4 options when police call about debt

Justin Harelik - Bankrate.com - November 10,2009

Q: Recently I got a call from the police. They told me that a creditor has filed a lawsuit against me as a result of a personal loan from that lender. I made payments and I could not make payments anymore because I lost my job. Now I am still without a job and can't afford to fight any legal battle. What should I do?


A: I completely understand the approach you took to your financial distress: head in the sand. You simply could not pay the debt and could not afford to respond to the lawsuit that the creditor filed against you. So you decided the best approach was to do nothing and hope that ignoring the problem would resolve it. This is not uncommon, but unfortunately, the sheriff's department in your county or town is very aggressive and acts on this type of judicial order.

Here is basically what happened: The lender considered all available options when you started to miss payments. The lender sent letters and made phone calls asking for payment. These collection efforts went unanswered. You had a good reason since you had no job and could not pay. But the creditor does not care.

Then the lender filed a lawsuit against you. The lender was supposed to serve you with papers regarding the lawsuit. This does not always happen. As I have written before, some unscrupulous lenders serve you via "gutter service," meaning the lender's process server -- the person that hands you the lawsuit papers -- simply discards the papers into the gutter and claims he or she served you with them.

Read the rest of the story:

4 options when police call about debt

----------------------------------------------