How to Dispute the validity of a debt

[robsconnection]

Hello. My wife and I signed a contract for a real estate training program. We were promised all sorts of success with the "package" that we were buying. We were to be able to attend 5 training workshops and then have 4 hours of one on one personal training hours with the owner of the company. We attended 3 workshops and were given 2 hours of one on one training. Since then the workshops have been discontinued and we have not gotten the rest of the hours of training. We started feeling more and more scammed when everything we did with this company was going to cost more and more money, yet we were seeing NO results and having NO success in the real estate arena.

In the mean time I lost my job and we were unable to make payments on our contract. We paid $1000 up front as a down payment. We made 2 payments of $500 and since then have been contacted to make our payments. We told them we could not b/c of the unemployment. Then the debt was sent to collections. We now have been sent a paper telling us if we do not respond then the debt collection agency's lawyer is considering filing a lawsuit against us and will garnish our wages once a judgment is entered.

Is there any way to dispute this and claim that we should owe less then the contract states b/c of the company not holding up their end of the contract with the workshops and training hours? Can we get out of the contract completely based on this? Would we be able to settle for less b/c of this? If so, how do we go about disputing this claim?

 

[tpajet]

You need to contact your state attorny general's office immediatly. If they have not lived up to the contract, then they are in breach. Also sounds like the collections agency is riding the line of illegal activity. From what you have said, they have not crossed the line, but they are dangerously close.

When you contat the AG, provide the contract info, and also mention exactly what the collections agency has stated to you. The other thing is, you have said that this is costing you more and more. Are these new charges mentioned in you original contract, or are these something amended later?

The procedure for disputing the debt is to write the collections agency, and they basically have to stop the attempts to collect, unless they can provide proof that you actually owe the money, and from their end, all they see is you signature on the contract. They have no way to know about the rest, so it may stop the attempt for a while, but they will be back.