Lawyers - What's Not to Like?

Before I begin, let me just say, I know not all lawyers are evil, useless gas bags who should be strung up and pelted with rocks and garbage. Just most of them, like these guys, especially for their hellacious website.

Really, kids, how hard is it to put up a simple website that doesn't reek of lameness? Someone's nephew should be able to help you out. Please. Put a flier on the break room bulletin board.

Anyway. After leaving a full-time job earlier this year I found I had time to get back to things I'd put off for quite a while. Like reviewing my credit report. I know, I live the high life.

I'd done this a couple of years ago and all looked OK, though there was one thing I wasn't sure about - something from a past life when I was married to a total and complete loser.

I collected and reviewed new reports and found that one thing that had been there before - a very old account I thought had been closed after the divorce (10 years ago).

Turns out, the loser kept the account open, ran up a small debt, and then later filed for bankruptcy. This one credit card was apparently the least of his financial worries. What a colossal dumbass.

The bankruptcy was filed in 2003. No one ever came looking for me to cover the outstanding credit card balance. It's just been sitting there, and since I don't go opening up new credit cards or applying for loans, it hasn't been an issue.

Regardless, I thought I would try to get this off my credit report. So I went spelunking to first track down a phone number for the reporting company. Found that, then had to find additional phone numbers to customer service departments, because the reporting company is the parent company of the actual credit card company and when the loser went bankrupt, the debt was purchased by another company, and that company is now represented by a typically sleazy law firm.

I finally reached someone who actually knew something about the account and they said because they're just a law firm, they don't report to the credit bureaus, so I'd have to contact the reporting company to request it be removed from my credit report. OK. I tried that, but they sent me to you. Making all kinds of progress now!

I sent a letter to the reporting company and they actually wrote me back a month later, informing me that the account balance was still open and only after it was paid off could they remove it from my credit report. Um, OK.

So, I called the law firm back to try to understand the actual situation. I finally spoke to someone who could adequately explain that even though a loser files for bankruptcy, it doesn't mean the account is purchased and paid - the debt still needs to be collected, but the loser gets a pass.

Knowing this, I made an offer to settle the debt so we could all move on with our little lives. I thought my offer was fair - it's not a big balance, but it's not my debt, so there's no way I'm covering the total.

After I gave the "paralegal" my offer, I could hear her working out the math to find out what percentage it was of the total, because the critical number is their cut of whatever they end up collecting. She was actually whispering to herself as she calculated the percentage. Then she said she'd take that offer back to her client.

Weeks passed. The seasons changed. Then this week I heard back. Her client would not accept my offer. I told her that was too bad, because that was as much as I was willing to pay to call this done.

I also told her I found it hard to understand that after all this time, after no one ever tried to contact me in an effort to settle the account, that a company wouldn't be willing to entertain the offer, especially when it was me who tracked them down in an effort to give them my money.

Then she tried to tell me something about how no one's collecting on this account, so it doesn't matter that I found them, they won't accept anything less than 60% of the debt. She kept repeating that they're not a collection agency, so "I don't know what to tell you."

I hope she really is a paralegal and not a lawyer, 'cause that's a whole lotta money to waste on an education if that's the best she can do - for her firm and her client. I explained again that this was only something I'd hoped to take care of, but if they weren't willing to accept my offer (or something closer to it), then I would just let it fall off my credit report in another year. It's been six years already, what's one more?

Then I told her she was probably hoping to get more so her cut would be better. She repeated that she was "just a paralegal." Yup. And I'm just a philanthropist hoping to help all the little credit card companies of the world.

And why won't "the client" accept less than %60 of this piddly balance? Here's why:
The law firm of Becket & Lee is dedicated to serving its clients by maximizing recoveries from their bankrupt portfolios.

The stupid thing (or 'stupider' thing) is that even 60% of the debt wouldn't cover one tenth of one percent of "Becket & Lee's staff of over 300... made up of lawyers, paralegals, programmers, technicians, managers, supervisors and processors devoted to making our clients' job of managing bankrupt accounts as simple as possible."

300 people? Sweet chocolate christmas, and not one of those people can build you a serviceable website? I think you could cull the ranks there, B&L, and maybe find someone who wants to resolve open issues instead of burn up your valuable, billable time giving people like me the runaround.

It's a good thing the laws were changed and it's harder now for losers to skip out on their debts and keep colon dwellers like these in business. But in the end, karma's a bitch, so one way or another, it all comes back around.