Q&A Regarding the handling of debt.

Everyone would get and stay out of debt if it were that easy.

However, with the current outstanding consumer debt at nearly $3 trillion – there are definitely some problems. 

Common Questions Regarding Debt

Question: Is it wise to borrow from my IRA or 401k to pay off debt?

Answer: By looking for the money to pay off debt, you ignore the reason you’re going into debt. It is highly suggested to fix your current problems before looking for a final solution to your debt.

Question: A former spouse was assigned specific debts during our divorce but has not paid them and is ruining my credit? What should I do?

Answer: As a joint owner of an account creditors have the legal right to attempt to collect debt owed from you. Not to mention that the charge-off of the debt will remain on your credit report. It would be best to contact your attorney and ask about having your ex held in contempt for not obeying the divorce decree.

Question: Can my Social Security benefits be garnished?

Answer: Banks are required, by the U.S. Department of Treasury, to protect federal benefits from being garnished. However, the federal benefits must be directly deposited into the bank account and the protected amount is restricted to the total of two previous months of benefits deposited prior to the garnishment order.

Question: After my fiancée and I are married will her creditors seek me for her bills?

Answer: The sole responsibility of any debts accrued is of the owner of the debt after marriage. If you share a joint bank account with her and her creditors sue in court, then it is possible that the funds can be garnished from the bank account.

Question: How do I protect my credit if I co-signed a loan for my relative and he has stopped paying what is owed?

Answer: It will likely be in your best interest to make payments on the loan. As the co-signer you have a responsibility towards the loan and can collect from you.

Question: My debt is past the statute of limitations. Why is it still being reported on my credit report?

Answer: The statute of limitations varies on what kinds of debt and debt by state. Regardless, it has nothing to do with the reporting your credit.

Marcadis Singer, PA

Florida Collection Attorney

5104 South Westshore Blvd.

Tampa, Florida 33611

info @ marcadislaw.com

(888) 547-1881

(813) 288-1881

New Clients 

Ext. 247 Gil Singer

Ext. 240 Ralph Marcadis

Existing Client Client Liaison

Ext. 242

To Pay a Claim

Ext.  245

http://www.marcadislaw.com

Millennials Struggle with Debt after Great Recession

Credit card and student loans top the debt chart for Millennials.

According to a Harris Poll, Millennials are struggling with debt from both student loans and credit cards.

Approximately 42% of Millennials who participated in the survey explained that the pressure of debt is their largest concern. 4 in 10 Millennials say that their debt is cumbersome, compared to Baby Boomers who are only at 23%.

There is a slight differentiation between male and females Millennials. 45% of females say that they are overwhelmed versus 33% of males. Approximately 56% of all Millennials in entirety say that they live paycheck to paycheck.

29% of Millennials said that paying off student loans is their primary financial concern after paying their monthly bills.

When Millennials were asked for estimations on their monthly debt as percentages, it averaged as follows: Credit card debt, 16% - mortgage debt, 15% - student loan debt 12% - auto debt 9% - and medical debt 5%

47% of all Millennials are forwarding 50% or more of their paychecks towards their debts aside from their monthly bills.

Marcadis Singer, PA

Florida Collection Attorney

5104 South Westshore Blvd.

Tampa, Florida 33611

info @ marcadislaw.com

(888) 547-1881

(813) 288-1881

New Clients 

Ext. 247 Gil Singer

Ext. 240 Ralph Marcadis

Existing Client Client Liaison

Ext. 242

To Pay a Claim

Ext.  245

http://www.marcadislaw.com

More Debt - but More Responsible.

It seems all of the major Q1 indicators are flooding the information market, and it can bet tough sorting it all out.  There is some room for celebration!

From our perspective, as debt collection attorneys in Florida, we are seeing the same type behavior that is being reported in the media.

1.  Overall credit card purchasing is DOWN.  We are incredibly glad to hear that.

2.  Mortgage Debt is UP, up by $116 by $116 Billion.   Does this mean that consumers are back in the mortgage business, and this is good for the economy, or does it mean we are growing a new bubble.  Our bet is on a recovering economy.

3.  Student Loan Balances are up by $31 Billion.   We see student loan debt as a double edged sword.   Our youth must be educated in order for our country, and the individuals in it, to be prosperous.  We are, however, saddling our students with an astronomical amount of debt, that will with certainty impact our economy, perhaps for generations to come, negatively.

