Collection agency will NOT give payment option

Welcome to the Community :D Do you mean you were served a summons for a court date and suit? Did they serve it at your home?

Can you tell us what state you are in, and what company you are dealing with? The first thing you should do is, answer the summons in the time that they give you.

Do you know for sure that you owe the debt and these people are legally holding and able to collect on it?

Sorry for all the questions, but these will help give you a direction to go.

Answer the summons, and be sure to go to court on the date, or they will get a default judgement against you. The judge will set up payments-be sure and take papers showing all your living expenses, etc., with you. Also, some states, you can file a hardship, and they will work with you(in court) on payments..Good Luck..Keep us posted..Karen

Your most important move at this point is ANSWER THE SUMMONS AND NOT TO MISS THE COURT DATE! If you do not show up, the judge will have no choice but to enter a default judgement against you in favor of the creditor, which can lead to garnishment of your wages.

they tried to hand deliver the summons but noone was home so it was sent regular mail. it is not for a date but to respond. the company is Cohen & Slomowitz atternies in Woodbury NY.. when i called it stated that this was an attempt to collect debt. It is my debt but they will not accept any payment options and i can not afford to pay in full or even settle..

collection agencies are not required to accept payment plans from you. When an account defaults balance is due in full.

Make sure you answer your summons. You won't go to jail by missing or showing up for your court date. There is no debtor jail.

Have you contacted the court to validate the summons? No date on the summons?

No matter what, you can????????t go to jail. If they told you that, they were lying. Call your court and make sure that is a real summons because many unethical CA????????s will try to fake you out by intimidating you into paying.

I never thought that the summons could not be real. I am going to call my local court tomorrow I wonder if they will verify it over the phone. things always seem to come all at once I got about 19 calls today from another collector NES national enterprise and of course everyone wants their money in full... dont know what im going to do

Depending on the debt type and amount, an agency will not sue if you are making some type of payment each month. Where most go wrong is they never pay anything at all - just promise to do so and never do.

If you send them money and they return it too you as a refusal, you have even more to stand on in court. Most likely they will apply the money. They know that if it is truly the best you can do, they will get no more than that even if they went to court. But you have to start paying them something.

I was thinking of just sending each i owe something to show that i was tryng to pay it down, but i have read that if you dont pay what they require they can apply what you send as fees and nothing will go towards what they say you owe...as much as i want to pay down the debt i dont want to waste money if i send 100 or 200 i dont want that to be lost to fees

That truely depends on what type of debt it is. If it is a credit card that hasn't charged off and is still recieving fee's then yes, you do pay the fee's first before paying on the principal.

Tell the CA that they either accept the plan or get nothing and sue if they want. Then they will waste a bunch of time and they will have a judgment that still will not get them paid in full in one lump sum. Then they can get the judge to set a court order payment plan which probably will not vary much from what you are proposing anyway. So basically they can accept a payment plan now or they can screw around and waste a year to end up with the same payment plan.

I don't see how being hostile is going to get things solved. You don't even really need to speak with them. Just because they won't accept your proposal doesn't mean you can't make a payment twards the balance. I sincerely doubt they are going to be sending your money back to you.

As it has been said here, they do not have to offer a payment option...there is no law forcing this. However, what many of these creditors/CAs do not realize is that you cannot squeeze blood from a rock, either. Yes, if the SOL is not passed on a debt, they can go through the courts to collect, and in the end, they will just end up having to accept a payment arrangement ordered by the court. In cases of a judgment, they could also potentially attach certain assets. I would check with your state laws to see what is safe, and what is not (i.e., in Texas, creditors cannot go after real estate it if it the person's primary residence, or homestead...they could, however, go after rental properties a person may own).

The first thing you should do is take a look at the 'caption on the summons' and copy that on your computer, DO NOT FORGET THE INDEX NUMBER!!!

Then look at the complaint and just review the claims they make. If you deny just write "the defendant denies this on accounts of..." and if you acknowledge say "the defendant acknowledges this as true"....

then draft affirmative defenses according to the state law based on SOL, type of service (nail and mail or personal service).

then draft an affidavit of service by mail (you can do regular mail) and have a friend just sign the affidavit (have it notarized) and put it in an envelope and drop at post office.

"_____name agrees that he/she is not a party of the action, at least 18 years of age and resides in ____"

"Name has served 'ANSWER TO SUMMONS AND COMPLAINT" upon 'name of law firm' by placing it in a wrapper entrusted via first class mail with the United States Postal service"

______signed and dated

Sworn to before me_____________notary public _____date
NOTARY SEAL

quick and simple.

