Diamond Memberships

Why you Should Join us as a Diamond Member

Diamond Membership is our best deal for people with a lot of curiosity, more than one lawsuit, or who are coaching or helping others in their cases. That’s because a main goal of Diamond membership is to go beyond the usual questions presented by debt law and the debt industry. We look at the politics and economics driving our country. And we look deeply at the law.

As anyone knows who has read our materials, most of debt law is what we call “factory work.” It’s routine and standardized, and this is simply because debt is bought and sold in gigantic deals (called “tranches”). So the average debt collector buys a hundred or a thousand (or many, many more) accounts that supposedly owe money from the same company (usually a credit card-issuing bank) and then, completely relying on the records the bank provides, harasses the people involved to collect as much as possible. And eventually they file many, many lawsuits that look almost exactly the same.

So for most of our purposes, we can simply deal with that large body of identical suits and create responses to them. They’re doing factory work, and we do something very similar.

Going Deeper and Further

But there can be more. While debt collection is generally pretty standardized, there are things that can come up that either present special challenges or issues. And in fact, for all of its routine, most debt lawsuits CAN veer out of the normal. There are always angles in every case, which can sometimes make a difference, and often make things more interesting.

You’ll get a 50% discount off all of our motions packs and other materials. We highly recommend the First Response Kit as a way to simplify your first several steps in this litigation, and you’ll get a 50% discount off the cost for that.

And some of our members like to help others. For these – for people helping others, and for those who want to know a LOT about the law – our Diamond Membership is great.

Special Tactics

When you take on debt negotiation, debt litigation and credit repair at the same time, you discover that some of the tools work for more than one thing. For example, if a debt collector is bugging you AND has damaged your credit, you can dispute the collector’s action both through the Credit Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. These two acts have different purposes (as laws) and requirements. Verification under the two acts is different, and verification under the Credit Reporting Act is more difficult and rigorous for the debt collector – and the CRA also gives you a way to attack the original creditor as well if it is reporting you.

And you can, of course, you can use any and all the information you get through either the FDCPA and CRA (also called the FCRA, for “Fair Credit Reporting Act”) in litigation if they sue you. And you can use any information you get in a lawsuit they – or you – file, in attacking their responses under the FDCPA or FCRA. In other words, knowing all three sets of rules can sometimes be very, very helpful. Our Platinum Membership opens some of those ways up to you.

Other Benefits

As with each of the Gold Memberships, you will receive special reports and offers. As a Diamond Member, though, you get them all. This includes:

  • The Three Weaknesses Almost All Debt Collectors Have
  • Take Control of Your Life and Debt; and
  • a discount off the prepaid legal program we offer our members;
  • all the situation products (like motions packs and the other products like that).

Diamond Benefits

In addition to everything the Gold and Platinum members get, Diamond members get a lot more information. They get, basically, all of our reports and books as well as ecourses. This includes our reports like Got Debt? and What if I (think I) Really Owe, Do You Need a Lawyer, and all the rest. And it also includes our book – now being revised – called Special Issues in Debt Litigation. This book was originally about a 250 page book, but it is being revised into several smaller volumes now. Diamond Members will get them, free.

Coaching

In addition to the written materials, Diamond members will get their own teleconferences when the situation calls for it. As we approach our membership goals, the Diamond members will need to discuss things in greater depth and at greater length – they’ll get that opportunity. And there will be other materials, currently in the works, to help them organize, promote, analyze, and all the other things they’re likely to need.

How You Purchase

You buy by clicking on “Register” under “About Memberships” in the main menu and choosing the level of membership you want.

Diamond membership costs $25.00 per month with a $150 sign-up fee.

Platinum Memberships

Platinum Memberships combine all three of the Gold Memberships into one package.

As we often say, debt problems generally travel in crowds – that is, if one debt collector is suing you, others are probably harassing and getting ready to sue you – and still others are messing up your credit report. It’s tempting to try to focus on just one of these things at a time, and that can work. But a more effective way of dealing with debt problems is to take them all on at the same time. So even while you’re beating the debt collector that’s suing you, you’re negotiating with another one to keep it from suing you.

And you’re beginning the process of repairing your credit from ALL of them.

If that makes sense to you, then you should consider our Platinum Membership.

Benefits of Platinum Membership

With our Platinum Membership you get three manuals: the Debt Litigation Manual, the Debt Negotiation and Settlement Manual, and the Credit Repair and Restoration Manual.