4.   Auto loans debt is up $12 Billion.   Once again, we have to ask, is this nothing more than thirst coming out of recession for cool stuff.. or are we experiencing true and sustainable industry growth.  We are opting on the side of good for the industry.  From a Debt Collection Professionals' perspective, Auto loans are secured, in the event of default, ultimately the car can be repossessed.. Student Loans never die.  We are far more concerned over the growth of Student Loans, than car loans.

Marcadis Singer, PA

Florida Collection Attorney

5104 South Westshore Blvd.

Tampa, Florida 33611

info @ marcadislaw.com

(888) 547-1881

(813) 288-1881

New Clients 

Ext. 247 Gil Singer

Ext. 240 Ralph Marcadis

Existing Client Client Liaison

Ext. 242

To Pay a Claim

Ext.  245

More Responsible Credit Card Use

Credit Card Debt has been one of the major influencers of the US Economy.

There was a time when if you didn't have a credit card, you weren't anybody!

Oddly, it seems that advertising's yesteryear spawned two massive lifestyle belief systems at about the same time, and we are glad to see both of them crumble.

The first was the notion that smoking tobacco was cool... the second was the inescapable need for a credit card.

The advent of the debit card, that functions like a credit card has gone a long way to making the lessening of the impact of the credit card a reality.  We would also like to think that it is simply a smarter consumer that realizes that minimum payments for hundreds of years are simply not worth the "bauble" of the moment.

Credit card holders have become more responsible about paying their debt.

• Average Credit Card debt has declined nearly $500 to $3,573 since 2008.
• 64% (AMAZING!) of credit card holders say that always or usually pay their full balance every month.  Never in history has that percentage been so high!
• Almost 30% of American's say they have no credit card.. if was 22% in 2008!

Credit cards have their place in our economic landscape, however we collect from far too many people that got caught up in credit card spending.  It is rewarding to see the American People become more responsible credit card holders.

Marcadis Singer, PA

Florida Collection Attorney

5104 South Westshore Blvd.
Tampa, Florida 33611
info @ marcadislaw.com

(888) 547-1881

(813) 288-1881

New Clients 

Ext. 247 Gil Singer
Ext. 240 Ralph Marcadis

Existing Client Client Liaison

Ext. 242

To Pay a Claim

Ext.  245

How Taxes Can Impact Your Credit

How Taxes Can Impact Your Credit

It’s that season, and we are all (hopefully) eagerly awaiting out tax refund.

There are a few cautions regarding the impact of taxes on your credit.

1. Adding New Debt to Pay for Taxes

Creating additional debt to pay your tax obligation will probably show up on your credit report.  In the long run, it is far better to show a loan on your credit, than a tax lien, but it is still worth noting that the loan to pay your taxes may have an adverse impact on your credit score.

2. Quick Refunds

Tax Preparers and others provide a “quick Refund”  which is really a loan, and usually a loan with very high interest.   Often, you will be offered a larger loan as a line of credit at the same time.  Some providers, like H&R Block, will report that loan, and any late payments to credit agencies.

3. Tax Liens

If you owe too much to the IRS, and can’t pay it back, you might be facing a Tax Lien.  This will have a horrendous impact on your credit scores.  If you get a tax lien, paying it as quickly as possible (assuming the rest of your credit is good) will improve your scores again.

4. Bankruptcy because of taxes

Your tax debt is not forgiven in bankruptcy, however, if you file for bankruptcy for relief from your other debts, in order to pay your tax bill, expect an extreme negative impact on your credit score for 7 to 10 years!

5. Identity Theft.

The IRS reports you got your refund, but its not in your account??  You probably are the victim of identity theft.  Identity theft has run rampant in recent years.  While there are means of cleaning up your credit after identity theft, you can expect a long and tedious process will ensue.

Marcadis Singer, PA

Florida Collection Attorney

5104 South Westshore Blvd.

Tampa, Florida 33611

info @ marcadislaw.com

(888) 547-1881

(813) 288-1881

New Clients 

Ext. 247 Gil Singer

Ext. 240 Ralph Marcadis

Existing Client Client Liaison

Ext. 242

To Pay a Claim

Ext.  245

Managing your finances in your 30's

Thirties.. usually the 3 big M - "Marriage" "Mini You's" "Mortgage"

The typical wedding,  starts at $25,000 - WOW.

