Being taken to local magistrate

[CONFZD85]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Pennsylvania

Before I met my boyfriend (2005) he financed a new computer through Dell. The original debt was for around $800. Less than a year later his mom's house was hit with a flood. There was 8 feet of water in the basement where he lived and everything he owned was lost. All that was recovered was the tower and was deemed useless. The monitor must have floated away along with a lot of other things. He called Dell to try to negotiate something with them since he now had a debt for something that he no longer owned (I know that's the problem with financing) and he was now faced with trying to replace everything he owned from clothes to furniture. (mom did not have flood insurance). He could never get a person who spoke english as a 1st language and they would always tell him that a supervisor would call him back, but he never got any calls back. He made about 5 calls to them and stupidly he just decided to ignore the debt. (remember this was before he met me) The debt is now up to $3500 which seems way too high to me but I realize that may happen when you default in a debt.

My question is this: he got a certified letter that says he needs to appear in front of the local magistrate, what is going to happen?

He called the collection company to see if he could avoid court. He offered to pay $150 per month. They said no, he needs to come up with $800 down and then he could pay the 150 per month. they also offered to settle for $2000. Neither of those is something that we can do right now. They did try to strong arm him by telling him his name will be in the paper things will get worse if he goes to court. They made him actually think they were going to take out a front page ad that says "Joe Smith owes Dell computer money!" (I showed him where it would really be if a judgement is filed.)

Should he go to court and request proof of the debt and ask how the 800 turned into 3500? Should he tell the judge the whole sob story about the flood and bring in copies of his paystubs and monthly bills to show how much he can afford to pay? Someone told him that if he refused the offer the collection company made the judge can allow the collection company to repo his furniture or belongings. Is that true? None of the furniture or appliances in our apartment is his. Since he lost everything in the flood we use all my stuff but it's all hand me downs and I can't prove it was mine.

Sorry for this being long winded. I'm trying to guide him in the right direction here. We are getting so much "advice" thrown at us and it all seems to contradict.

I appreciate guidance through what may happen when we go to court.