What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA
Some Background: This debt came about in September of 2007, when my boyfriend needed some dental work financed. I cosigned for him, he paid the monthly bill until January of 2008, at which point he moved out of state to go to school and did not get a job to continue handling the bill. The credit company sold the debt to Arrow Financial, which uses National Enterprise Systems to actually collect on the debt. So from now on I'll be talking about NES, unless otherwise stated.
I received a call on October 17th from a "Dan" informing me that he was collecting on the past due dental bill. Since he couldn't get in contact with the primary debtor (my boyfriend) he had to collect from me, and it had to be immediate collection or I would be sued for the entire debt. "Dan" told me that if I agree to make a "good faith" payment, he would settle the debt for $2400 instead of the almost $3000 debt that had accumulated thanks to late fees and the like. AFter a lot of coercion I agreed to charge a portion of it to one of my credit cards, and he tacked on a $40 convenience fee, charging a total of $1240 to my credit card. Once he had my credit card information, he informed me that I had until the end of the month to pay the remainder, which was impossible for me to do, and I told him so. He told me to borrow it from whoever I could, as long as I had the money by the end of the month. He said that he would take a "sort of postdated check" for the remaining 1200, and that on the 31st of October he would call back to conference call my bank and verify funds.
I ignored all my calls on the 31st because I simply had no way to come up with the money and didn't want to hear how bad of person I was and how much I would be sued. I work a part time job and don't even make that much in a month. I had also closed my bank account because it was empty and I didn't want to be charged any fees from NES attempting to debit the account any way.
My question is this: if the matter were taken to court, would there be any way for me to somehow escape the entire burden of the debt, since I am merely the cosigner? Unfortunately, my boyfriend is caught up in the legal system at the present time and cannot help.
Also, my boyfriend told me at the beginning of September that he had mailed in a money order to pay off the debt in its entirety, but the "Dan" person that I spoke to said there were no records of ever speaking to him. Is it possible that the payment for the debt was sent to the original company or even Arrow Financial and NES never got the memo? My boyfriend said he has the stub from the money order in his apartment, but it is in Tennessee and I have no access to it. What can I do?What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
Some Background: This debt came about in September of 2007, when my boyfriend needed some dental work financed. I cosigned for him, he paid the monthly bill until January of 2008, at which point he moved out of state to go to school and did not get a job to continue handling the bill. The credit company sold the debt to Arrow Financial, which uses National Enterprise Systems to actually collect on the debt. So from now on I'll be talking about NES, unless otherwise stated.
I received a call on October 17th from a "Dan" informing me that he was collecting on the past due dental bill. Since he couldn't get in contact with the primary debtor (my boyfriend) he had to collect from me, and it had to be immediate collection or I would be sued for the entire debt. "Dan" told me that if I agree to make a "good faith" payment, he would settle the debt for $2400 instead of the almost $3000 debt that had accumulated thanks to late fees and the like. AFter a lot of coercion I agreed to charge a portion of it to one of my credit cards, and he tacked on a $40 convenience fee, charging a total of $1240 to my credit card. Once he had my credit card information, he informed me that I had until the end of the month to pay the remainder, which was impossible for me to do, and I told him so. He told me to borrow it from whoever I could, as long as I had the money by the end of the month. He said that he would take a "sort of postdated check" for the remaining 1200, and that on the 31st of October he would call back to conference call my bank and verify funds.
I ignored all my calls on the 31st because I simply had no way to come up with the money and didn't want to hear how bad of person I was and how much I would be sued. I work a part time job and don't even make that much in a month. I had also closed my bank account because it was empty and I didn't want to be charged any fees from NES attempting to debit the account any way.
My question is this: if the matter were taken to court, would there be any way for me to somehow escape the entire burden of the debt, since I am merely the cosigner? Unfortunately, my boyfriend is caught up in the legal system at the present time and cannot help.
Also, my boyfriend told me at the beginning of September that he had mailed in a money order to pay off the debt in its entirety, but the "Dan" person that I spoke to said there were no records of ever speaking to him. Is it possible that the payment for the debt was sent to the original company or even Arrow Financial and NES never got the memo? My boyfriend said he has the stub from the money order in his apartment, but it is in Tennessee and I have no access to it. What can I do?What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
