Credit Card Debt Collection Plagued with Problems
Credit card companies certainly have the right to collect legitimate debts. But a recent New York Times article by Jessica Silver Greenberg reports that many of the recent lawsuits being filed by credit card companies rely on erroneous documents, incomplete records and generic testimony.
I recently represented a third-generation business owner who lost his business in the recent recession. Several credit card companies sued the owner and his wife for corporate credit card debt – even though they had signed no personal guarantees or any other written agreements. In each case the credit card company alleged that some fine print buried in generic online documents somehow subjected the owner to personal liability. My experience was exactly the one reported by the New York Times. The credit card companies had incomplete records and they were filing lawsuits without doing much investigating prior to filing.
This is another reminder that your personal assets can come under attack in ways that you could have never reasonably anticipated. Having an asset protection plan in place can be a huge benefit in the event of an unexpected lawsuit.
