I spoke with a lawyer from the credit card company recently about a defaulted credit card I have. I tried to explain to him that I was willing to start making payments but he refused and said I need to come up with the entire amount before the end of January 08. What leverage do I have to get them to agree to let me start paying off the debtin installments? He wants me to go to court over this and they want to go after my assets, lol, which I have little to none. How do I deal with this A-hole? Will they take significantly less money to clear the books? I want to get back on the right track and any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

What's 100 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.

Essentially he's been doing this kind of tough talk day in and day out for years so he's got his little speech down pat. If you can come up with the entire amount that you are willing to part with all at once they may be able to take that as full and final payment for the debt. I have yet to hear that a debtor will not take payments. Have you tried sending in a payment for this debt yet and had it refused?

I have not tried to send in a partial payment yet. That is a good idea though as I am sure if this guy does try to take me to court it would look favorable on my part. He's supposed to be contacting me again in the near future. Thanks

Send the payment in. If the check is cashed that means that they are going to accept your terms and take partial payments. It's a gotcha trick. Pay no attention to attorney. If you send in say $10 on the debt it shows you are trying in good faith to pay. If you send in nothing, that's a different story.

Do NOT send in partial payments. First they do NOT hat to accept them, second, it may reactivate the stature of limitations. Since you have no assets the most he can do is garnish your salary. And to do that he has to get a judgement against you.

How old is this debt and how much is it?

I don't think he wants a salary garnishment as they do not go away, they only get worse.

If he doesn't pay enough to satisfy the creditor they can still start legal proceedings. So making partial payments doesn't help him at all and can hurt. That was bad advice.

1. It is very possible they were not really an attorney, merely a collection person lying to you, they will tell you they are going to take your TV, your house, your car, tell you the police will be at your house tomorrow,
Normally if a collection person is talking they are lying. Ask for his state bar number and what state he is an attorney in ( if you wish to)

2. Get everything in writing, do not talk to them on the phone, ask that any demand be in writing.

3. Make a offer in writing for payments, keep a copy for court if you end up there showing your tried to make arrangements but they would not.

The debt is from 2007 and it's around $1000.00

Ok so the SOL hasn't expired and its too recent to have been written off and sold to a collection agency.

If you can, see if you can make a good faith payment of maybe 25%, then installments from there.