OK, I used to work as a paralegal for Wolpoff and Abramson, who, along with Mann Bracken, was bought out by Axiant. I've been reading some of the comments here and would like to offer some help to everyone.
First off, for people who are wondering if Mann Bracken is a real law firm or just a collection agency and whether or not they are licensed in your state, I will just say this: yes, they are a real law firm with full power of attorney, and if they are not licensed in your state, they will just hire licensed attorneys from the National Collection Attorney Network. If you think that you can get off on a technicality because you think that they are not licensed to sue you in your state, you will be sorely disappointed.
The first thing you can do to protect yourself is to send them a letter to cease and desist all communication to stop the collection calls and letters. Make sure the letter has a fake return address; you want to make it hard for them to know where you are currently residing. I suggest asking a relative if you can use their address. If they did not cease contact, keep track of all the letters they send you (through your relative's address) and record all calls made to you. Once you have collected a couple of letters, you can use it to threaten them with. Tell them to stop the litigation against you or you will counter sue them. I suggest for everyone to read the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act for more information.
Hiding your current address is very important. Suits are expensive, and the hardest part of litigation is the service. Service for a debt collection suit has only a 20% chance of success. They will want to limit the service attempts to about 2, maybe 3 times at most. After that, they will give up and send the account back to the original creditor. To beat service, if you don't mind your family or roommates knowing that you are in debt, tell them to tell the process servers or sheriff - depending on your what state you're in, service can be effectuate by a process server or sheriff - that you moved to another address but that they have no means of contacting you. That way, the process server or sheriff cannot substitute your family for service because there will be no guarantee that your family can contact you to let you know that you have been served.
If you are unfortunate enough to be served, do not disregard the service papers. It varies from state to state, but essentially, the service packet will include a summons to appear for trial, complaint, notice to defend, affidavit, and some other papers. The summons, complaint, and notice are the papers that will be most important in the packet. The summons will tell you when and where you have the hearing date is for your trial or pretrial. If you don't show up to court, you will almost always get a judgment entered against you by default. Half the battle is to simply show up. The complaint will let you know who is suing you and for how much. The notice will tell you what you can do to defend yourself; it usually involves writing an arbitrary statement to the court. Always defend yourself. As a former paralegal for this company, I can certainly tell you that a disputed case, whether or not the dispute is real, makes getting judgment twice as hard because of the obstacle of proving the debt is real and that it does belong to you. By disputing the debt and showing up to court, the attorneys will have to order documents from the original creditor to prove the debt. Half of the time, the original creditor will no longer have the necessary documents or it will take to long to get the documents and the attorney will have to dismiss that suit. So remember, always defend, always show up to court hearings, and always ask for validation of the debt with documents.
For people who are in real financial hardship but still want to pay off the debt, there are things you can do as well. If you can prove that you really are in hardship - laid off, disable, multiple debts, dependents, etc., you can request a court ordered stipulation. In some states, it is also called a consent order or a consent judgment. Essentially, it is a payment arrangement that has been filed with a court. It will typically say, "I, John Doe, as the debtor, agree to pay Mann Bracken who represents the original creditor, Whatever Co., a total of $xxxx.xx with monthly payments of $xx.xx due on the 1st of each month starting on January 1, 2010." The thing about stipulations is that they are typically set at very low monthly payments. I've personally drafted stipulations as low as $15 per month on an account with a balance of $2000. The reason that they will accept such low payments is because the stipulation will guarantee them an automatic judgment if you default, so make sure you adhere to the terms of the stipulation. Also, sometimes they will have no choice but to accept a stipulation. Sometimes, they will take a debtor to court and the debtor will prove to the judge that they are in hardship. The judge can then order Mann Bracken to accept a stipulation with very low payments on a high balance even if they do not want to.
Well, after years of experience working as a paralegal for Wolpoff and Abramson, these are the tricks that I've learned. I also know people who are still working for Mann Bracken. I've heard rumors that they have lost a lot of money and can no longer afford to pay process servers or the sheriff offices money for services anymore. Just earlier this year, they were being sued because the National Arbitration Forum is a subsidiary of Axiant, who owns WA and MB. So there were claims of a conflict of interest. Maybe if you all hold out long enough, MB will go bankrupt before they can get judgment against you. Good luck to all you out there.
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