You also get access to our complete member-only area, so that you can reduce the amount of repetitive paperwork you have to do in taking care of all these problems, and you get access to all our member-only articles and videos on all topics.

And you can be part of all of our teleconferences.

Special Tactics

When you take on debt negotiation, debt litigation and credit repair at the same time, you discover that some of the tools work for more than one thing. For example, if a debt collector is bugging you AND has damaged your credit, you can dispute the collector’s action both through the Credit Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. These two acts have different purposes (as laws) and requirements. Verification under the two acts is different, and verification under the Credit Reporting Act is more difficult and rigorous for the debt collector – and the CRA also gives you a way to attack the original creditor as well if it is reporting you.

And you can, of course, you can use any and all the information you get through either the FDCPA and CRA (also called the FCRA, for “Fair Credit Reporting Act”) in litigation if they sue you. And you can use any information you get in a lawsuit they – or you – file, in attacking their responses under the FDCPA or FCRA. In other words, knowing all three sets of rules can sometimes be very, very helpful. Our Platinum Membership opens some of those ways up to you.

Other Benefits

As with each of the Gold Memberships, you will receive special reports and offers. As a Platinum Member, though, you get them all. This includes:

  • The Three Weaknesses Almost All Debt Collectors Have
  • Take Control of Your Life and Debt; and
  • a discount off the prepaid legal program we offer our members.

10,000 Member Drive

As I point out in our materials on Gold Membership, a key strategy in our debt litigation program is to recognize that debt collectors take a “factory” approach. They file huge numbers of cases and work very little on them because most people either default immediately or give up quickly. So they file a hundred cases, work on none of them, get judgments on 98 percent of the cases they get served, and let a few people get away. Our program helps you be among those who get away “through the cracks.”

But what if everybody defended and fought back?

If that happened, the debt collectors would have to change completely, and until they did, pretty much EVERYBODY would get away from them. Our 10,000 member drive is about making that happen. If everybody fought back, it would shut down the debt collectors and push the judges to stop being mere cogs in the debt collection industry’s machine. With that many people fighting back, learning, watching the courts, and pushing back, it would change the nature of the debt industry completely. I think that would be a good thing.

And so I have begun a 10,000 member drive.

How You Purchase

You buy by clicking on “Register” under “About Memberships” in the main menu and choosing the level of membership you want. Platinum membership costs $20 a month with a $120 sign-up fee.

 

Thank You for Signing Up

Thank you for signing up for information from Your Legal Leg Up. As you know, our mission is to give regular people everything they need to beat the debt collectors and protect what they own.

We plan to give you some important information that will help you get or keep things under control and keep as much as you can from the debt collectors. We’ve just sent you an email confirmation link, and you’ll need to confirm your subscription before you get anything else from us.

The debt collection process is one big machine, in a way, but it does matter where you are in the process. According to your answers to the “What is Happening” field, we will send you information tailored to what is actually happening to you now and what you might want to do from there. The options are based on whether you are worried about your debts, being harassed by debt collectors, or actually being sued.

Please confirm your subscription. We look forward to helping you take control of your situation, whatever it might be.

Regards,

Ken

Service Call Scam Warning

Tech support scams, which get people to pay for fake computer help or steal their personal information, are convincing. You might already know the signs of a tech support scam, but do your friends and family? Here’s what they need to know now:

  • Companies like Microsoft don’t call and ask for access to your computer. If you get a call like that, it’s a scam.
  • Real companies also won’t ask for your account passwords. Only scammers do.
  • Tech support scammers try to convince you they’re legitimate. They’ll pretend to know about a problem on your computer. They’ll ask you to open normal files that look alarming to make you think you need help.
  • If you do need computer help, go directly to a person, business, or website you know you can trust. General online searches are risky because they might pull up another scam.

If people you know were already scammed, here’s what to tell them:

  • If you paid with a credit or debit card, call your credit card company or bank immediately and tell them what happened.
  • If you paid with a gift card, contact the gift card company (iTunes, Amazon, etc.) ASAP to see if the funds are still on the card and can be frozen before it’s too late.
  • A tech support scammer who has access to your computer can install malware. Update your computer’s security software, scan your computer, and delete anything it identifies as a problem. Restart your computer to be sure the changes take effect. Going forward, download security updates as soon as they are available. Most operating systems have a setting to download and install security updates automatically. Use it. And install updates for your other software, including apps.
  • If the scammer got your password for a financial account, or a site like Amazon, change the password immediately. Contact the company directly to make sure nobody has broken into your account.

