collections. If I am sued, I'll have to file BK (and I don't want to do that since I did it once 6.5 yrs ago). Any input/opinions would really be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
I only partly agree with the lawyer. If the collection agency has contacted you, write them a letter asking for validation that this is your bill and that the amount is correct. If you search around you'll find some samples. Don't tell them not to contact you again. If you do that, the only option they have is to sue you. Instead, do what we call a "limited cease and desist." Tell them that you will not talk to them on the phone, you want all contact to be in writing. Don't make threats about using the law. At this point you don't necessarily want them to know that you know what the law is. You want them to commit violations. Do a lot of reading here and this will start to make more sense.
To answer your question, I think the likelihood of a lawsuit for the credit card bill is slim. The amount is too low. As for the medical bills, I don't know. One thing you should do is find out what the statute of limitations (SOL) is for your state. When the statute of limitations is up, they can sue, but all you have to do is go to court and state that the statute of limitations is up, and they won't be able to collect anything.
Hedwig: $6600 is not too small for them to try to sue. There are many who have gotten served for $1000 claims; and I've personally gotten served for an inflated $3000 claim. They didn't show up, but they still sued, in hopes of a default judgement. Here is the exact same logic that they will use to see if they will sue you, and you should use this same logic in reverse to see how they may proceed. But this just gives you a rough estimate. The amount (the higher, the higher the chance) The age of the account (the newer, the higher the chance) How far the CA is from you (the closer, the higher the chance) Now, the higher the amount, the more likely they will be to file *AND* to appear (not just hope for a default judgement if you don't appear to defend yourself.)
