I am amazed at the number of phone calls and emails that I have been receiving regarding this topic.  Many people, perhaps in an effort to save money, have decided that they can file their own response to a credit card or collection agency lawsuit. In almost every case, this is a mistake.

In Pennsylvania, you have 20 days to respond to a lawsuit after it has been served upon you. Your initial response is of the utmost importance, because it determines which defenses you intend to set forth.

There are two choices, either an Answer, which is generally a denial of the factual allegations, or, Objections,which in plain terms allege that the credit card lawsuit is legally defective.  In most instances, Objections are the proper response to a Pennsylvania Credit Card Lawsuit. 

For the most part, Objections are waived if you do not raise them at the proper time.  (Waive means that you lose them). When a person files their own response, it is almost always an Answer, meaning that they have waived various defenses that would be afforded to them if they had filed Objections. This mistake may or may not be fatal to your case, but is that really a chance worth taking? For the most part, legal fees on credit card cases are not as high as you might think.  Generally, depending upon your location, the amount of the lawsuit, who the plaintiff is and who is representing them, your legal fees should only amount to a few hundred dollars.  When you are faced with a $10,000 credit card lawsuit, the fee is always worth the price…

You had better pay this debt you deadbeat! We’re gonna garnish your wages… We’ll press fraud charges against you for failing to pay this debt!

These are some of the more common threats that we see in the credit card cases lawsuits that we defend.  ALL of these threats are illegal. There is a federal law known as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA for short) that makes these sorts of threats illegal. The FDCPA sets forth that these threats, and others just like them, are against the law AND it also gives you the right to sue the debt collector! Each threat or violation is a possible $1000 fine that you can recover from the collection agency AND you also can obtain your reasonable attorney fees in prosecuting the claim.

In that regard, our firm does not charge an up-front retainer when we take on FDCPA violation cases. We simply handle the case, we have the collection agency pay your claim, and we have them pay our fees as well. 

If a collection agency or debt collector makes any sort of threat to you that sounds illegal, or just plain wrong, then it probably is.  Contact our office for a free, no obligation review of your potential case.

Today was a very good day for our firm.  We were representing an elderly fellow in court in Pittsburgh today.  FIA card services had filed a lawsuit against him on an alleged credit card account with an alleged $18,000 balance.  At the Arbitration hearing, FIA did not have any documentation, evidence, or witnesses, and thus, was unable to  prove its case against my client.  FIA quickly filed an appeal and a bench trial was scheduled before the judge. 

I made several calls to the opposing attorney in an attempt to obtain the documents that they had.  My phone calls were left unreturned.  At trial this morning, FIA had some apparent documentation, which it had never shared with me, but little else.  They failed to provide a witness to authenticate the documents, and because they were not provided to me beforehand, the documents were inadmissable.  Before the hearing even began, I presented a Motion to Dismiss, which was promptly entered by the judge.  The scoreboard today, my client 1, FIA Card Services 0.

As the second largest city in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh receives hundreds of Credit Card and Collection Agency lawsuits each week.  Because of the high volume of cases, there have been several court rulings regarding these cases, to keep an even flow and to prevent them from clogging the Pittsburgh court system.

The most important rule is the 120 rule issued by Judge Wettick.  This rule applies to credit card or collection agency cases that are defective.  (As per my other posts, almost all of these lawsuits are defective initially).  Judge Wettick’s ruling is essentially that the credit card companies and collection agencies have 120 days to correct the defects inherent within their lawsuits.  If they are unable to correct the defects, the case is dismissed (which means thrown out of court). 

If they make a minor correction, that cures a few defects, but not all of them, then objections can be filed a second time.  If this occurs, then Judge Wettick gives the collection agency or credit card company an additional 30 days to make corrections.  Typically, Judge Wettick does not afford further opportunity to these companies. 

The ruling has obvious benefits to the court system.  The collection attorneys know what they need to have to proceed with a case, and the consumer attorneys such as myself who are defending against these lawsuits know exactly how the court will rule on a given case.

The collection agency calls and says that you better pay up.  If you don’t pay, then we’ll garnish your wages.  Believe it or not, that can be a great phone call to receive if you live in Pennsylvania.

This is a common threat that is issued by the collecton agencies.  It works very well for them because nobody wants their wages to be garnished.  Unfortunately, it is also an illegal threat. 

Pennsylvania is one of the few states that do not allow creditors to  garnish wages.  There is no exception to that law, at least not when a collection agency or credit card company is involved.  Wage garnishment for credit card debt cannot occur in Pennsylvania, period. 

Regarding the threat, as I said above, it is illegal.  There is a federal law known as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA for short) that protect consumers.  One of the main components of this law is that a debt collector cannot make a threat that it cannot follow through on, or it can’t make a threat that is illegal.  Since wage garnishment is not permissible, by law, in Pennsylvania, making such a threat is illegal. 

The FDCPA gives you the right to file a lawsuit against a debt collector that makes this sort of illegal threat.  There is a statutory $1000 damage penalty, along with an imposition of reasonable attorney fees.  In that regard, your attorney is free.

