What has changed in the last 10-15 years?

[Casper]

I'm being sued in Middle TN by Portfolio.  Havene't been served yet so I'm not sure how much or who the OC is.

 

I've been through this before in 2003 and again in 2008 and got rid of them without paying them a dime.  (I was around for the Art of Credit days, LOL!)

 

Back then a JDB couldn't establish the chain of custody and used hearsay affidavits that could be easily defeated.  Now it looks like arbitration is the way to go and I am wondering why.

 

Have we really been punked by 'self authenticating' documents and rules of evidence that took away our hearsay defenses?

 

They have a form for a 'Sworn Denial' but I'm wondering if that's enough.

[WhoCares1000]

What has changed is that 49 of the 50 states has adopted the business records rules so that computerized records to not have to be authenticated any more. On top of that, storage and transfer has become so cheap that the banks are simply storing all the information and can pass it on electronically so it is real cheap to do so. The courts have simply caught up with technology.

Arbitration (when and if available) has been refined (and has its own court decisions) and so is a better way to do if you are being sued by a JDB, the clause is in the contract, and the debt is low enough to make arbitration economically unfeaseable for the JDB.

[fisthardcheese]

11 hours ago, Casper said:

Have we really been punked by 'self authenticating' documents and rules of evidence that took away our hearsay defenses?

Yes.

11 hours ago, Casper said:

Now it looks like arbitration is the way to go and I am wondering why.

I have written up a summary of how and why arbitration works from my baker's dozen (or so) of experiences using it.  That summary is in the link in my signature below.

[BackFromTheDebt]

15 years ago only a fool would arbitrate, and beating JDBs in Court wasn’t difficult. 

10 years ago, things were so bad for JDBs in my state that I never saw a JDB back then. Creditor friendly legislation changed that. Now plenty of JDBs.  

10 years ago I arbitrated against everyone, since that was the Wild West days of arbitration.  I never lost because I always had tons of violations. That was the tail end of the Wild West days of debt collection too. 

These days arbitration is almost a slam dunk against a JDB and Court is for fools.  The opposite of 15 years ago.   

[Casper]

Thanks guys.  Certainly is interesting. 

 

I was looking for Jason Barnette the consumer protection Lawyer in Nashville who used to post here, but he seems to have disappeared.  I can likely still hande this myself or may even try to settle depending on the amount.  After what I went through back then I swore never to get in debt again, but then the bottom dropped out for me in 2017.  Mostly medical debt that I would put on credit cards.

 

I was sad to see Debtorboards is gone.

 

 

[Goody_Ouchless]

8 minutes ago, Casper said:

I was sad to see Debtorboards is gone.

They went off the deep end - constantly begging for money, despite many users offering solutions - to the point it started looking like the site was being used as a source of passive income.At the end it was like Hitler in the Bunker, banning anyone who spoke up.

[Casper]

That's a shame about Debtorboards.  Flying is who changed my attitude to go on the soffensive way back in the early 2000;s.

 

Creditboards doesn't have a good look to it, but at least they a re still around.

[BackFromTheDebt]

Lots of things have changed. 

1.  Fewer cards have arbitration agreements. Some of the banks abused their arbitration clauses and had to get rid of them. 

2. Fewer violations by creditors and collection agencies and attorneys.  Sites like this and the old DB site taught people how to deal with evil doers.  

3. Harder to win based on bad records or affidavits.  

4. New laws or court rulings in many places to make life easier for creditors.  

 

For example, back in the old days I was able to beat Cap 1 on a combination of the judge throwing out their records, state rulings before the ATT case which made it harder to get an arbitration ruling confirmed in court, a very long list of violations, and arbitration.  Cap 1 bailed on the case.  These days they would probably fight in court. 

 

Sorry to hear about your medical issues.  I hope you are better now.  An amazingly high percentage of people who wind up in debt are because of medical costs.