Many consumers, who cannot afford to pay high monthly minimum credit card debt payments and cannot afford to settle those debts, condemn themselves with their feelings of guilt to being tormented by credit card debt collectors.
A few on the other hand, however, realize if they get control of their guilty feelings about their credit card debt, they can begin to put their financial problems behind them.
The first step to overcoming that guilt, according to the Credit Card Debt Survival Guide, is disputing and denying the debt any credit card debt collector, other then the original creditor, calls about. Not admitting to an unsecured credit card debt and denying it is a legal strategy which can be compared to invoking the Fifth Amendment. It is not an indication of character. All this means is that the other side will have to prove that they have a case against you.
Credit card debt collectors must, according to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act:
1] Unless the consumer disputes the validity of the debt, the debt will be assumed to be valid by the debt collector and
2) Says that the consumer must dispute the debt, in writing, within thirty days of dispute.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act also allows consumers to write to the credit card debt collector stating that they refuse to pay the debt, or that they would like the debt collector to stop all communication regarding the debt.
If a consumer follows this advice and refuses to admit to the credit card debt, by disputing it and denying it, and then writes to the credit card debt collector asking them to cease communications regarding the debt, that may cause the debt collector to decide to collect from other easier-to-deal-with consumers. For them to proceed with the task of recovering this debt, they will need to prove the debt exists by getting copies of original documents from the credit card company and sending them on to the consumer.
With an unsecured, unsigned credit card debt, a debt collector has to get the consumer to admit to owing the debt. Effectively they need an admission of “guilt”. The initial exchanges between consumer and the credit card debt collector set the tone of all communications between them. If a consumer denies and disputes the alleged debt, and also forbids further communications, often the collector will look for an easier target.
Matt Highlander spent months researching strategies for credit card debt relief. Read his complete 230-page Credit Card Debt Survival Guide
