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Legal Advice?

My husband had a credit card go to a collection service, they worked out an agreement that he would pay X amount up front, he then gave them check numbers to take out $100 every 2 weeks for around 6 months, at which time they would call back to see if he could settle. Needless to say, they have taken money out of our account past the 6 months that was agreed on. On top of that they stopped taking money out at one point and then said that we had missed 3 payments, even though it was suppose to be automatic withdrawls. Today they called to settle, at which point my husband told them we couldn't, needless to say I got on our bank account today and seen that they had taken another $100 out today. Is there something that we can do here?! We only authorized them to take out 6 months worth of payments. They are trying to scare us by telling us they will take us to court. Any help would be much apprictiated! Thank you!

Public Comments

1. Claim a dispute at your bank... then the bank will have to look into it.
2. Scare them back ! Appoint a good lawyer to write them a stern letter.
3. Yeah. First, you should call your bank and tell them not to automatically withdraw funds from your account (or close the account and create a new one with different numbers). Second, I would notify the company taking out the money immediately that what their doing is illegal. Most likely, however, the money is owed to them. In which case I would advise against suing them. If you take the first step into consideration, you shouldn't have any problems with them taking money out in the future.
4. Unfotunately since you authorized them to take monies out of your account and you gave them your account number the bank is not going to be very sympathic to you. You could call them and file a claim agains the money they took out which in turn the bank will do an investigation and may or may not give you the money back which could take weeks. What the bank will advise you to do is to close out your account and open a new one. You need to review the last six month and verify how much they have taken out of your account, add the money your husband gave up from and see if you are in fact paid off or not. If you are then I would copy this information and send it to the company for proof you've paid in full, along with a letter requesting they stop ALL FURTHER WITHDRAWLS from your account. Tell them in the letter you no longer authorize access to you account and any further action against your account on their part will be handled through legal actions. Threaten them that you've already contacted your bank and that any futher transactions will be considered bank fraud. (That one works, I've used it) But if you have not paid in full, and you only have a couple more payments left go ahead and write this same letter and outline to them something to the effect of you have 3 more payments left in the agreement, these payments should take place on this date, this date and this date. Say after this date (last payment date) the account will be paid in full and further withdrawls should be stopped. There are so many times when these companies will just hound the hell out of people and withdrawl moneys other then the agreed upon amount. But since you did give them your account information there really is not a lot that can be done with the bank. They will tell you the same thing. However, once you notify the company in writing you need to follow up with the bank and let them know you've done so. One more thing you could/should do when you write this letter. End it at the bottom below where you sing your name on the left side of the page Cc: to your bank. You con't actually have to send it to your bank but if they see that they will think you've sent it to your bank and that you will take legal actions. Don't let them bully you!! Stand your ground. Good Luck!!