Love, Beal & NixonQuestion:I live in Tulsa, OK and had a default
judgment against me (wife not on it) last month. This was for a MBNA (B
of A) credit card with an original balance of $22k with the judgment
being $27k.About a year and a half ago, my wife and I entered a debt
settlement plan with The Palmer Firm. This whole time, they told us not
to talk to, or respond to any of our creditors for the debts we had in
the program. They said to direct all correspondence and phone calls to
them. We did that when we received a letter requesting arbitration, and
we did that when I was served. Turns out, the only thing they did was
to send an initial letter to Bank of America and a request for debt
validation when the lawsuit was filed. They basically told us to not
respond. Needless to say, a judgment was levied against me. The best
part is the plaintiff’s attorney is Love, Beal & Nixon.After the
judgment, the Palmer Firm contacted us saying that BofA was awarded
judgment and a local attorney would contact us. He did and believed we
should consider a Chapter 13. I really don’t want to file Bankruptcy
and the bottom line is I do owe this money. So I contacted LBN to see
if i could work out something with them and to get a feel for the
situation. I have not paid them or agreed to pay them anything at this
point. If they garnish my wages, I will probably have to file
bankruptcy because I will then start defaulting on my other debts.My
questions are:1) What can LBN legally do at this point? For example,
can they legally garnish wages right now?2) What can I do or is it too
late?3) If I try to pay it, should I pay LBN or BofA?4) I still have 2
smaller cards that where about $6k each and just received a letter from
one collection agency demanding payment. How should I handle these
right now? I obviously don’t want to not respond like I was told
before.Thank you,BillAnswer: Love, Beal & Nixon again. Between them and
Baer Timberlake I don’t know which is the worst. In one way of looking
at it one is about as funny as the other but I’m sure nobody who has
been sued by either of them think they are funny as I do. I have my own
special reasons for thinking that way.On the serious side, what they
can legally do at this point is to garnish your wages or go after other
assets you might have. They can garnish your bank account(s) or other
cash assets you might have. There are many things they can do to you.
If you are going to pay anybody then it has to be LBN. I’ve never heard
of “the Palmer firm” so are they attorneys or just some debt setlement
company? Whatever they are you should never have had anything to do
with them as you most likely understand very well now. There is a
vastly better way to settle debts other than using a debt settlement
company or filing bankruptcy. Those are definitely not the only options
you have.So tell me something. When did you make your last payment to
MBNA and when did they file the lawsuit against you? I ask that to see
if there is a possibility of using statute of limitations against
them.Of course, since the judgment has already been entered against you
it would be necessary to take it to federal court if there is a SOL
question. You lost any chance of using it in local court because you
didn’t show up for court. There may very well be other causes of action
available to you but I would have to see the paperwork in the case as
well as speaking with you personally to see what might be developed. If
something can be arranged then make them pay the debt for you and get
rid of the judgment as well. They still have to go to a garnishment
hearing before they can do anything so there is another excellent
opportunity to establish grounds to sue them in federal court which is
the only way you could have won the original case anyway. You didn’t
stand a crying chance in local court in the first place unless you had
a SOL or other viable defense.I wouldn’t pay them anything and force
them to go to garnishment and then you have an excellent chance to come
up with some causes of action to sue them on.I would advise you to
immediately send a demand for validation/dispute letter to the debt
collectors in the other cases. You should not use copies of any of the
debt validation letters you find on the internet because they are
normally pretty bad. Almost all of them use legal sounding
gobble-de-gook trying to impress somebody when that is never necessary
or even advisable One should never attempt to educate the other fellow
and especially about how smart you are. The trick is to learn how smart
they are, not teach them how smart you are. Validation letters should
follow the KISS principle. “Keep IT Simple Stupid.”You can call me at
any time except this evening because I have a Jurisdictionary club
meeting this evening at Coit’s Root Beer Stand which is located on the
corner of S.W. 24th & Western here is OKC. The meeting starts at 7:00
P.M. and lasts until 9:00 P.M. We hold those meetings the 2nd Thursday
of each month and they are free and open to the public. The discussions
are all about the very problems you are having and how to deal with
them. There is no cost or obligation to attend.Tomorrow evening and
every Friday evening I hold my conference calls starting at 7:00 P.M.
They last until everybody runs out of things to talk about. Those calls
are also free of charge other than whatever the phone company charges
you. It can be expensive if you have to pay for long distance charges
but if you have something like MAGIC JACK you can not only get free
long distance calls to anywhere in the U.S. or Canada but virtually
free local service as well. I have it and the number is 405-237-2174. I
paid $110 for the magic jack and 5 years of phone service. You can
simply plug the magic jack into any phone outlet and power all the
phones in your house. You get caller ID, call forwarding, call waiting
and all the extra good stuff for the same $110. I have mine call
forwarded to my cell phone so I don’t even need to have it plugged in
to my computer at all. My cellphone is with Cricket so I can also call
anywhere and talk as long as I like and all for less than $50 a
month.The call in number for the conference call is 1-712-432-1601 and
the pin number is 508548 followed by the # sign.So why not call me or
come to the meeting tonight or get on the conference call tomorrow
night and maybe I can get you some real help to get you out of the mess
you are in.

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Posted By Creditwrench to creditwrench at 9/11/2008 08:43:00 AM