being sued by collection agency/credit card company
Date: Fri, 09/19/2008 - 07:24
I'm a 20 year old college student. As soon as I turned 18 I got caught up in the lore of credit cards to the point where I applied for 3 and got accepted?! (BAD mistake on my part). Initially I was able to pay on all of them but then I eventually started to miss payments because of unplanned events (mom had heart attack, school issues ect.) and my interest rates on all 3 rose. At one point in time I had a payment plan for each of them but then I missed payment plans not because I didn't want to pay them but simply because I didn't have the money & didn't have anyone else to get it from and the agreements were broken. I unfortunately decided to ignore them because everytime we (credit card representative and I) talk I'd give them the same reply: I can only pay you X amount and that amount wasn't good enough for them. Today my mom called me and told me that she was served with papers saying I'm being sued by Capital One in the amount of $1517.06 and I have 30 days to respond or they will render a judgement that will include garnishing my wages in the future (which they can do for 20 years in the state of N.Y and up to 90% of my wages) and it will go on my already horrible credit history. I of course called the collection agency & they once again offered me unrealistic payment options: A one time payment of 1200, two payments of 644 or a payment of 500 with 150.00 monthly thereafter. I explained to them that it's impossible for me to pay any of these amounts!! I'm a college student and I don't even work 10 hours a week, I barely have money to pay utilities & such. On top of that I'm out state at school and would like to allocate my mother as power of attorny but when I called the City Clerk & two other legal aid numbers (one specifically dealing with credit card debt) no one offered me a feasible solution besides responding to the lawsuit...but how do I go about doing that besides writing them a letter of response? Is there a certain guideline or specific information I have to include and who do I send it to? Please help I'm going out of my mind.
Not sure but I think if you go ahead and send them what you CAN
Not sure but I think if you go ahead and send them what you CAN pay that if they do still sue you in court the judge will not garnish your wages because you are trying to make payments back now. I'm going through something similar. If they cash your checks that you're sending then they're accepting your payments. I'd try that unless someone else has better advice for you on here. Good luck.