For middle America, each child will cost a whopping  $241,080 for their first 18 years - NOT including collect  (U.S. Department of Agriculture).

These years mark the first of the "all grown up" expenses, and can be extremely expensive.  They tend to also be marked by rapidly growing income, which breeds a tendency towards spending beyond your means.

Cautions.

1. Listen to advise from loan advisors so that you focus not only on today's expenses, but the real long term expenses of your mortgage.
2. No matter how tempting, try to be conservative about your wedding expenses, its about your life together, not paying for one day for the rest of your life.
3. Keep saving, remember those good habits from your 20's, now you are starting to earn good money, that discipline is going to start really paying off.

Marcadis Singer, PA

Florida Collection Attorney

5104 South Westshore Blvd.

Tampa, Florida 33611

info @ marcadislaw.com

(888) 547-1881

(813) 288-1881

New Clients 

Ext. 247 Gil Singer

Ext. 240 Ralph Marcadis

Existing Client Client Liaison

Ext. 242

To Pay a Claim

Ext.  245

Managing your Finances in your 20's

For most, an exciting decade.   You are probably working and making real money for the first time in your life  You have money, but likely not responsibility.  There's money in your pockets, but not a life experience of the discipline on how to manage it.

Your biggest expense, if you went, is college.  Congratulations in addition to your first money, the first debt is now pressing down.

In all likelihood.. there's a shiny set of wheels, better known as your first car.

Finance Cautions

Watch out for student loans.  These are debts you will cary for ever, not usually dischargeable even in bankruptcy.  Do all you can to save money on college expenses, explore every scholarship, shop interest rates.  Keep a part time job, live off campus, whatever it takes.   Many leave college with 8 figure debt, in an uncertain job market.

Start good habits early.  Start now when your obligations and responsibilities are small to put 15% of your income into some form of savings or investment.  This is a habbit that can follow you for life.  Starting saving early, and relyling on compounding interest can make you wealthy, regardless of your career path.

Go easy on your first car - the new cars can loose 20% and more in value the day you drive them off the lot.

There will be companies working very hard to get you to sign up for credit.  They want you to sign up because you will end up indebted to them for life.  Resist the urge to splurge.  Shop your credit for low interest rates and fees.  Now is not the time to play now, and pay later, because you have a lot of later left, and interest fees will continue to grow.

Getting the most from Debt Collection Efforts

Given current legislative conditions, an anemic economy, coupled with debt collection becoming more critical to maintain cash flow for businesses, Debt Collection Attorneys, like Florida Debt Collectors Marcadis Singer, are faced with more work, and fewer qualified agents to collect them.

A recent study buy Ninzi-Connect software found that over 40% of all calls handled by agents are bad numbers, busy signal and unanswered calls.  When a collector actually connects with a debtor, the same study found that the call was productive approximately 50% of the time.   That means 30% of all collections calls are actually productive.

One approach is to hire and train as many agents as possible, in the fervent hope that the new hires will break even on their training expense as soon as they are put behind a phone.  If that happens, pray that the collector isn't snatched up by  a more aggressive agency.

Throwing bodies, especially bodies that might be transient, is just not the right answer.  This "old school" approach to debt collections is ineffective, and does not lead to high quality professionals collecting debt for the law firm.

Improved training and scripts, however, do add incremental value to the hiring and deployment of collection professionals in a law practice.  The ins and outs of todays litigious environment need to be taught, practiced, role played in order to be effective.  This leads to a slower start up, but a more productive and professional collection agent, however it is not a panacea.

Automation also leads to incremental gain.  The built in delays in call answering using automated systems however, greatly diminish the efficacy of tools like automated call systems.   We prefer to not use tools like autodialers.  While they do lead to more calls per hour per collector, debtors and collectors alike begin their conversation at a disadvantage.

More effective in improving the productivity of the collections process is intelligent scheduling, calling the right people at times that are statistically more productive through data-mining past results buried in the collections software database.

A blend of intelligent collections, calling the right people, at the right time, with well trained collectors, working from a flexible but well crafted script are the key to optimizing collections calls.

Simply blind calling at times when no one is home, in the hope of finding a debtor may have worked in the old days when throwing labor at a project produced a proportionate gain in collections, just no longer makes the grade.

