I have encountered many people who have tried to defend credit card cases themselves in the past few months and am very surprised at some of the defenses that they think will work. The following are a few of the worst defenses that I have seen, and an explanation as to why they are such bad defenses.

I’ve never had an account with you.

This means absolutely nothing in a court of law. The right to sue someone is a legal interest. A legal interest can be sold, at any time, at any price, to anyone.  While it may be true that you did not have an account with the collection agency, that doesn’t mean that they cannot sue you on a delinquent account. (Whether they can prove that they bought the account is another story and is the basis for much of our success in defending collection agency lawsuits).

I tried to pay, but they wouldn’t work with me.

This may be the worst defense ever.   “I tried to pay…”  this is called an admission. Who pays on something that they do not owe?  No one.  The admission here is that you did have an account with someone and that you are in default on that account.  In a nutshell, it means that you lose your lawsuit. To be clear, once you are in default the creditor or collection agency does not have to accept any payment other than payment in full.  You do not get to set the terms of repayment.  Its not up to you to decide how much you can or are willing to pay. In addition, a court typically does not determine payment arrangements. Instead, a court determines if you owe anything and then how much. Repayment afterwards is up to the parties to handle.

My divorce decree says that I don’t have to pay.

This is mixing apples and doritos. A divorce decree or order is issued by a family court. While it has a binding effect between the spouses (ex spouse’s I should say) it does not bind other parties. The credit card company (or collection agency) is not bound by this divorce decree or order because its case is in civil court, which is different. The credit card company can sue the named cardholder only, not anyone else, and the divorce decree will not prevent that. What may happen is that the credit card company sues the cardholder and wins its case. The cardholder could then go to family court and have the other person found in contempt for not handling the account.

I hired a debt settlement company.

Perhaps the second worst defense, and, the absolute worst move that you could make, period. (This author firmly believes that debt settlement companies are useless and clearly not worth the outrageous fees that you pay them). As stated above, a credit card company or collection agency does not have to accept any payment other than payment in full, once you are in default. Debt settlement companies cannot stop lawsuits from occurring and are not equipped to help you respond to a credit card lawsuit. DO NOT TAKE LEGAL ADVICE FROM A DEBT SETTLEMENT COMPANY.  Again, don’t hire them to begin with and you won’t have to worry about heeding their legal advice.