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Tag Archive for: debt
Time line of Debt Trouble
Like most things, trouble can be analyzed as a series of discrete steps you can consider. And you can fix them one thing at a time, too.
Timeline of Trouble
| Life before Trouble | (this may be mythical) |
| Distant Rumbles | Something is not right – you know you aren’t doing something you should, either to prepare, protect, or conserve. |
| Closer Rumbles | Rumors of Doom – bills mounting, spouse complaining, you complaining, boss warning. |
| Dark Clouds in Sky | Collection letters and calls, serious conflict with important people |
| Debt Collection | |
| Litigation | Has its own process (See Litigation Timeline) |
| Clean-up and Move on | Win or Lose, life goes on. The quality of your life depends on handling this well. |
This time-line probably doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know. Our point here is to “build system” to help you approach things systematically. It’s easier to take things one step at a time and in order than to take everything on at random. So much of what makes debt troubles so hard is that they are overwhelming and dispiriting. If you break them into simple steps and allow yourself the patience to do them one at a time trusting the results to add up over time, you can handle the problems.
We also suggest that you think “strategically,” which means keeping your end-results in mind from the very beginning.
Real Talk about Debt Lawyers
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.
Why You Can Probably Beat the Debt Collectors
(Even If You Couldn’t Win the Lawsuit!)
If you will stand up for yourself, you can probably make the debt collectors go away even if they could win the suit against you. (Which they usually can’t.)
Why?
Follow the Money
It’s all about money, right? They want to make money. That’s why they’re suing you. If you will defend yourself it becomes too expensive for the company to pursue the litigation against you.
Let’s Do the Math
Consider the question from the point of view of the debt collectors. They buy debt cheaply (very, very cheaply), file sut in large numbers, and win the vast majority of cases without a fight. In St. Louis County, the “call dockets” often have 300-600 defendants, most of whom are being sued by a handful of debt collectors represented by two or three lawyers. If it takes an hour or two for the lawyers to get one hundred judgments totaling (by my guess) approximately $400,000 to $1,000,000 dollars, that’s a pretty good hour’s work.
Now look at the Petition in your lawsuit, down at the last paragraph near the end (where it says “wherefore, plaintiff prays…”). If the company is asking for attorney’s fees against you at all, they’ll usually say so right in the “wherefore clause,” and you may be surprised at how small the number is. In Missouri, the number is typically 15% of what they’re suing you for. If the company is suing you for $5,000, the attorney’s fees might be around $750, but that’s only if they are suing on a contract that allows attorney’s fees. In fact there is often no request for attorney fees at all in the suit.
They ask for the same amount whether or not you fight.
If you don’t fight the case, they get a windfall. If you do fight the case, they usually don’t get any more money even if they win. Instead of hoping for several hundred thousand dollars per hour of work, they’re trying to get $150 per hour-if that. That’s a lot less fun.
And if they are not suing you on a contract that specifically provides for attorney’s fees, they don’t get any fees for fighting no matter how long it takes. Every second you make them spend fighting with you costs them money that they will not get back. Everybody on the other side knows all this, and they never forget it. Neither should you.
What Would You Do…
What would you do if you were a debt collector who was bogged down in a suit for a few hundred (or even thousand) dollars-but which could cost just as much in attorneys fees. And on the other hand you could make a hundred thousand dollars in an hour of work by picking out other people to sue instead? Debt collectors are practical people. If you stand up for yourself in a way that shows them they will have a real fight on their hands, they will usually drop the suit. It isn’t worth it with so many other people around who will not fight.
Isn’t that what you would do?
Debt Collection is a Social Justice Issue
When banks screw up, they get bail-outs and promotions. When you do, you get subjected to an elaborate rip-off system and called bad names by strangers. Stand up for your rights.
Anybody who has ever been to a court that handles debt cases has been impressed by what a travesty of justice the scene presents. People are herded in in large groups, and then there’s a cattle call. It goes like this:
Judge: “John Smith? … John Smith?”
Lawyer for debt collector: “Ask for default.”
Judge: “Granted. Joe Blow? Joe Blow?”
Lawyer for debt collector: “Ask for default.”
Judge: “Granted. Susie Q? Susie Q?”
etc.