Report your experience to ftc.gov/complaint. You’re not alone, and reporting these scams helps law enforcement go after the people behind tech support scams.

Memberships with our site

Memberships with Your Legal Leg Up

Our membership is a tremendous value and an effective way to level the playing field between you and a debt collector.

After years of providing debt defendants what they need to beat the debt collectors, I have figured out a way to make beating the debt collectors less stressful and time-consuming. If you’d like to save time and stress while improving your chances of victory, keep reading.

How do you “Level the Playing Field” with the Debt Collectors?

As I have often pointed out, the debt collectors rarely have the evidence they need to win a case when they file suit. Instead, they rely on people defaulting or giving up. That’s how they get away with adding illegal fees so often or suing people who never owed any money – or suing for debts they don’t own.

The debt collectors have designed their litigation process to make it more likely that people will give up – they “tilt” the playing field so that fighting them to obtain justice and fair play is always up hill for you. From Petitions alleging the same debt three or four different ways (making it look like you might owe three times as much as they even say you do) to “fake” affidavits of robo-signers swearing to things about which they have no knowledge, to fake account statements and bogus notices – all these things are designed to trick or intimidate people into giving up. Many of these illegal or immoral tactics have been “business as usual” for the debt collectors. They’re notorious for dirty tricks.

And the debt collectors also start with some “institutional” advantages when they sue people for debt – they do this all the time, you know. The debt collectors have associations of other debt collectors and lawyers who provide them the latest information and court decisions nationally, or just contacts to help them strategize how to deal with your case. They have “document banks” – computer files of petitions, motions, discovery, etc. that they know have worked in cases before. These give them a big advantage: they can draft a petition and serve discovery with a few keystrokes by a paralegal, whereas you are left to spend hours responding. They know what works because they know what is happening in the hundreds of thousands of cases like yours that get filed every year.

How do you neutralize the debt collectors’ advantages and level the playing field?

Introducing Your Legal Leg Up Memberships

In order to counteract the advantages of the debt collectors I have created two types of membership with Your Legal Leg Up: Gold and Platinum. These memberships will allow me to provide you more and better service, give you expanded access to helpful materials, and keep you updated on the latest strategies and techniques that people are using to beat the debt collectors. You will have your own “document banks” where you will be able to download documents that have been used successfully by other people in fighting debt collectors so you don’t have to spend ten times as much time as the debt collectors do on simple documents. And you will special access to me and – more importantly – to other people like you who are actually fighting the debt collectors.

Benefits of Membership

As I mentioned above, there are four main features of membership: expanded access to materials, keeping up to date, connecting with others, and creating and building a document bank of documents you can convert to your own use without a ton of trouble.

Expanded Availability of Services

Through the newsletter and members-only homepage, you will receive updates, alerts, and reports and the tried-and-true, easy to understand materials in the ever-expanding “members-only” section of our website. Members will have access not only to the free access videos, but also to our extensive members-only video collection and the Your Legal Leg Up Video Series–now available ONLY to members, previously sold for $149 and available online.

Keeping Current

With the new membership comes a free subscription to Fightdebt!, official newsletter of Your Legal Leg Up. Every month it will give you the latest news in debt litigation as well as special tips on debt litigation, consumer issues, and credit repair. This is another benefit that is available only to members, valued at $49/year. You will also get new videos, reports and alerts as they happen.

Connecting with Others

Although some of the other benefits of membership may be more tangible and obvious, I actually think this benefit is going to be one of the most important benefits of membership. We will start with a members-only blog (which I will mediate), and this will allow more freewheeling contact between members. It is also my goal to connect those who want to be connected to other people who are from the same state. It’s hard to overestimate the advantage that comes with being able to talk to someone else going through the same thing, and working on pleadings and motions (for example) together could even make the process fun. Monthly teleconferences are free for members so callers can benefit from hearing one anothers’ questions and experiences, and a teleconference connections webpage also provides a forum on which participants may share and connect.

Software

Some people do not have a word processing program that will help them create professional documents or cut and paste documents from the document bank. Members will receive a link to a free word processor which will fill that need. Likewise, for ease of viewing, members will be provided a link to a video player that will let them play or download videos from the site.

