From New Jersey

Hi everyone,

Well I was working a job and decided ultimately I needed to go back to school. My income declined sharply while my expenses sort of grew and I ran into credit card debt with Amex. My father offerred to help me and we attempted to settle with Amex, but they absolutely refused and went through 3 collection agencies. They too absolutely refused to settle with me and from a principle of $1700 or so they inflated it to over $3,000 with late fees and insane interest rates. Now they have a firm suing me in NJ court and I have 35 days to respond to the complaint. I have absolutely no idea what defense to come up with or what to do.


Information about me: I'm 24 years old, single, i have no assests and no income (I'm working on an electrical engineering degree and am taking 19 credits to speed school up), i am being supported by my parents. The SOL has not passed.

mr.yet

YOu must answer that you intend to defend, or they win by default. Since they are a thrid party debt collector you defense can be demand they they produce the original credit documents and general accounting of the alleged debt. They most likely have purchase the debt for pennies on the dollar.

Since they are not the original creditor, who do they respresent?

Do they respresent the orginal creditor or themselves?

File Motion for discovery for these answers.

View this post:

http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/bankrup...ask-29036.html

Motion for Discovery with these 44 questions, will get you the answers you need.

zagg

Thanks for the quick reply. Well I think its American Express suing me.. it says on the complaint American express as the plantiff. Also, they already sent me a packet of all my charges since the account was opened.

ScottGem

The fact of the matter is YOU incurred this debt. You signed up for the card and agreed to pay the charges outlined in the agreement.

Your only recourse, IMHO is to explain to the judge, that you have no income, but that you have offered to try and settle the debt and that AMEX refused. You will need to offer proof of that. Hopefully the judge will be lenient and order them to arrange a reasonable settlement plan.

I would not, btw, paint AMEX as the bad guy here. You were the one who spent beyond your means. AMEX is just trying to get what they are legally entitled to.

zagg

But why would the judge order them to settle with me when by contract they are entitled to the amount they are suing? Can the judge really exercise that kind of discretion?

Also interestingly enough. The collection agency that came after me are also attorney's for AMEX. So AMEX still owns the debt.. they simply had the collection agency try to collect, and when that failed, amex hired them as attorneys to sue me.

ScottGem

Yes, judges do have that level of discretion. The reason a judge might is because you (according to your posts) have not run away fromt he debt and tried to reach a reasonable settlement.

Whether they do or not depends on a lot of factors.