Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in California
RE: stopping payment on credit cards
Is it legal, not ethical, but legal to stop payment on your credit cards with the knowledge that the credit card companies will harass you with phone calls etc even after receiving a cease and desist letter. After keeping documentation of the calls can my lawyer then demand the creditor reduce my debt or else we will press charges againest them for numerous violations of the CND code in Calif? Could this work and is it legal, to knowingly set up the creditor to violate the law and then blackmail them with it to get your debt dropped or reduced?
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: stopping payment on credit cards
You're not going to find a lawyer willing to engage in "blackmail," at least not here.
If you quit paying your credit cards, they will call you incessantly; they will report it to the credit reporting agencies; and they will eventually sue you. They might possibly violate the fair debt collection laws, but then again they might not. If they do, a lawyer experienced in these laws might well take your case.
Try creditboards.com
Re: RE: stopping payment on credit cards
I have to agree with Attorney Stone - no attorney is going to counsel you to take this course of action, and I don't even feel it is appropriate to give you the odds that it might prevail. I think you will find that this sort of "gamble" rarely pays off, and similar to many of the urban legends floating around about "erasing your mortgage," etc... in practice, they don't work the way they do on paper. Blackmail is a crime in California, just so you know!
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