by Talina Norris

Created on: December 05, 2008

In these days of economic turmoil many are having trouble making ends meet. So many are barely able to buy food and keep the power on these days that they often flat out ignore those "non-essential" bills and collection notices because what else can you do?

Being unable to pay the bills is stressful and the natural tendency is to ignore them if you can't pay them esecially debts in collection, I know because I have been there! The problem is once you start ignoring the bills you'll begin to receive those dreaded collection notices. Collection notices can turn in to wage garnishments or judgments against you. They'll ruin your credit, impact your tax returns and they take many years to go away.

Fortunately I have good news for you. If you are receiving collection notices don't despair! There are many small steps one can take after receiving a collection notice that will not only cover your butt legally but will buy you more time to pay and will give the collector the opportunity to forfeit their right to collect the debt.

Upon receipt of the first collection letter from the particular agency you should write them back and dispute the debt because by law they must provide you with proof of debt owed before they can collect.

So many people simply ignore the first collection letter and thus forfeit their legal right to dispute the debt. Plus, not responding to the collection letter just provides legal grounds for the collector to further pursue the debt. It makes you look like you are refusing to take responsibility for the debt.
"You should ALWAYS dispute the debt. Even if you recognize the debt, even if you know you owe it, even if you feel a moral obligation to pay it, you should still dispute the debt. Disputing the debt doesn't mean that you are saying the debt isn't yours. It is simply requiring the debt collector to provide verification to you that the debt is yours. This is information that the debt collector is required to have by law in order to collect the debt, and so it should be very easy for them to provide it to you. Unfortunately, especially with older debt, the debt collector will not take the time or expense to either obtain this information or to respond to your letter, in which case by law they must cease all debt collection efforts."

Quoted from: http://www.indianaconsumerlawyerblog.com/2007/05/ind iana_consumers_should_put_d_1.html

After you dispute the debt the collector has 30 days to prove (in writing) that the debt is indeed valid. This gives

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