Re: Camco do i have any rights

Posted by Bear (12.15.123.196) on October 10, 2002 at 03:04:47:

In Reply to: Camco do i have any rights posted by nagel on October 01, 2002 at 19:21:01:

I'm a lawyer who has represented a few consumers in FDCPA cases (and tought a few debt collectors some expensive lessons), so perhaps I can shed some light on this topic.

There are three issues at hand (1) can a stale debt (i.e., one for which SOL has run) be revived? (2) can you stop payment on an EFT authorization? and (3) what if anything can you do the debt collector? The answers are Yes, Yes, and Quite a bit.

1. Yes, usually a stale debt can be revived if the debtor agrees to make a payment after SOL has run.

2. Normally you can stop payment on a check for any reason. I'm aware of no reason that you can't do the same for an EFT. However, just because you've stopped payment doesn't mean you don't owe the money. If you agreed to pay, you'd probably still owe the money. The legal fight would be over whether you had revived the debt. A creditor can try to get you to revive a stale debt. You can tell the creditor to go whistle Dixie. But, if you agree to revive the debt, you might well be back on the hook.

3. The good news is that a debt collector probably violates FDCPA by trying to collect a stale debt. The reason is that FDCPA is designed to protect the unsophisticated consumer. As you can see by the discussion of (1) and (2), the answers aren't all that clear, and could keep a couple of lawyers arguing through a whole lawsuit.

Bottom line advice -- find a good consumer lawyer in your state and sue for FDCPA violation.

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