My husband just got a summons to go to small claims court!?

[smid]

Yesterday my husband got a visit from the sheriff dept. They were delivering a summons from Wells Fargo. They are suing him for money we owe. We have tried to work with them but they do not budge. We have paid off almost all of our debt except for them. They want us to commit to payments that we cannot afford, and set them up automatically-which will never happen. I do not want them knowing my banking information. I have offered money orders, certified bank check, and that I would mail it-they kept telling us that we "have to set up automatic payment arrangements" we kept telling them no. Why are they being so difficult? Every other creditor has been more than willing to work with what we could afford but not them it's either all or nothing. What is gonna happen when we go to small claims court? I cannot afford an attorney so we are representing ourselves. If I had money for an attorney I would have to money to pay them!! I have been doing some research but just want to know more specific about our situation.

We owe $11,000--Like I said it's our debt we know we have to pay it back and we want to but we just cant pay what they want us to. We are almost debt free, please any help would be grateful. Thanks so much in advance.

[barend31]

1. I can't tell you why they are being difficult. I'm assuming that their policy is to get an automatic payment plan from accounts that are past due. What other creditors have agreed to with you has no bearing on what they have to do with you. They have no obligation to accept your terms of how you want to repay the debt.

2. Even if you could afford a lawyer, it would be a waste of your money. You have no legal defense to the suit. You owe the money, that is not in dispute. A lawyer wouldn't be able to do anything for you, and arguing to the judge that they are being, in you opinion, unreasonable in setting up a payment plan is not a defense. The only question for the judge is whether or not you owe the money.

3. Suing you, at this point, is essentially just a formality so they can have a judgment against you. With the judgment they can file for wage garnishment to collect directly from your paychecks. I'm not sure why you think this gives them access to your banking information, it doesn't.

[amdt57]

First of all, do not represent yourselves in court.

Instead, go to your local yellow pages and start calling firms asking if they take cases for free. Explain your situation to them. The attorney will then tell you what will happen in court and what your options are.

Good luck.

[osbourne]

You can't have a lawyer in small claims court anyway so that is a non issue.

You most certainly do NOT have to have auto payments, they cannot require this.

Continue hiding your banking info but do be aware that they can look it up on your credit rating as well. Just don't keep more money in that account than you can afford to lose.

Tell them it's fine to sue you, you still only have 'x' number of dollars to work with monthly and make those payments.

[atworth49]

If you failed to pay based on your original agreement then Wells Fargo is free to add any additional requirements to any new agreement that you make with the company. If you don't like or accept those additional requirements you have the option of paying them off completely, going to court (which will probably end in an order for you to pay them off immediately) or filing for bankruptcy.

If you take this to court and don't win they will get you banking information and place a lien on it and/or garnish your wages.

You need to try to meet them half way. The only way I can see that happening is them giving in and coming up with a payment plan you can afford and allowing them to automatically deduct it.

[sampson]

in our state, 11,000 is over the limit for small claims.

[dalon]

Oh for crying out loud.

Go down to Wells Fargo and open up a special bank account. Then give their collections department the information for that account and set up automatic payments from that account. Then all you have to do is make sure there is money in that account each month for them to draw out. That will solve their demand for automatic payments and they can not do much about it because the account is at their bank.

As far as how much you owe, that is NOT small claims so I do not see how you could have gotten a summons for small claims court. If in fact they are taking you to small claims court then they can only demand the maximum allowed in that court. In many states it is just $2000. If that is the case, then they are dropping how much you owe to that amount. They can NOT haul you into small claims court and demand $11,000.

Lastly, You can pay off $11,000 with a payment of $200 a month for five years. Most people can cut their personal spending and come up with that much.

Have you considered cutting the following?

Cable TV? In most places you can get a number of channels free using an antenna. Save $20-40.
Cell phones? Do you really need a cell phone? Get rid of it and you can save $30-100 a month.
Nails? Come on, how much do you spend on your nails each month?
Beauty parlor? How much do you spend on your hair each month?
Maids? Maid service should be the first thing you dump. Clean your own house.
Gas? Believe it or not, most cars will run on 85-87 octane gas. Try it as it will save you 10-20 cents a gallon. So what if the car is not so fast?
Insurance? Raise the deductible on your car insurance to $1000. It will save you quite a bit.
Refinance? You can get a 15-30 year loan on your home for less than 4% interest. if you got
a high interest mortgage, refinance it.
News Papers? Magazines? other subscriptions? You can get almost all that on the internet or
free at a library.

Look at how you are spending money. I bet you can come up with $200 a month and pay that for 5 years. Stop finding reasons why you can not do something and start figuring out how you can.