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Many people today have fallen behind on their credit card bills. And when credit card bills go unpaid, credit card companies and debt collectors may eventually file lawsuits to collect the unpaid debt. If you are faced with defending a lawsuit filed against you by your creditors and/or debt collectors, you may need an attorney to represent you in order to:

• Avoid filing bankruptcy
• Reduce harassing debt collection calls
• Better alternative to debt settlement
• Protect your long term credit rating
• Lawsuit defense if applicable

Banks and debt collectors routinely violate Federal laws as well as collection and contract law in a greedy attempt to make as much money as they can.

They know that the average consumer is too busy and/or doesn't understand the laws that are in place to protect them from predatory lending, contract law violations, and unlawful collection practices, nor do they believe that even if you did understand that you have either the time or money to go out and hire a competent attorney to help you defend your rights.

That being said, banks and debt collectors almost always ignore consumer protection and contract law and get as aggressive as they can with you, all in an attempt to make as much money from you as possible with little concern for your well being or the laws that are designed to protect you.

Examples of violations include excessive late fees, interest rate increases, minimum payment increases, mathematical billing errors, and certain debt collection activities to name a few. These violations allow the attorneys to leverage aggressive debt relief on your behalf.

Your Rights

You have the right to understand the terms of a credit card contract before a bank sends you a statement and demands that you pay money.

You have the right to receive the interest rate that was offered to you before a bank sends you a statement and demands that you pay money.

You have the right to dispute a balance on an account and demand that the bank provide your attorney with the original advertising, original disclosure statements, original card member agreement and an explanation as to how their computer arrived at the amount that they claim that you owe.

You have the right to cease making payments under the terms of the contract if the bank breached the contract by changing the terms without you agreeing to the changed terms. Most important, you have the right not to have your credit rating affected or be denied credit by exercising your rights.

The Common Law

In law, a contract is an agreement between two parties which if contains the elements of a valid legal agreement is enforceable by law. Respecting a credit card the contract requires an offer, acceptance of the offer and consideration.

The key is to identify exactly what was offered to you, when it was offered to you and whether the bank fulfilled its end of that offer. In the event that the bank breached the contract you are no longer required to make payments.

If in addition to the bank breaching the contract it is important to discover through documents that are available at the Federal Reserve System and the Securities and Exchange Commission whether your bank sold the entire credit card debt to a third party and received payment in full and has also been receiving a “servicing asset” for servicing the account.

This is important because when a credit card issuing bank claims that they have suffered damages as a result of you not making payments the accounting records will show a different story. Besides the bank not being able to show damages the bank will have a hard if not impossible time producing the documents necessary to show what credit card agreement applies to your particular credit card.

Violations

While a debt is in the dispute/validation stage, any attempt to collect on the debt, i.e. phone call, letter, statement, late fee or derogatory reported to any credit bureau by any party, original creditor or collection agency, without a dispute clause will result in statutory damages awarded to the consumer by the violator.

Almost all banks will violate! Banks will sell debts that are in a "stay" to collection agencies without making them aware causing both parties to be in violation

During the stay period the debt becomes significantly less valuable

There is an average of 5 to 10 violations per client. Each violation is $1,000 to the client and $1,325 in attorney fees.