April 27th, 2010
This question came in from a subscriber. Palisades Collection is threatening to sue him for a two-year old Lasik eye surgery medical bill. However, he is unsure how to proceed since Palisades may not even own the debt. Two different collection agencies claim they own the debt!
I recently received a letter from Franklin Debt Solutions concerning a debt I am supposedly being sued for in District Court of Maryland (Plaintiff-Palisades Collections, LLC) for the sum of $3,464.18. I believe this bill was for LASIK eye surgery some years ago. I have refused to pay this bill from GE Money because the interest rate was so high I would never had been able to pay the debt off.
I informed the representative at that time that I would not be paying this bill unless the rate was lowered and the payment actually paid some of the principle off.
Since that time, about 2 years ago, I have heard nothing from GE Money. Till I received this letter from Franklin, which I did a web search on and found they too may be a scam.
If in fact I am being sued for this money then why haven’t I been served? I am willing to negotiate a settlement of this bill with GE Money and pay the settlement in full, one payment, but dealing with either Franklin or Palisades, I believe, will be a total waste of time.
I am willing to pay for a service to help correct this and to also look at my credit report and fix things that may need to be fixed and or removed.
Feel free to post your comments below if this happened to you or if you have advice to offer.
Tags: palisades collections llc lasik eye surgery
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February 8th, 2010
We received this question from a happy customer who’s student loans are soon to be taken out of default status:
Your opinion please… My student loans will be taken out of default status in Feb. and I was told it would show on my credit report as IF I gave NEVER been in default do you think this will bring my score back up? And if so about how many pts do you think?
I love your newsletters soooo Informative
Thanks,
K.
First, congrats on having your student loans taken out of default status! It is also good news that the loans will be reported as if they were paid on time with no negative history. Having a student loan default is really bad for your credit and right up there with having a collection on your credit so it is great that you were able to work this out for yourself.
Second, as far as improving your credit score, I cannot say for sure how many points it could improve. The bureaus keep their scoring formulas a closely guarded secret – sort of like a secret recipe.
However, removing any kind of negative credit is ALWAYS a good thing. Don’t be too discouraged if you don’t see a huge increase right away.
I have found that a credit score can be quickly and easily destroyed, but improved over time. In other words, I would expect a slight change once the status is updated and then a steady increase after that….assuming you are keeping the other obligations current and are not maxing out your utilization ratios.
I hope this helps and again, congrats!
Tags: student loan default default judgment
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January 1st, 2010
Fortunately one of our members is a big consumer advocate – especially when it comes to battling large, unethical collection agencies. He wrote me to alert me to two large agencies – NCO Financial and Zwicker and Associates – who purchased large amounts of consumer debt from Bank of America and Discover.
Here are his comments:
These two (2) agencies being large in size feels and thinks they can do whatever they desire. Their major clients are Discover, Bofa and several other financial -banking entities. I deal with them on a more or less daily on-going basis, and have dealth with them in the past many times.
I have even written complaint letters during the course of handling settlements for my clients. They were uncooperative, rude, loud, and down right unethical from beginning to end. They act like they know the law and they can say anything they want and that is what puts them in trouble.
Thanks for doing that and I shall be forwarding any more info that I gather.
Tags: nco financial
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December 23rd, 2009
Is NCO Financial Coming After You?
Collection companies – including Palisades and NCO Financial – often seek legal judgments against consumers through arbitration rather than through a regular court proceeding.
If you’ve been the subject of an arbitration proceeding because of a delinquent credit card debt, then you can learn from this recent court decision out of New York State.
NCO Financial Lawsuit
In NCO Portfolio Mgt., Inc. v. Allen, 9 Misc.3d 1124 the defendant was disputing an arbitration award for a $4,289.19 delinquent credit card debt. She was able to effectively fight the award and the court dismissed the case. In other words, NCO Financial Lost!
Here are three things you can learn from this successful debtor against NCO Financial:
Lesson #1: Dispute the service of process. Service of process is the process whereby the collection company serves you with notice of the arbitration proceeding. The rules for service are incredibly boring so I won’t go into them, but in this case the court found they failed to serve process properly.
Lesson #2: See whether the arbitration petition is sufficient. In other words, what type of document did the collection company produce from the arbitration proceeding. In this case NCO failed to supply a proper arbitration document.
Lesson #3: Review the time between arbitration and when they seek a judgment against you. Collection companies have a limited time to bring the award to judgment so you can dispute on that basis.
Finally, although this debtor won the battle, I can’t say she necessarily won the WAR. In all likelihood the NCO Financial charge off remained on her credit. Here you can get more information on how to remove NCO from your credit reports.
Tags: nco financial
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December 21st, 2009
One member – Susan K. – asked about how she should handle a debt she has with NCO Financial – another large collection agency. The debt is from an EZ Pass account. Ez pass never even billed her for the $90 bill. Instead, they sold the debt to NCO who is now calling her 3-4X per day and will not listen to her side of the story.
When it comes to questionable accounts like this one, I have three basic rules to follow:
Rule 1 – Force the creditor to validate the debt. You can ask a collection agency to do this anytime. However, the FDCPA is forced to validate the debt within the first 30 days.
Rule 2 – Keep things in writing. Assuming your story is falling on deaf ears, this keeps them from taking advantage of you.
Rule 3 – Remember SOL. SOL – or statute of limitations – could be your “ace in the hole” because after the sol has expired, it extinguishes you obligation to pay a debt. A payment – even a small payment – or an offer to pay, restarts the clock on the statute of limitations.
Tags: dealing with collection agencies
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December 11th, 2009
How many times does a bill collector from the Palisades Debt Collection Agency call you per day?
Chances are, if Palisades claims that you owe them money, it’s a LOT.
Here are some simple negotiation tips that ANYbody can use to deal with Palisades Collections…even if you consider yourself the “timid” type:
Palisades Collection Negotiation Tip #1: Stay Calm and Professional. The biggest mistake that people make is to be friendly with the bill collector.
Bill collectors have one goal and one goal only: to separate you from your money. When you try to befriend them, they see it as a sign of weakness and go in for the kill.
Palisades Negotiation Tip #2: Keep agreements in writing. Bill collectors are notorious for making empty promises like…
- once you make this one payment we’ll stop bothering you
- we’ll remove the collection from your credit report just as soon as you make your monthly payment
Your only bargaining chip is payment. That’s why it’s critical to get your agreement in writing before you pay even one dime.
Palisades Collection Negotiation Tip #3: Demand that Palisades remove any negative marks from your credit. There’s no sense in paying a debt if it doesn’t improve your credit. This holds true with any collection entry. Even paid entries are damaging. Make sure you negotiate for a complete removal.
To see these steps in more detail, go here www.palisadescollection.net.
Go Here to Learn How to Remove Palisades Collections from Your Credit Reports
Tags: how to deal with palisades, how to negotiate
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November 28th, 2009
What would you say is the single most effective technique when negotiating with debt collection agencies?
Answer: There is no one most important factor. You must accept that you are fighting highly trained negotiators. Even worse, most bill collectors are training to embarrass and insult you into paying a debt.
However, one very effective method of getting rid of a bill collector for good is to first force a bill collector to validate a debt before paying one penny. Often a debt collection agency is sloppy with their record keeping and will fail to verify the legitimacy of a debt. Or, perhaps the debt is beyond the statute of limitations which means you have no legal obligation to pay.
These are some very important considerations for you even before you think about entering into the negotiations game with debt collectors.
Tags: negotiating with collection agency
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