Welcome to Fightdebt

Welcome to Fightdebt (Youtube) and YourLegalLegUp

Welcome to Your Legal Leg Up. Our channel on Youtube is @fightdebt. Please be sure to subscribe.

Welcome to Your Legal Leg Up.

Our goal is to help ordinary people who are facing debt problems now or trying to live down the effects of older debt problems. We want to help you protect what you have and build for tomorrow.

Debt Defense

We got our start in helping people defend against debt lawsuits brought by debt collectors. This is possible because debt collection is really a “factory” operation. The debt collectors find out practically nothing about individual cases before they bring suit, and in litigation they don’t like to spend any more time on them. Instead, they bring dozens, hundreds, or thousands (depending on the collector) of suits that are virtually identical. Because most people – we estimate somewhere between 80 and 95% of people – default or give up without paying any attention to the law suit whatever, the debt collectors really don’t need to do anything to rake in huge amounts of money.

And that’s what they do.

But the problem with that approach for them is that if you are willing and able to fight a little bit, they rapidly find it unprofitable to continue to fight with you. They make their money by collecting debts, not fighting them. We teach you to fight them in a way that increases the debt collector’s costs and improves your chances of winning. It takes some work, but your chances of winning are excellent.

Credit Repair

If you have had debt problems at one point, there’s a good chance your credit report is still suffering. And that means that good things are passing you by. You’re spending more for housing, insurance, and many other things, and there are some things you just can’t get – all because you have bad credit. You can fix that, and we can help. There are laws that help you get your credit report reviewed and straightened out, and there are practical ways to reconstruct your credit history so that you’re better off than you were before your debt problems.

Debt Negotiation

If you have debt collectors after you for a debt you can’t afford to pay, you must wonder whether there’s a way to make them go away without suing you. Of course, any one company can do whatever it pleases, but in general, the debt collectors can be brought to the table. They’ll negotiate, and you can get back on your feet without being sued. And without having to pay what you can’t afford.

Of course there are no free lunches, and anything you do to negotiate will cost you in various ways. We help you minimize those costs so you don’t pay more than you have to for less beneficial results. It’s all about making the best of a bad situation, and part of that means to keep it from getting worse. We can help.

 

Sued for Debt Action Steps

Finding out that you’re being sued for debt can be a big shock, and it also puts you at risk for losing the things you have. We have good news for you. You can protect yourself.

Could Anything Actually Make You Glad to Get Sued by Debt Collectors?!

It’s hard to believe that could happen, isn’t it – that you could actually end up glad you got sued by a debt collector? And yet it could true.

If you’re being sued by a debt collector, chances are it’s coming at the end of a long process that started with missed bills, phone calls, letters, messed up credit reports, worry, and missed sleep at night. I don’t need to tell you how awful it is. And the lawsuit itself may seem like a nightmare. After all, if you lose, you could face new problems: garnishment of wages, seizure of bank accounts, and possibly even worse.

And you can forget about your credit report if they get a judgment, right?

So How Could Getting Sued Possibly Be Good News?

The lawsuit could actually be the end of your trouble. Instead of hanging back and destroying your credit or just bugging you to death, which you can’t do much about, they’re suing you. And there’s a lot you can do about that.

That’s because the debt collectors usually start their lawsuit without what they need to win. If you play your cards right, that may give you a chance to erase your debt for good. In the process, you can take control of your life again.

Imagine how you’ll feel when you drive the debt collector away and erase the debt. You can start repairing your credit report and get back to your life. You can answer your phone without worrying about debt collectors

Finally.

Here’s what one user of our materials said about his experience:

Today I received in the mail an offer “Stipulation For Dismissal With Prejudice”,which basically states the Plaintiff will dismiss their Complaint if I dismiss my counterclaim.  All the examples,logic and powerful arguments presented in your materials helped me beyond belief! I am eternally grateful,and right now quite ecstatic!

Thanks Ken,
Frank from Arizona 

And another:

Just a quick email to say THANK YOU for your well written manual! I was scared to death when I got a Summons and Complaint served on me by a debt collection attorne. I did exactly what you said though, and basically let them know I wasn’t going away.… So I filed a Motion to Dismiss, and that was pretty much it. The Attorney folded like a cheap suit, and I have to say it almost felt better than sex!

Thanks again! 
Gary

These people, and many more, could tell you the same thing: you can beat the debt collectors.

And when you do, it will feel even better than you would ever guess. It will change your life. They’ll never push you around again. You’ll never be scared of debt collectors and their lawyers again.

