My Debt is "charged-off". Do I still owe this debt ???

Attorney Elias Leonard Dsouza, Esq. 

Life is Short. Get Rid of Debts !!!!

954-358-5911

The term "charge off" is often very confusing to most people. Many people mistakenly believe that one a debt is "charged off," they do not owe this debt any more. This is far from true.

Let's say I owe a credit card debt in the amount of $10,000 to Chase, and I stop paying on this debt. First Chase will try to collect from me for a few months. They will call me, harass me, send me collections letters, etc. But I am tough guy. I don't care, and I don't pay. 

What happens next:

Chase finally determines that the debt I owe them is no longer a "performing" asset. In plain language it means that they are not getting their minimum payments and interest on this account. They take this debt off their assets, and put the value of this asset [my debt] to Zero. Then they turn around and sell this debt to some collection company for "pennies" on the dollar, sometimes as low as 20% of the amount owed. 

Under the law, Chase has to stop reporting on your credit report, and reflect the balance as "Zero," since they no longer own this debt. Remember, they sold it to a collection agency for "pennies" on the dollar.

In real life though many times Chase and the Collection Agency reports this debt to the credit bureaus. So now you have two $10,000 debts on your report. This is when you call us so that we can get one of them off your report. 

It may so happen that this debts gets sold a few more times, and it is not surprising to see all these collectors report to the credit bureau at the same time. In theory, once the debt has been sold, the seller must stop reporting.

The million dollar question: DO I STILL OWE THIS DEBT. ANSWER: YES, YES, YES.

You owe this debt to the last collector that purchased this debt. And you owe the entire $10,000 plus interest, etc. even if the collector purchased this debt for "pennies" on the dollar.

If you have items on your credit report that are inaccurate, and you want them corrected, please contact my office. I may be able to help you.

Attorney Elias Leonard Dsouza concentrates his practice on Bankruptcy [Chapter 7, 13 & 11,] Foreclosure Defense, Defense of Credit Card Lawsuits, Credit Restoration, and Debt Settlement & Credit Counseling. Our office also handles complex Civil Litigation, Business & Corporate Transactions & Litigation, Employment Law, Collections, Creditor representation, Real estate transactions, Personal Injury, Family Law, Immigration, Landlord-Tenant law, Franchise Law, Tax Law and We Sue Debt Collectors under the Fair Debt Collection Practices.  

If you have questions on this Program, please call me at 954-358-5911.

MY MISSION:
I am very passionate about helping consumers protect their rights, and my goal is to compassionately and passionately help people reorganize their debts, help them keep all or most of their property, save their homes from Foreclosure, stop wage garnishments, and assist people to “get a fresh financial start”. I am available to assist and advise you on how to rebuild your credit and buy the new house or start the new business that you always wanted to. This is a small law firm, and as such, can and does provide personal service, professional representation, and follow up. If you would like to learn
more about your options, contact me as soon as possible for a FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION so
that I can assist you through these difficult times. I also offer an affordable payment plan for legal fees.

Elias Leonard Dsouza, Esq.
"The best compliment you could ever give me is a referral."
A CONSUMER RIGHTS PROTECTION LAW FIRM
LIFE IS SHORT. GET RID OF DEBTS !!!
"Life is Short. Get Rid of Debts"
111 N. Pine Island Rd., Suite 205
Plantation, Florida 33324
Phone: 954-358-5911
Fax: 954-357-2267
www.DsouzaLegal.com
Skype: elias.leonard.dsouza
Skype: 954-762-7608
Http://Facebook.com/Elias.Leonard.Dsouza
Blog: http://dsouzalegal.blogspot.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tips to Repair your Credit Score

Here are Some Tips to Repair Your Credit Score

If your credit score is low, it is most likely costing you money. The lower your score, the higher interest rate you will pay on everything if you can get credit at all. The following list is comprised of things that people have done to successfully raise their credit scores by hundreds of points in just a few months. It does take work but it is possible to do it yourself without spending hundreds of dollars.

 

