FAQs When Sued by Palisades

Fight it! And win!  To maximize your chances, consider hiring California consumer attorney, Ian Chowdhury, to take advantage of his  in-depth experience defending consumers against Palisades. With help, you may be able to fend off the lawsuit entirely, or settle the case with a surprisingly small payment... even if you initially think that you have no defense! You may even be able to turn the tables by suing Palisades for unfair collection practices.

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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!

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To inquire about being represented in your case against Palisades, simply fill out the form on our Contact page. as completely as possible. Consumer attorney, Ian Chowdhury will personally respond to your inquiry ASAP -- usually the same day -- to sort through the details. Don't worry, there is no charge for this initial consultation.

Fill in the contact-form now to request a free attorney consultation about your case.

Now that you have been served with a summons, the game has changed. You can no longer ignore this problem, because that would allow Palisades to very quickly obtain an automatic judgment against you (called a default judgment). Palisades 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 Palisades  can simply take the money from you without your consent. For example, Palisades  could levy your bank account -- meaning that it could take the money directly from your account.  It  could garnish your wages if you have a job.  Palisades could 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.

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Many people being sued by Palisades 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 collectors, including Palisades, 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, 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.  For many consumers, it  is as if hiring an attorney ends up costing  negative money. It is as if someone asked "would you rather pay ten-thousand dollars or one-thousand dollars?" You get the idea.

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, or with your PayPal account.

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First of all, don't be so sure that you "really" owe the money to the company that is suing you. Palisades is not the original creditor, but a debt buyer, so there is a good chance that it does not even own the account. Often debt buyers 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!

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.

Fill in the contact-form now to request a free attorney consultation about your case.

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 themself. 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.

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When standing up to Palisades, your best weapons are good information, and a competent attorney. In terms of information, read the blog postings accessible from the home page 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.

Fill in the contact-form now to request a free attorney consultation about your case.