If you know what you’re doing – and that’s what we teach you – you can probably win the case even if the debt collector actually has or can get what it needs. And it usually doesn’t.  Your job is to make them start looking for those records, make them start losing money and worrying about whether they will ever see their money again.

The trick is to fight. They’re not really set up to fight you if you know what you’re doing.

I Don’t Want to Tell You You Can Just Get Away with It (But You Probably Can)

I don’t want to tell you you can rack up debt and get away without paying, because we should all pay our debts. But these are tough times, and sometimes things happen that make it impossible to pay.

And sometimes those things are the fault of the banks – they have just about ruined the economy for all of us, after all. not having to pay them would only be poetic justice. Although poetic justice can wait – if they’re after you, you’re in a fight that you just need to win.

Find Out More

If you’re ready to think about taking on the debt collectors, look through our site and consider joining us. We can help you take control of your life and force the debt collectors to leave you alone.

 

You Will Probably Win if you Fight Debt Collectors

If you are being harassed or sued by the debt collectors, there’s no need to give up. You have an excellent chance to win, and it isn’t that hard to defend yourself.

 

Defending Yourself against Debt Collectors Isn’t That Hard

 

Your Legal Leg Up is designed to help ordinary people defend themselves from debt collectors. The problems occur in three main ways. First, before there is litigation, there is usually some sort of harassment – it would be easier and cheaper for the debt collector to scare you into paying if possible. At the same time, it might be possible to get the debt collector settle the issue with you without having to go to court. Thus we help people with debt settlement.

If debt settlement doesn’t work, or if the collector proceeds to a lawsuit without any chance to try to negotiate, you’ll need to defend yourself in litigation. That’s where we got our start, and we have lots of materials that will help you defend yourself. Keep in mind that debt collectors handle everything in bulk. That means they can be very efficient at parts of their lawsuit, but much less so at others. So our materials and approach are designed to exploit that problem. That makes litigation much more expensive and less profitable for the debt collector and maximize your chance of winning, too. That’s why most of our members win their cases.

Even after your lawsuit – or sometimes they don’t even sue – you will probably have damage to your credit report. Thus we help people repair and reconstruct their credit reports. This is a multi-step program that works at eliminating bad information on your credit report while generating new good information.

We have memberships aimed at each of these areas of the debt law. Find the right one for you and let us help you.

Rebuilding your Life after Economic Disaster

Hey there! This content is available to MEMBERS only! Consider registering for an account.

Scam Report – Free Credit Report Dot Com

Like a lot of scams, this one may not be illegal, but I would argue that FreeCreditReport.com, which advertises “free” credit reporting, is deceptively marketed and designed to take advantage of people who are worried about their credit scores.

The Product: Freecreditreport.com

First, what is the product sold by the company? It is monitoring of your credit report created by Experion, including alerts warning you of new information which might harm your score. Since Experion is just one of the three main credit reporting agencies, and since these agencies may report different information on your report, the product is of very limited utility.

Second, there’s nothing free about this “free” credit reporting “service.” You can sign up for a trial offer of seven days. It costs a buck and gives you pretty much what you could get for free if you followed links provided by the government. Credit agencies are required to give you a free credit report once a year. At the end of the seven-day “trial” period (but the service may be inactive for the first two of those days), if you forget to cancel the service, they’ll be billing you for $16.95 per month until you do cancel.

Why It’s a Scam

I believe that setting up and heavily advertising something as free when it isn’t free is deceptive marketing. A trial period of only seven days – two days of which don’t even work – is clearly designed to trap and rip off people who aren’t on their toes. And it isn’t even free.

Maybe most important of all is the whole service anyway. To suggest that constantly monitoring one credit bureau is enough is false because the credit bureaus can have different information and you would need to check all three. Ironically, it is also true that getting your credit report every month is also much more than you need – you won’t need your report nearly that often if you are in process of repairing your report (as i suggest how to do in this month’s Life after Litigation article). The process moves much more slowly than that.So your actual need of the product is very limited. The service costs far more than it is worth in my opinion.

And finally, the who marketing of the service is designed to create impulse buys. The ads raise the prospect of identity theft or sudden action by credit bureaus and offer FreeCreditReport.com as some sort of solution. It would not in fact help much with either of these problems. Simply knowing that you’ve suffered identity theft or negative credit reports is only the small tip of the iceberg in protecting your rights.