Call our office if you have been threatened with wage garnishment in Pennsylvania.

I get  many inquiries from potential clients who want me to assist them with debt negotiation.  I will only negotiate a debt under very limited circumstances. 

The first circumstance where I will negotiate a debt is when the Plaintiff (the company that is suing you) is an original creditor.  An original creditor is the finance company that you established your credit account with.  Capital One files alot of their own lawsuits in Pennsylvania, so most times  I am open to negotiation for a client on a Capital One case. 

Negotiation really works best when you have a lump sum of money to offer as a settlement.  For instance, if you owe an alleged $10,000 debt, if you can offer $5000 or $6000 as a lump sum, then you have a shot at obtaining a settlement.  On the other hand, if you can only afford to pay $100 per month, a negotiation is not going to get much of a reduction for you, if any.

I also would consider negotiating with a collection agency on a very small case, perhaps under $1,000.  While my steadfast rule is to never negotiate with collection agencies, there is a reason that I would negotiate on this small amount.  Quite frankly, its more cost effective for the client to pay me an hour’s worth of fees to negotiate a settlement on a small case rather than to hire me to defend it in court for several hours of time.  

On larger claims, let’s say $1000 and up, I would almost never negotiate with a collection agency in Pennsylvania.  Hire me to defend the lawsuit, or, hire another attorney if that’s your choosing, but it would be money well spent.  A knowledgeable consumer attorney can defeat a collecton agency about 85% of the time, perhaps better, so you really should take your chances in court.

If you have any questions about debt negotiation, credit card accounts, collection agencies, or any other consumer matter, please contact my office at 412-823-8003 or 1-888-536-6644 for a free,  no obligation consultation.

I am very surprised by the number of people who don’t consult with a consumer attorney on a credit card case.  As soon as you receive a collection letter or phone call, you should speak to a consumer attorney right away.  Most of us, my office specifically, will give a free telephone consultation about the collection process and to discuss your defenses and rights. 

I have found that many of you instead call the collection agency to try to work out a payment plan.  What a huge mistake!  That is exactly what they want you to do, its part of what they base their business model on! The truth of the matter is that most collection agencies have difficulty in proving a case against you in a court of law.  That’s why they call you and use high pressure tactics to get you to pay.  Once you make a payment, or even agree to one, you may have severely damaged your case.

A frequent question that I face is whether the individual can handle the matter themselves.  I almost never think that this is a good idea.  They ask, what can I do that they can’t?  Think about it, I do this every day, with tremendous success.  I usually know exactly what language is in your lawsuit without even seeing it just by learning the name of the collection agency.  I know which attorneys they hire, how those attorneys operate, which documents they have, their usual success rate and so on.  Are you willing to risk a $9000 judgment against you just to save a few dollars in attorney fees?  It doesn’t make sense to me.  Look, I try to be as blunt as I can with clients, they really do appreciate it.  I’ll tell you if I can help you and I’ll also tell you if it’s in your interests to go another direction.  (I often do this with the smaller cases, where it doesn’t make sense to hire me to defend a $750 lawsuit).

The key is to not make a mistake by calling the agency or by filing your own response to the credit card lawsuit.  That’s my job, to handle that aspect of it and to give you a good result at the end.

If you have any questions about a collection agency or credit card lawsuit in Pennsylvania, call my office at 412-823-8003 for a free, no obligation consultation.

Make them prove their case, every single aspect of it. An experienced attorney can guide the way here. There are so many issues that the collection agency has to prove to prevail in a court of law. I like to tell my clients that the agency has to prove A through Z, and they often can only prove A through E.

The collection agency has to prove a number of issues in a lawsuit to collect a debt. First and foremost is that they have to prove that they have the right to sue you. Did the original creditor actually sell, or assign, your account to them? Show me the documents!

They also have to prove that it was your account, and that you agreed to the terms and conditions that they allege are applicable to your account. They also have to prove that you made use of the credit account, the interest rate, the late fees and more. Again, I force them to show me all of the documents. Most times, they cannot come up with the proper documents so we have the case dismissed.

Contact our office at 412-823-8003 or toll free at 1-888-536-6644 for a free telephone consultation if you are being sued by a Collection Agency in Pennsylvania.

A Charge-Off is merely an accounting procedure used by the Credit Card Company to state that they do not believe that you are going to pay your debt. Just because your account has been charged off by the credit card company does not mean that you do not owe the debt, although that is a common misconception.

A charge off typically occurs after several months of non-payment by an account holder. Each credit card company has different lengths of time at which they charge off a debt, but most range from 3 to 6 months of non-payment.

It is at this point that the Credit Card company will begin collection proceedings against you, either by having their in-house collection department contact you, or by selling/outsourcing your account to a collection agency.

Contact our office at 412-823-8003 or toll free at 1-888-536-6644 for a free telephone consultation if you are being sued by a Collection Agency in Pennsylvania.