Things to do with the Credit Reporting Agencies

1. Pull your credit report. I usually go to www.annualcreditreport.com and pull a free credit report from the 3 major credit bureaus: Transunion, Experian and Equifax. Federal law requires these bureaus to provide you with a free credit report once in every 12 months. If you have previously retrieved a credit reports from the this website, then I ask Clients to go to www.myfico.com or any one of the membership based websites, pull a credit report with the score, and then cancel the membership. If you forget to cancel the membership they will charge you a monthly fee..month after month on your credit or debit card.
2. Look for mistakes. If you see errors and there are always errors on the credit report, immediately write a letter of dispute to each of the Credit Bureaus. 
3. Old Accounts. Most accounts must automatically fall off your credit report 7 years from the date of last payment. Collection agencies buy old accounts from the original creditor and will usually start the clock all over again. Write to the Bureaus to remove this re-aged account. Write directly to the creditor or collection agency. If they cannot verify the debt they have to remove it from your credit report.
4. Collection Accounts. If a debt has passed the Statute of Limitation [in Florida it is 5 years from date of last payment,] do not pay any money towards this account. It re-starts the clock all over again.
5. Accurate Negative Information. Accurately reported negative information such as bankruptcies, foreclosures, late payments, etc. cannot be legally removed. But this should not stop you from disputing them. You should keep on disputing methodically and persistently until you get them removed. The usual time for them to fall off is 7 years, and 10 years for Bankruptcies. If you are persistent, you can get these off your credit report earlier than that. You win no matter what.
6. Verification of Debt. If credit agencies cannot verify the debt within 30 days of the dispute, they have to delete that item from your credit report.
7. Online Disputes: Don't do it. Credit Bureaus actively discourage you for doing so. After a few disputes, they will not allow you to dispute anymore. Always do it in writing. Yes, there are costs for envelopes and postage.
8. If the account is paid off but is showing past due amounts, do not dispute that it is your account but dispute that it was ever past due. It is better for your credit history to have a clean closed account than to have it removed.
9. Look for unauthorized inquiries. Having inquiries on your credit report lowers your score. If you have not authorized the company to make an inquiry, you can request that they remove it.
10. Look at the dates of last activity. A favorite among collection agencies is to restart the date of last activity when they purchase the debt. This is illegal. The date of last activity starts from the time you were late or the late payment went into collection, not from the last time you made a payment on the account. Challenge these with the credit reporting agency and they will change the date.

Next Steps

1. Look for any small recent outstanding debts and call the creditor. Negotiate payment in full if you can in exchange for them changing the credit report to paid as agreed. Get it in writing first. If you can’t pay them the full amount, negotiate a settlement for what you can afford. Insist that the credit report be changed.
2. If you have a credit card that is close to the limit, transfer some of the balance to another card to even up the available credit.
3. Don’t ever close old paid off accounts. These can actually help your credit score.
4. Write letters to collection accounts asking that they prove that the accounts are yours. If they can’t prove it, they have to remove the entry on your credit report. Give them 7 days to respond and then dispute it with the CRA again.
5. Ask for judgments to be vacated. You can have judgments reversed if you weren’t properly served or notified or if the debt isn’t yours as well as countless other legal reasons. This requires that you petition the court to have it vacated but it is possible to do this yourself.
6. If you have tried to dispute the account with the credit agency to no avail, the next step is to dispute the account with the collection company and creditors. Write them a letter stating that you do not believe the account is yours and asking them to provide written proof that it is. Most companies keep their records on the computer and after a few years, the written documentation is either destroyed or put into cold storage. This is similar to debt validation and if they cannot provide you with proof, they must remove the item from your credit report.
7. If the creditor does not remove the item from your report, you have two options:
8. Contact the attorney generals office in the city of the creditor. Tell them that there is a creditor that is damaging your credit by reporting a debt that is not yours. Let them know that you have requested proof and they could not provide it. This is free and the AG will contact the creditor and have the item removed.
9. If you want to get nasty about it file a suit in small claims court. All localities are a bit different so call your clerks office and ask how to go about it. You can sue for the damage to your credit report, expenses involved in getting it removed and emotional stress. Remember, they are in violation of the law. In most cases, the creditor or collection agency will not show up and you will win by default.
10. Pay your Bills on Time – This is a no brainer. If you are always late..how can you expect to ever improve your credit score.
11. Pay down your credit cards.You should not use more than 40-50% of your credit limit. The lower the better. It is better to have 20 credit cards which are used under the 40-50% limit than to have 1 credit card that you have used 100% of the limit.

Avoid Credit Repair Scams

1. If you are considering a credit repair or debt counseling, don't do it. They will take your money and do nothing for you. Some credit repair companies charge as much as $2000 to allegedly repair your credit.
2. If you choose to pay someone else to repair your credit, they have to give you an explanation of your legal rights, a detailed written contract and three days to cancel.
3. Avoid Emailed Credit Repair Offers – these are often fraudulent and you will be giving them way too much personal information such as SSNs, addresses, phone numbers, etc.
4. It is illegal to create a second credit file. This involves creating a new identity. Don’t do it. Some credit repair companies will offer to do this. Again, it’s illegal.
5. If you are going to use a credit repair company, check them out thoroughly before signing or paying anything. Is it guaranteed? References? Better Business Bureau complaints?
6. Be VERY CAUTIOUS about giving any information out over the internet. Remember that in order to even pull your credit report, the company will need your personal information. Remember it could a "scan artist" sitting in Ukraine asking for your most personal information such as social security number, date of birth, address, etc.

Attorney Elias Leonard Dsouza concentrates his practice on Bankruptcy [Chapter 7, 13 & 11,] Foreclosure Defense, Defense of Credit Card Lawsuits, Credit Restoration, and Debt Settlement & Credit Counseling. Our office also handles complex Civil Litigation, Business & Corporate Transactions & Litigation, Employment Law, Collections, Creditor representation, Real estate transactions, Personal Injury, Family Law, Immigration, Landlord-Tenant law, Franchise Law, Tax Law and We Sue Debt Collectors under the Fair Debt Collection Practices.

