Zwicker Suing after ARB sent

I would advise you to follow the advice of the court. Contact Zwicker and know what is exactly happening. Don't waste any time.

I got served yesterday by Zwicker and they are collecting on behalf of FIA.
I got sued after I sent them the verification and the ARB. The court date is in Februrary.
Any advice, I really have no funds to settle. BK is the only option not sure if I will qualify for that.
I had 70K cc debt. Settled all other but only this B of A for $12K. Dont know what to do.

Did you send your letter certified? Do you have a receipt proving they received it prior to the suit being filed?

These letters were sent before the suite was filed and were sent via certified mail.
I do have two returned slips one for each leter sent.

If you have receipts proving your debt validation request and arbitration request were received prior to suit being filed, you should contact your attorney general and file a complaint against this collector for the FDCPA violation. Collection activity is required to cease once the validation request is received. Filing suit is collection activity.

Also, if you invoked arbitration, and it was done as per your contract and prior to the suit being filed, that's a contractual violation.

Also, you need to respond to your summons and show up in court on the date.

I hope your agreement has JAMS as an option for arbitration.

Be sure when you get served, to file your answer/affirmative defenses "and" file a MTC arbitration with the court and send copies of everything to the attorney and the creditor.

If they don't stop the suit after electing arbitration, you have them for breach of contract.

Thank you all for your help.
Is there a way to find out if I have JAMS?
I have been served it has court date but does not talk about me submitting the answer, is shoing up to the court is same is anwering it?
Thanks again.

I couldn't post for awhile, but I think it is letting me this time.

Check your pms as I sent you one. Let me know the answers to the questions and then I will check the agreements.

This B of A card was opened in 2006 and went in default in 2010. It went to FIA and I was making minumum payments with FIA untill April 2011 to settle the account and for it going to collection. Could not keep the minimum payment or were able to settle and they changed settlement about few times.
I live in TN.
Debt verification sent on 8/10 ARB sent on 8/20. Suit filed on NOV 29th
Got Served on the Dec 26th. The court Date is in Feb 2012.
Checking my option how to handle Zwicker now, Used up all my money to settle other accounts.
Thanks for all of yours help.

The 2006 BOA agreement only had NAF for arbitration. And NAF is no longer in business.

You do have them on violation though as you did pre-elect arbitration and they ignored and sued you anyway.

However, I don't like the possible choice of AAA as a forum as you could have to reimburse them for arbitration fees.

JAMS is the preferred choice as a forum as the creditor cannot get their fees reimbursed for arbitration.

I'll see if I can find anything for BOA or FIA that might have JAMS for you.

The 2006 BOA only had NAF as an arbitration forum and NAF no longer exists. However, I think there are some BOA that have AAA. Let me see if I can find any and how they read. You have to be careful with AAA as in some contracts, they can asked to be reimbursed for the arbitration. If you can ever choose JAMS, you don't have to worry about that.

Thank you for your help, would love to know about AAA.
Thanks again.

Actually, it seems that with you making payments later to FIA might have ruined your chances of arbitration.

They made a change in the agreements June of 2010. So, arbitration is out the window after that point.

I wish I had better news for you.

I found an interesting FIA agreement that I think you should take a look at.

I'm sending you a pm in a minute.

Hello, you seem to know alot about NCO, my mom had a credit card with Bank of America, with about 12,000 on it. she made payments always on time until the put her payments up over $400 a month, so she had to stop. Thats when FIA Cards services started in on her. Now she has had a judgement put on her land, and the late fees have jumped her new total to over $30,000. She just got served papers that said she has 20 days to make the payment, or they land will be sold to pay the debt. Also, this is the best part, my mom, my 85 year old grandmother, and my dad who had a stroke last year and is paralized on one side, will all be thrown out and homeless. Over a credit card debt. Is this still america? I also called bank of America, and FIA to explain the situation, and they said our account was sold to NCO, and we have never even heard of them, or have their name on anything ever sent to our mom. does anyone have any advice, this seems to be happening all over. Didnt Bank of America get a huge Bail out. who is there to help us, this seems unreal. Gary Lane - [COLOR="Blue"][Email removed per Terms of Service][/COLOR] - OG1

Your parents need to file bankrutpcy ASAP.

What is happening has nothing to do with the bail outs so dont even bother bringing that up. Your parents were sued because they didnt pay a debt and the creditor is entitled to recover. The balance has jumped because of the interest accrual and the court and legal costs.

Advertising information removed per tos

The first thing to know is that zwicker is given guidelines by their client, whether it be Boa, discover, amex.... etc. Boa is probably the easiest creditor to deal with. Zwicker typically tells their collectors to hard ball consumers with their blanket settlement. Which is usually a ridiculous number. If you have been served a summons and complaint. The best thing to do is to respond by filing your response with the clerk of courts. As for contacting zwicker....well if you are a consumer or a debt settlement company they put you into a certain classification and getting a below blanket settlement is near impossible. I know from personal experience. It took our firm a while to rectify our classification with their firm to a paralegal. If you do happen to get a collector to listen to you......what you want to do is to get them to take an offer back to their client,their client being BOA/ FIA. You need a good hardship letter, that references...things like medical problems, loss of wages not problems due to the economy....that wont hold any water with them. A good offer to start out with is 17%...... you must convince them to take the offer to their client. If it is BOA dont expect a quick response. If they do it means they never took the offer to their client to begin with. They should come back with a counter offer. In any case.....a decent settlement for zwicker BOA legal is about 25-30% of the debt. We usually deal directly with the attorneys though. Good luck