And this goes on for possibly an hour. A few people will stand up and respond to the judge, and these are directed to “discuss matters” with the debt collection lawyer. These almost always end up as “give-up” settlements or judgments.
When the one in a hundred persons does appear and actually fight, the court is so startled, and yet so used to the giving up, that chances are good the person will have to work five times as hard to get a fair shake as you would in any other kind of case.
A glimpse at the people will tell you why: these are the working poor – or just the poor – being cycled through the system.
What to do if you have debt troubles part 2
This video goes through the reasons you should win if you get sued for debt and begins the discussion on how to send the right signals to the debt collectors to leave you alone.
This is the second video of this series. Here is the link to the first one: https://yourlegallegup.com/pages/RO2-1
In these videos we take a basic look at debt – the way it piles up and the problems that come along with that. And we talk about the actions you should start taking to defend yourself from possible consequences.
Tip 1 Uncommon Common Sense
Tip 1: Standing up for yourself isn’t hard – it’s just different
And it gets easier
You probably wouldn’t believe how often I get asked the question: “is it hard to defend yourself from the debt collectors?”
Or maybe you would.
If you’re being sued or harassed by a debt collector, one of the very first decisions you face is whether or not to defend yourself. And it is tempting to walk away, no doubt. So what you want to know is, how hard is it not to run away, but to stay and fight?
And luckily, it isn’t really hard.
One Step at a Time
I’ve started a lot of things in my time that if I’d had any idea how much work they would involve I probably never would have started in the first place. Fighting debt collectors is probably not going to be one of these things for you. But what makes it possible even to do the truly difficult things in life is simply to concentrate on the one step in front of you. As a debt defendant you will have a series of these steps. That’s what lawsuits are – a series of things to do, like steps. How many steps it will actually take, no one can say. What I can say, with certainty, is that if you are reasonably smart and willing to work a little bit, you can do every single step. One at a time.
Debt law isn’t rocket science.
You’re going to need to file an Answer or Motion to Dismiss. Could you do that if you set aside ten hours to do it? Yes. Using our litigation materials, it will take you half an hour to draft an answer, and you can do it yourself without our litigation materials in a somewhat longer time.
You’re going to need to draft “discovery,” which is the formal way you ask the other side what they have to use against you – what could hurt or help you. Could you do that? Yes, you could. Our materials make it relatively easy, but again you can do this on your own.
You may need to file or respond to a motion. Or more than one motion. Can you do it? Certainly you can.
And so it goes. You need to develop a broad strategic plan and then take a series of very manageable steps to get there. You may or may not need to take them all – again, only the debt collector really knows how far it will take things – but you can take every necessary step from being served with the suit through trial if necessary. Each step is relatively simple.
The Difficulty is in your Mind
What is “hard” about standing up for yourself is not the actual standing up or doing what needs to be done. What is hard is to do something different than you have done. Debt troubles are usually not an accident. They are usually the result of certain actions that you or someone took (or failed to take). They are often the result of certain habits. And these habits often accompany a habit of not “taking charge.”
Habits can be hard to break, but anyone can do it if they’re determined enough, right?
Standing up for yourself is “taking charge.” It’s just a different mind-set. Easy as pie – and hard as the devil! I won’t kid you – if you are going to defend yourself you must be willing to start to make the shift from “letting things happen to you” to “taking charge.” It isn’t “hard,” in the sense of physical labor or even intellectual challenge, but it does require paying attention to things you haven’t paid attention to before. And it requires looking at something you’d probably rather not look at, right?
It does require “growth.”
This growth is why people who do stand up for themselves and beat the debt collectors feel so good about doing it. Even more than the money, maybe, standing up for yourself and growing into that sort of person is deeply satisfying and – yes – liberating. You will never be sorry if you take on the debt collectors. Any work you do on it will be “good” work. You’ll know that right from the very beginning, and you’ll get to like it more and more, probably.
The difficulty is just in changing. It’s like stepping through a wall that isn’t really there. So if you’re going to do this, start today to look out for yourself. And watch for the next tip tomorrow.
What to do if you have debt troubles part 1
If your bills are adding up and the bill collectors are beginning to bug you, you need to start taking action to protect yourself.
This video goes through the reasons you should win if you get sued for debt and begins the discussion on how to send the right signals to the debt collectors to leave you alone.