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Can You Be Sued For Credit Card Debts

If you have gotten behind with your credit card debts you may find yourself wondering can you be sued for credit card debts.  If you are concerned about this, I don't want to alarm you further but you should know that you can actually be sued for credit card debts.  Although you may get away with being behind with your payments for a long time, possibly even years, but you won't get away with it forever.

Credit card companies want their money and they will take whatever action is necessary to get their money from you.  When you don't pay your credit card payments, or only pay the bare minimum, they will slowly accumulate and the amount you owe just gets bigger and bigger.  You may even begin to think that you have gotten away with paying the debt and that bank must have forgotten about it.  But they haven't!

Credit card companies will start charging you extra fees if you are late paying just one payment because they are serious about getting their money back.  They may even call you to remind you that you owe them money and to make arrangements for you to pay.

Some credit card companies will even increase your interest rate once you start making late payments.  This may depend on your agreement with the credit card company but don't be surprised if, once the introductory offer period is over, you see your interest rates soar.

If the credit card company increases your interest rate, charges you late payment fees and calls you to make payment arrangements, but they are still having trouble getting the money from you, then they will turn the debt over to a collection agency.  The sole purpose of a collection agency is to get the money from you.  You will most likely receive a letter from the agency that you need to reply to within 30 days.

The collection agency will give you two choices.  You can either make the payment or you can dispute that the debt is yours and you need to do one of these options within 30 days.  If you do nothing then they assume that the debt is yours and will proceed to the next level.

They will continue to send you debt collection letters and will also start calling you.  If a collection agency is not successful at getting the money from you then they may transfer the case to someone else, so you may have to deal with several such companies.

After a certain time period, if the credit card company has not received their money they can choose to write the debt off or to sue you for the amount of money you owe them.  If the amount is very small then they will write the debt off but if the amount owed is significant then there is a very good chance that they will sue you.

Don't assume that credit card companies only go after huge amounts of money, there have been people sued for as little as a thousand dollars.  Then of course there are court costs and legal fees added to that amount so your debt will be even higher.

When you enter into a credit card agreement you sign a contract agreeing that you will follow their terms.  When you didn't make your payment by the due date you broke that agreement, which is a legal document, and therefore the company can sue you.

Can you be sued for credit card debts?  Yes you can and many people do, so if you have credit card debt it is best to contact your credit card company and make some sort of arrangements to pay your debt off.

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