St. Louis Attorney

"We bought this debt legally from your credit card company."
Truth: Some collections companies just buy huge lists of names of people who are behind in their
payments to credit card companies. But that's not good enough to be considered a legal assignment
of the credit card company's interest in the debt. In other words, the collections company hasn't
done what they need to do to actually buy the debt from the creditor. If you're being sued by a
collections company for an alleged credit card debt, I'll make sure they legally own the debt. You'd
be shocked at how often they can't prove that they have a legal assignment of the creditor's interest
in the debt. And that means that they have no right to collect from you.

"You have to pay us the full balance from your credit card, plus interest, plus our
attorney's fees."
Truth: Typically, by the time a credit card debt is sold to a collections company, very little of the
balance is principle. Most of it is made up of interest and late fees. But the collections company
wants to treat the balance as though it's all principle, then charge you their own interest on this
ficticious "principle", and then tell you that you are obligated to pay for their attorney's fees on top of
that. But the truth is, in most cases, even if the original credit card debt was valid, you only have to
pay for the amounts that they can PROVE are fair and reasonable charges, and you don't have to
pay interest or late fees -- only principle. But since all they have is your name and a total dollar
amount, they typically can not prove what part of that dollar figure is principle, and they certainly can
not prove that the principle portion which you were orginally charged was "fair and reasonable." So
you typically don't have to pay them ANYTHING.

"It doesn't matter how old the debt is."
Truth: The law limits the amount of time the collections company has to collect a debt. Depending
on what kind of collection proceeding they opt for, the time limit is either five or ten years. But in
many cases, even if they act like they have ten years, they really only have five, and have already run
out of time before they ever get around to suing you. So guess what? They lose.

"You breached your contract with the credit card company."
Truth: In the vast majority of cases, people don't actually sign contracts for credit cards. Most of
the time, they apply for a credit card through the mail or on the telephone, then the credit card
company sends the consumer the card, along with a "Card Holder Agreement." The collections
company will sue you for "breach of contract" and try to tell you that a card holder agreement is a
contract. But it isn't. There a several things that a document must have to be legally considered a
contract. One of those things is your signature. You probably did sign an "application for credit", but
that's not a contract, either. When the collections company sues you, the first thing we ask them to
show us is a signed contract. And in almost every case, they simply don't have one. So they lose,
and you don't owe them anything at all.

"Everything we're doing to collect this debt is legal."
Truth: Collections companies have to follow laws when they attempt to collect a debt. These laws,
such as the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act (FDCPA) and some Missouri laws, are designed to
make sure that collections companies don't harass, or take advantage of, consumers. If the
collections company violates these rules when trying to collect a debt from you, the Judge can make
the collections company pay you a fine of up to $1,000.00 per violation. This means that by the end
of the case, not only will you NOT be paying the collections company, but the collections company
may end up having to pay you.