Today's smart collections professionals working for debt collections attorneys rely on good training, flexible intelligent scripts, and optimized timing based on a thorough knowledge of the years of data history within the firm.

Our industry is changing, getting smarter, becoming more profesional, and squeezing the old heavy handed poorly trained guard out of existance.

We welcome  you to talk with Marcadis Singer PA, and experience the difference smart collections make in the ROI of your collections efforts.

Marcadis Singer, PA

Florida Collection Attorney

5104 South Westshore Blvd.

Tampa, Florida 33611

info @ marcadislaw.com

(888) 547-1881

(813) 288-1881

New Clients 

Ext. 247 Gil Singer

Ext. 240 Ralph Marcadis

Existing Client Client Liaison

Ext. 242

To Pay a Claim

Ext.  245

Damage Claims for BP Oil Spill filing deadline moves

Many of us along the Gulf Coast were impacted by the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, and have filed claims.

The deadline for claims under the court supervised settlement program has moved out, and is no longer April 22, 2014.

The details of the "deadline" are such that it is a moving target.   The Deadline is 6 months from the last possible legislative action, and once again, the action finds itself in Appeals Court, indefinitely extending deadlines.

This does not mean that you should sit on your hands, and enjoy the extension to file a claim.   There is a Settlement Agreement Provisions (Section 21.3) that states if the circuit or supreme court decertifies the case, anyone filed before that time, will be paid.

Procrastinators beware, there is an "en banc" petition pending with the 5th Circuit Court for just that.  Is it likely?   That's not relevant, if it happens, any claim filed after that date would not be paid, any claim filed before that date is secured.

Best to get your claims in, and not look for a reprieve.

Marcadis Singer, PA

Florida Collection Attorney

5104 South Westshore Blvd.

Tampa, Florida 33611

info @ marcadislaw.com

(888) 547-1881

(813) 288-1881

New Clients 

Ext. 247 Gil Singer

Ext. 240 Ralph Marcadis

Existing Client Client Liaison

Ext. 242

To Pay a Claim

Ext.  245

Finding Debtors

Debt Collectors Will Find Debtors – Skip Tracing

When you have someone trying to avoid you, that owes you a debt, professionals in the debt collection industry have a sweet of tools that can help to find that person, and collect on your debt.

Information provided by the debtor

There is usually information about a debtor both in correspondence and transactions with the creditor and on their original credit application.  Debt collectors prefer this type of information, as it is readily available.

This information can include:

·      Relative not living with you

·      Personal Guarantees

·      Addresses from deliveries

·      Email trails

·      Order history.

Credit Reports and Scores

A debt collector can easily retrieve credit scores to judge a debtors ability to pay a debt, and pull credit record to see where else a debtor owes money, where debtors have had charge offs, address history, different variations of the debtors name, and a host of other information making it possible to track down a debtor hiding from creditors.

Commercial Databases

From Whitepages.com to LexisNexis Accurint and SearchAmerica, there are a host of easily accessible databases that can track down where a debtor can be contacted.  Some databases go so far as to create a model of how likely a debtor is to pay certain types of debts based on their payment histories.

There are also services that aggregate data from multiple sources from as far flung as contest entries to as rational as change off address notifications.

Social Media

Imagine telling a debt collection professional about how you can’t afford to pay a debt, while they are viewing a Facebook page with pictures of a Caribbean Cruise, or telling a debt collector that you have no assets, when there is a picture of a beautiful jewelry purchase recently made on the debtors social media accounts.

Something as basic as liking a bank on Facebook can give a debt collector clues as to where a debtor banks.   Some debt collection companies consider Social Media “off limits” however if the information is in the public, at the moment it is fair game.

Debt Collection Search

It is the job of a debt collection professional to use all means at their disposal to retrieve money legitimately owed by a debtor.   With experience, in today’s digital age, that data is available from an astounding array of sources.

The simple truth of the matter is, a debtor owes money; they have an obligation to pay it.  The days of being able to easily hide from a debt collection professional are very limited.

Marcadis Singer, PA will put all necessary resources to work in collecting legitimate debts.  Hiding assets, or hiding how to contact a debtor is no longer an easy task.  Often times, simply letting a debtor know how much you know about them and their spending habits can be enough to gain a quick settlement of outstanding debt.