Frequently Asked Questions: Sued by a Debt Collector in California
These are the questions I hear most from Californians who have just been sued by a debt collector. Straight answers, no legalese. Click a question to open it.
Q. I was Served with a Debt Collection Summons, What Should I Do?
Fight it!
Here's the strange comfort in getting served. The debt was already hanging over you, and you knew it. Now it's taken on a concrete form, and although that's scary, it's also more certain. You can look at it and decide what to do about it.
What you do about it is respond within thirty days, and make the debt collector prove its case. Especially when the plaintiff is a debt buyer rather than your original bank, there's a good chance it can't. Often it can't even prove it owns your account. Cases like these frequently end far better than people expect when they're defended, and defending also buys time, which is worth more than most people realize.
Although the outcome can't be guaranteed, you can offload the process, so you know that whatever can be done is being done while you go about the rest of your life.
Q. How Much Does it Cost to Get an Attorney?
Attorney Ian Chowdhury understands the financial difficulties of people seeking this type of service, and has made his services especially affordable for debt collection defense cases. Fees are flat-rate and scale with the amount of the debt claimed against you — the current fee schedule is explained in the short video on the home page and will be confirmed during your free consultation. Of course some cases are more novel and complex (and therefore more expensive) than others, so exact fee and cost structures cannot be provided here. If you are truly broke, sometimes an even more economical arrangement can be worked out (see below). Rest assured, you will be told exactly what to expect in terms of fees and costs before agreeing to representation. You will never receive an unwelcome surprise on a bill from the Law Office of Ian Chowdhury. Paying in installments is sometimes possible, and so is payment by credit card. On the other hand, choosing not to be represented generally turns out to be a very expensive mistake!
Q. How Can I Get a Free Consultation?
Simply pick an available fifteen-minute time-slot on the scheduling page. That's the whole process. The call is a telephone conversation with me, Ian Chowdhury, directly. No intake screener, no telemarketer, and nobody will call you six times afterward. Don't worry, there is no charge for this initial consultation.
Q. Can't I Ignore the Problem (Like I've been doing for Months)?
Now that you have been served with a summons, the game has changed. You can no longer ignore this problem, because that would allow the debt collector to very quickly obtain an automatic judgment against you (called a default judgment). The debt collector wants you to ignore the summons because then you'll get hit with a default judgment! Once the court issues a default judgment, there are various ways that the debt collector can simply take the money from you without your consent. For example, they can levy your bank account -- meaning that they can take the money directly from your account. They can garnish your wages if you have a job. They can put a lien on your house. Waiting and ignoring worked for a while, no doubt. But now that you have been sued, failing to respond quickly and properly would be a very costly mistake.
People talk themselves into waiting just a little longer anyway. That reasoning ends with you run over by a legal bus.
Q. What if I Can't Afford an Attorney?
Many people being sued by debt collectors and banks have this exact concern! After all, if you could afford to have an attorney at your beck and call, you wouldn't be in this mess.
First let's clear up an error that many people make when thinking about this. By hiring an attorney, the odds are that you will spend less -- much less -- than what you would pay if you did not hire an attorney. Well represented consumers (such as those represented by the Law Office of Ian Chowdhury) often end up paying the debt collector either nothing at all, or only a fraction of the amount originally claimed. So, look at it this way: If you can't afford to pay the debt collector, then you can't afford not to hire an attorney. Naturally, there are no guarantees in litigation, and results vary, and any results discussed here are not typical, etc., etc.. But the bottom line is, that the Law Office of Ian Chowdhury has saved many, many thousands of dollars for its clients facing debt collection lawsuits. If someone asked you "would you rather pay ten-thousand dollars or one-thousand dollars?" which would you chose?
Apart from all this, you may be interested to know, that if you are really, truly broke -- so that you qualify under the court's criteria for a waiver of all court filing fees -- then you may also qualify for reduced price legal representation. Any such discount must be discussed with and approved in advance.
And, of course, you can pay with a credit card.
Q. But What if I Really Owe the Money?
First of all, don't be so sure that you "really" owe the money to the company that is suing you. If you are being sued by anyone other than the original creditor, there is a good chance that the entity suing you does not even own the account. There are companies called "debt buyers" who claim to have purchased old defaulted credit card accounts, which they then sue on. Often these companies cannot prove their ownership of the account. Indeed, sometimes people are approached by more than one such company, both claiming to own the same account!
Regulators have seen the same thing. In a 2015 consent order, the CFPB found that one of the largest debt buyers had purchased debts that were potentially inaccurate, lacking documentation, or unenforceable. (Findings per the CFPB; the order was resolved by settlement.) If you know which company is suing you, I've written about several of them, including Midland Funding, LVNV Funding, and Portfolio Recovery Associates.
Additionally, even if the case looks hopeless to you, it probably isn't. If nothing else, a settlement might be obtained that is far more favorable than what you could have obtained without an attorney. Consumers who do not hire a good attorney end up paying unjustifiable and excessive late fees and over-limit fees. Unrepresented consumers settle on completely unreasonable terms. Unrepresented consumers have their wages garnished and their bank accounts levied (emptied) by debt collectors. The fact that you fell upon hard times and had to feed yourself and your family instead of making credit card payments, does not mean debt collectors have the right to bleed you dry. Especially when you can avoid such a result by hiring an attorney.
Q. What If I Pay an Attorney, and Lose the Case Anyway?
It is possible to lose a case. However, the vast majority of the time, consumers represented by Ian Chowdhury obtain extremely favorable results. Few if any attorneys have had better success in defending consumers against debt collectors. Even if you do lose, you are better off for having hired an attorney and joined the battle, for several reasons. For one thing, by engaging in the case, you have probably bought yourself about a year of time. Although it is improper to engage in litigation solely for the purpose of delay, it is a simple fact that you have a right to demand the other side to prove their case, and often a contested case takes a year or more to result in a judgment, and this extra time can truly be a life saver for many people. For another thing, even after losing a case, an attorney can often negotiate a settlement with the other side that is better than what the consumer would have gotten by himself or herself. Finally, in a limited jurisdiction case (under $25,000), the court can entertain a consumer's request to allow a "payment plan" in satisfaction of the judgment, that would preclude the debt collector from using other more coercive methods of judgment enforcement.
Q. So, I'll Contact You; Meanwhile, Can You Give Me any Useful Info.?
When standing up to debt collectors, your best weapons are good information, and a competent attorney. In terms of information, read the blog postings on this site. As for hiring a top notch California attorney, few if any attorneys can match Ian Chowdhury's success in defending consumers against debt collectors.