When it comes to talking with debt collectors, Silence is Usually Golden.
The biggest risk you face when dealing with debt collectors – especially when sued for debt – is that you will do or say something wrong. Be careful when talking to debt collectors, and know that anything you say could come back to haunt.
But if you have something it is in your interest to say, then say it – and hang up afterwards.
Debt collectors and their lawyers are not, of course, all the same, but the process of litigation, and the relationship between debt buyers and the people they’re chasing for money are pretty similar. It will help you to know the nature of the beast that is debt law.
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This video was originally part of a tutorial on what people facing debt trouble should do.
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We appreciate most debt lawyers. Many of them are dedicated to the well-being of people being harassed or sued by debt collectors, and most of them can, if they know the law, increase your chances of beating the debt collectors. However, almost all of them are too expensive for a lot of people, and some of them really do not know the law.
The main problem facing debt lawyers, however, is simple economics. The debt buyers and collectors are able to do things on a large scale, and this includes attending several hearings at the same time. If you have a pretrial conference, for example, you go there and wait for the judge, participate in the conference, and drive back to the office. If you can set five hearings at about the same time, you nullify the waiting and driving time and do things for one-fifth the price. Defense lawyers can’t often do that, but it is routine for the debt collection lawyers.
And debt collection lawyers, who specialize in debt collection, have all the documents saved on their computers so that paralegals can make the necessary changes to individualize them. Debt defendant lawyers, because they must wait for individual clients, usually don’t have this advantage, so they create new documents every time – at great expense.
The economics change when you represent yourself, especially if you use a service like ours. In that case, you can attend the hearings yourself at modest cost and create your own documents using our models. It is somewhat more trouble than hiring a lawyer, and there will be moments of anxiety, but if you can handle those, you make it more expensive for the debt collectors to chase you than to let you go. And that’s the first step in winning.
The second step, of course, is to do the things you need to do in order to win.
If you think you’d do better on your own, we can help.
This is Part 2 of this Article. For Part 1, click here: Time! Time!! It’s All about Time.
Because of the nature of the beast, you are also going to be seen as having fewer resources. Does that mean anybody gives you a break? Wake up – this is life in the jungle where predators eat the weak. You must learn how to battle the perception of weakness. Again, this involves the careful use of time. You are perceived as poor, distracted, and ignorant by the high and mighty debt lawyers. You must overcome that perception by staying on top of things from the very beginning. You’ll be tested in discovery because motions to compel are time-consuming and boring. But you will be tested in many ways. Stay on top of it!
Notice, too, that perception of lack of resources is different than any actual lack. Their perceiving that you lack resources will cause them to try to take advantage of you (debt collectors) or blow you off so they can get to “more important” things (judges and their office staff). Staying on top of things can reduce the number of tricks they try and the impact of the ones they do try.
I lump these together because almost all pro se parties are unfamiliar with the law – and expected to be so by the lawyers on the other side and the court. Expect that to mean anybody will help you? Again, get real. It means you will be patronized by the lawyer and ignored (to some extent) by the judge. You must counter this lack of experience through preparation. You should take the time to watch a trial and other court proceedings, and you must also take the time to think through your points and locate authority for the positions you take. You can do all this, but it takes time.
As I pointed out above, the three “faces” of the issue you deal with are time, organization, and discipline. I can’t help you with discipline, but all my materials, and specially the membership, are designed to save you time. The Litigation Manual was created to make you familiar with the process in general, and the motions packs should help you with time at certain critical points. And of course my website in general is a resource.
Two products designed to give further help are the trial binder and the Guide to Legal Research and Analysis. The Trial Binder helps you put the materials you need into the most useful order, while the Guide to Legal Research and Analysis helps you get started on the ways you think about and prepare for your case.
When you are involved in litigation – either willingly or unwillingly, either as the plaintiff who initiated the suit, or as a defendant dragged into court – time is always critical. You will have deadlines for every single thing that you do. These deadlines are either:
Courts will often create what is called a “scheduling order” which puts down the times by which times must be completed. You have to count back the days to figure out when you need to get started. For example, if the court sets April 30 as the date by which discovery must be completed, if you’re in Missouri you figure everything out in this way. Parties get 30 days to respond to discovery – they will object to everything, and you must send them a “good-faith” letter before filing a motion to compel. They get 5 business days to respond to a motion to compel, and it will take you 10 days to write one. Therefore, you must serve your last discovery 30 + 5 + 10 + a week for the good-faith letter + any time added by the Mailbox Rule + the amount of time the court will give them to give you the discovery. That means you need to file your last discovery at least 3 months before the end of the discovery period. In that example, you had one explicit courrt-imposed deadline, and several other “implied” deadlines in order to get it done.
Your very first step as a litigant must be to find out what rules control your case – and most specially what rules control the deadlines in your case. When it comes to missing a deadline, excuses are for losers. If you’ve missed a deadline, you must make your excuse and hope for the best! But never forget that there is a price to pay. You lose ground, either legally or in the eyes of the court and the other side, for every deadline you miss. You also add extreme stress to your life and risk to your case if you are always near and sometimes miss deadlines. I cannot make that any plainer, can I?
And another thing to keep in mind: time may be the cross on which your case could die, but it has two other aspects: organization and discipline. Find out what you need to do and when you need to do it. Then set up things so that you can do what you’re supposed to do (organization) and then, actually do it (discipline).
Having read this, you have no excuse for coming to me (or anybody) and saying that you didn’t know when something was due.
Why is time so critically important to everybody, and most particularly to pro se parties? Let’s answer the second question – the most important one – first: why it matters above all to you.
Pro se parties in general, and specially in debt cases, must understand the way time works in their cases more than anyone else for three reasons:
The added “kicker” in debt cases is that you are maving into a headwind caused by the fact that so few people (represented by lawyers or not) defend debt cases with intelligence. Everybody expects you to “roll over” or, as the Beatles song goes, “get back to where you once belonged”
Most debt defendants or people involved in debt-related litigation (as, for example, filing a claim for violation of the FDCPA where you are the plaintiff) simply do not have very much money. This type of law, in general, was designed for people without much money, and that’s a problem that many, but not all, pro se parties face. An actual lack of resources means that you have to scramble to get the things you need, from law books to typing paper, from trips to the library to trips to the court room. And daycare – to mention just a few resources that may not be readily available to you. To offset these actual resources you must schedule time enough to overcome them.
I often tell people that they might simply deny every allegation of the petition and put the plaintiff to the burden of proving the case. In Pennsylvania, however, there is a much more powerful method for most debt cases: “Preliminary Objections.”
Preliminary Objections are a form of motion to dismiss based on the inadequacy of the pleadings brought against you. PA Rule of Civil Procedure 1019 requires that a plaintiff bringing a lawsuit based on a writing (which every credit card is) must have the contract attached to it or else include allegations in the petition from which the whole sum of money claimed could be derived.
The only catch to Preliminary Objections is that they must be filed before answering the petition or the objections are considered “waived” (let go). If you are in Pennsylvania, then, you should strongly consider getting my Silver Bullets package (for Pennsylvania, obviously). The package also contains an extremely powerful motion to dismiss any claim for “account stated,” which is the way the debt collectors have used to try to avoid Rule 1019.
We can help either way. Click on the Articles button on the menu bar above to go to publically available videos and articles,
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