Attorney Elias Leonard Dsouza is also a member of the Broward County Small Law Firm Networking Group. If I cannot assist you in any legal matter, I will refer you to a member of the Small Law Firm Networking Group who may be able to help you.

  

Did you know that You can get rid of a second mortgage in a Chapter 13 Bankruptcy if there is no equity in the home. www.DsouzaLegal.com

Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Can Strip HOA Lien

The higher costs of strategic mortgage default

The higher costs of strategic mortgage default

Student Loan, the next big crises for young and old people. Student loans do not get discharged in a Bankruptcy unless you can prove undue harship which is very difficult to prove. www.DsouzaLegal.com

Student loans push up bankruptcies

11.1 Million Homes in the USA are underwater. There is a solution. www.DsouzaLegal.com

Report: 22.8 Percent of U.S. Homes Are Underwater

03/01/2012 The number of homes with negative equity, also known as underwater homes, went up for the 2011 fourth quarter to 11.1 million, or 22.8 percent, CoreLogic revealed in a release today.

Third quarter numbers showed 10.7 million properties to be in negative equity, or 22.1 percent.
Borrowers with less than 5 percent equity in their homes, also known as near-negative equity, stood at 2.5 million for the fourth quarter. In total, those with negative equity and near-negative equity equaled 27.8 percent of all residential properties.
This figure was also up from the third quarter, when negative and near-negative equity had a combined totaled of 27.1 percent.
Nationally, the total mortgage debt outstanding on underwater properties stood at $2.8 trillion in the fourth quarter, compared to $2.7 trillion in the previous quarter.
“Due to the seasonal declines in home prices and slowing foreclosure pipeline which is depressing home prices, the negative equity share rose in late 2011,” said Mark Fleming,

chief economist with CoreLogic. “The negative equity share is back to the same level as Q3 2009, which is when we began reporting negative equity using this methodology.”
Fleming further explained that the high level of negative equity coupled with the inability to pay is the “double trigger” of default, but with the economic recovery, there should be a reduction in the “inability to pay trigger.”
The states with the highest level of negative equity were Nevada (61 percent), Arizona (48 percent), Florida (44 percent), Michigan (35 percent) and Georgia (33 percent). These five states had a combined average 44.3 percent of the share of negative equity, whereas the remaining states have a combined average negative equity share of 15.3 percent.
Out of the 11.1 million borrowers with underwater mortgages, 6.7 million had first liens with negative equity, and the remaining 4.4 million had first and second liens.
The average mortgage balance for the first lien borrowers was $219,000, with an underwater average of $51,000, and a loan-to-value ratio of 130 percent. Those who were upside down with first and second liens had an average mortgage balance of $306,000, were upside down by about $84,000, and had an LTV of 138 percent.
Nearly 18 million borrowers had an LTV between 80 percent and 125, making them eligible for HARP 1.0. With the implementation of HARP 2.0 in December 2011, the 125 percent cap was removed, widening eligibility for refinancing under the government program to 22 million borrowers based on LTV alone.
CoreLogic included 48 million properties with a mortgage, which accounts for over 85 percent of all mortgages in the U.S., when putting together the report.

How to Avoid Bankruptcy By Fighting Back

Written by John Skiba, Esq.

in Collection Law Suits,Debt Settlement,Fair Debt Collection

A lot of what I do each day here in the Phoenix valley is help families file for bankruptcy.  As part of that process I go through my client’s bills and pull their credit in effort to get as many of their debts as possible.  In doing so I often see judgments that have been entered against my clients by the various debt buying companies that operate in Arizona – typically Midland Funding, LVNV Funding, or Portfolio Recovery.
These judgments are typically entered because my clients did not bother to respond to the lawsuit.  Once a default judgment was entered by the court they saw their wages garnished and their bank accounts emptied.  These events are usually the final straw that leads to bankruptcy.
Many times there are other debt issues and bankruptcy would be necessary even if a judgment wasn’t hanging out there.  But there are some cases where clients can pay their other debts but are forced into bankruptcy because their wages are being garnished by Midland Funding or some other debt buyer and now they simply can’t make ends meet (in Arizona a creditor can take 25% of each of your paychecks through wage garnishment).
Many times in collections lawsuits the debt buying company has a difficult time proving that you owe money to them.  Often they don’t have evidence that they are the true owners of the debt or that they are suing the right person.  I had a trial recently against one of the big debt buyers where they showed up with no witnesses and no documents to prove their case!  The court ended up dismissing their case and now we are seeking to have the debt buyer pay my client’s attorney’s fees.
If the rest of your debt situation is manageable but you find yourself facing a collection lawsuit by one of the debt buyers, meet with a consumer attorney.  Find out what defenses you have and how you can deal with this issue without having to file for bankruptcy.