About 6 months ago, I was working for a mortgage company as an IT director. The company closed down during the subprime meltdown. Now, I have a collections agency contacting me trying to retrieve payments for a debt which the company had incurred. The debt is over $20K for credit reports that were pulled earlier in the year. I have been receiving harassing phone calls telling me that I am liable for this debt because I "signed the contract," and asking how I am going to pay this debt. I did sign the contract to open the account, but did not thoroughly read the contract to find a clause in the middle of the contract that says that I am the personal guarantor for this account. If I had known that I would be held liable for any debts (personal guarantor) that the company would incur, I would not have knowingly signed (my fault). The debt is not mine to assume since I did not personally use their service. I am not an officer of the company and only signed because the president of the company was not present at the time and it was a "rush" to get the account opened. I was just a computer guy that opened the account to get the job done. The collections person told me to just "pay the debt and get reimbursed" for the cost. I told her "how can I get reimbursed from a company that no longer exists?" The only thing that she could tell me was that my name is on the contract and I have to pay. I never made any money from the mortgage company (except collect my salary), never had a profit sharing plan, never was a stock holder of the company and had no authority to make financial decisions. I spoke to the company owners and they told me that they will not pay the collections agency. Now, the collections agency has threatened to put a judgment on my credit (I have good credit). I do not want to pay for a debt that I did not create but also do not want to take a chance on my credit being affected after all of these years of building good credit.
What can I do? Am I still liable for this debt even though the company was an S-Corporation? Please help…. Any advice would be extremely helpful. Thank you in advance.
What can I do? Am I still liable for this debt even though the company was an S-Corporation? Please help…. Any advice would be extremely helpful. Thank you in advance.