Then personally file a copy with the county clerk (bring two copies) file one and stamp one for yourself!

my summons turned out to be real. It is a summons to reply to them not for court date. I sent a letter will see what happens. I also sent letters for my other accounts in collections. Just hope that all works out. still fear the whole going to court and have pay garnished. know that employers cant fire you becuase of garnishment, but have heard that they dont like it. they can always find another reason to fire someoone. in my letters asked to be contacted by mail becuse I dont have home phone (which is true) wonder if that can cause a problem.

We sent a settlement letter for an acct to Rannefeld & Assoc (plus others) the middle of August and asked them to respond in writing within 10 days. They contacted my husband today (his debt) and offered 70% then 50%. My husband asked if they received the fax and the gentleman said that he had. At that time I came home and my husband handed the phone to me. The gentlemen than went on to state that Rannefeld had sent us an offer to settle our acct for $867 (our offer to them) but we rejected it. I corrected him that we had sent the fax and we never heard from them. He then stated that the CACH didn't accept the $867 offer but would go for 50%. I gave him a counteroffer and after a few minutes on hold, he accepted the counteroffer. However he would only send it to me by FAX and that would mean that I would have had to run about 20 miles to get it (our fax machine does not work for incoming faxes as it only prints half a page). He also told me after I spoke with him for about 10 minutes that he was recording the call...that he had told my husband. I told him that he didn't say anything to me until that time about recording and he did not have my permission. My husband also later told me that he specifically told Rannefeld & Assoc that they did not have permission to record.

I was eventually turned over to his manager who still refuses to send me a letter accepting the offer to settle the debt. He also confirmed he was recording and I stated that he did not have my permission and he stated that he did not need it. He then contradicted his subordinate by stating that the counteroffer wasn't even approved and therefore he couldn't give me a confirmation letter. He wants me to send him the funds (post-dated check) so the company knows we are serious about settling this debt. I really am uncomfortable about doing that. I even offered to give my email address so he could scan the letter and email it to me but he said he can't do that until the offer is approved by company and he won't present the offer to the company until he receives my funds. He stated that they will proceed with legal action.

We made settlements with other companies and it went smoothly. This seems fishy to me. Any thoughts as to how I should handle. Please help. Thank you.

To the OP, how much was this original debt for? And how long has it been in collections?

I know that the CA doesn't have to accept any kind of payment plan, but wouldn't it benefit them to do so? Instead of spending all of the money in court costs, etc? I'm sure it depends on the situation.

I am in a similar boat, but I haven't been sued yet (knock wood). My debt is only about $1,300 and I am going to to send the CA a letter proposing a $200 payment a month until it is satisfied. I hope it is accepted.

i had dealings with a few collection agencies, when i called and promised to pay then i'd ask if they used western union or money gram. and i'd pay what we'd agree, they always said as long as i was paying something monthly they'd leave me alone. i was shocked when i read in these forums alot of the collection agencies expect payment in full. "hello collection agencies" not alot of people can pay off the debts in full, and they should be lucky people are trying to pay off the accounts the best they are able to. if the agencies have to go to court to collect the money then blam they'll have to except the court proposed payments anyway especially if its proven to be a hard ship case. so the collection agencies would loose money that way. so why would they say no to somebody trying to pay off their debt in their own way.

In way2muchdebt did u answer the summons u recieved? Make sure to answer it in proper format per ur state before the time alotment they gave u or they will get a default judgement. If u need i have saved a copy of how to answer a summons now u will have to look it up in ur state to make sure it is answered the correct way...
Let me know and i 'll post it for ya!
Ang
P.S. Oopps sorry didn't see that hockeyman had already posted on how to answer. If u need a little more info i have it shown as answered to the courts. Helps to understand the format a little better but it's jsut like he said.

Thanks for the info I did reply to the summons, but did not know I had to send copy to the county court. Spoke with them today and they said just to mail it to them.

Did u answer it according to the law of ur state? In other words, in the right format, right size paper, all that matters when answering a summons.
Good Luck and let us know how it goes,
Ang

Collection and agencies do hjave to shell out for court fee's and attny fee's but if they wil you will be the one who ends up paying the fee's. It's somehting they tack on.

I would never pay a SIF without some form of documentation.

Actually credit collection companies often do send payments back. I have been dealing with one to whom I owe a good sum and I send payments they send them back. Then they call me and tell me they won't accept anything except the payment in full. I tell them I can't do that and that if they don't accept what I can pay then I just won't pay them anything until I can get the full amount and yet they still send my payments back each month. I keep sending them anyway just in case it goes to court so I can show that I am trying and they are refusing them. These tactics should be illegal. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be. I have always had good credit but when you lose your job in this economy, that goes down the drain in a hurry and when they won't accept payments, it just keeps on going down.