Complaint Review: J.A. Cambece - Peabody Massachusetts

I am a consumer and not a debt collector or attorney. This only applies to MA but COULD apply to other states as well. It is up to a consumer to reasearch other state laws.

What you are seeing is a civil arrest warrant. The proper name is a Capias. Once you are sued by a debt collector you either win or you lose. If you lose a judgment is entered in favor of the Plaintiff. The order for payment is not made at this point, you will then get a supplementary process hearing, if you fail to show, a capias is issued by the court.

that is how it goes, it is to bring someone in front of a judge who refuses to go on their own to pay a judgment. I think the law has changed now where they cannot hold you in jail and cannot arrest you after 5:30pm.

I was an employee at Cambece Law Office (CLO) for 5 years. To answer your question about being arrested for not paying your debt the answer is no, however not showing up to court when you were required to appear is a different story. It basically works like this: When your debt is placed with CLO it is turned over to a collector to work the account. The collector reviews your credit report, usually provided by Transunion or Equifax, and will make several attempts to reach you. If we are unsuccessful in reaching you after a period of time or if we spoke to you but were unable to resolve the matter amicably then one option we may be told to do is request your account be sued. If you meet the financial criteria, which believe it or not most people do, the legal department will start legal action. That's when the courts get involved. If you are scheduled to appear in court and do not show up then not only do you risk the possibility of having a judgement placed against you (which remains on your credit for 20 years) but now you've failed to make a required court appearance, which in some cases may lead to a warrant for your arrest. Once the deputy's department issues a letter like that it's out of CLO's hands. If you can't gather the $4700 to settle there are other options. You could do any of the following: (1) Try for a lower settlement again, perhaps $2500, they might not accept it but they will most likely counter offer a new lower settlement. (2) Ask for a $4000 settlement split over 5 or 6 months. (3) Offer a lump sum down and an affordable monthly payment arrangement on the remaining balance. For example you could offer $1000/down and $50/month or $500/down and $100/month. The higher the down payment the lower monthly arrangement you can expect. They will eventually accept it and if the person your dealing with won't then ask to speak to the manager. If you are making reasonable offers they will work with you. They want the matter to be resolved as much as you do! Hope this helps!

There is no way that was real. Here is what happens... You didn't show up at court, that means they got a default judgement on you. They now can persue you for the money for I think 10 years, and they can renew. ALWAYS go to court. Secondly you should have received another form stating you will need to go to court for a "case mangement" meeting. this is where you and the lawyers look at your assests and how you can start paying. Some people really can't pay more than $2 and a judge will accept that. The only way this was not a scam..is once I got a road violation while driving. It was serious enough that i had to go to court. I got stuck in Canada and could not make my court date. I was then considered in contempt of court and a bench warrent was issued for my arrest. As soon as i got home i went and paid. The reason I feel this is a scam is my driving case was a minor misdomeaner (may have been considered criminal, not 100% sure) Your case is considered civil. You are not going to jail, but at some point if you ignore everything that comes at you from the lawfirm and court they will garnish your wages eventually. I would have made a payment plan only at court. I can't imagine the nasty terms in your agreement good luck ps..i was sued by them as well.

It is flat out ILLEGAL to threaten anyone with arrest over ANY debt. You CANNOT be arrested for failure to pay a debt. Period. AND, you CANNOT be held in contempt of court for not responding to a civil summons for a debt case. The most they can do is move for a default judgement and garnishment order. That's it. Be sure to file a Bar Association complaint against any "lawyers" involved as they engaged in unethical and even illegal activity. Get them dis-barred! Also go to ftc.gov and file a complaint online. It takes 2 minutes. The Cambece clan is among the worse in the industry. STAY OFF THE PHONE!!! Never speak to ANY "bottomfeeder" on the phone!!

If you received such a letter keep it an take it to an attorney. File a lawsuit and sue the pants off of this company! See whom ends up owing whom! No, you cannot go to jail for a credit card debt! If you where sent a summons, either by mail, left at a place of residence (does not have to be your current residence, can be any residence of the last known place you resided), served by a summonser, or posted in the paper and you do not show for the court hearing the debt collector gets a judgment against you by default. This means if the debtor can then freeze any bank accounts you have, attach your wages, or put a lien against any home you may own until the debt has been satisfied. After the debtor has a judgement the only way to get out of under the judgement is either to pay it off or file bankruptcy! But you cannot go to jail for it. If this company portrayed that you could then they are in violation of the fair collections act and you have one heck of a lawsuit against them!

NEVER EVER NEGOTIATE WITH A DEBT COLLECTOR I understand that you are currently unemployed - I understand - debt collectors don't care about your circumstances - no point in trying to work with them because they LIE AND CANNOT BE TRUSTED. They cannot threaten you with arrest - its illegal. But it got them what they wanted because you chose the wrong path to take to resolve this issue. Always show up to court - at most they received a default judgement against you - not an arrest warrant. If you had gone to court and explained your circumstances - they would not have received a default judgement. However they knew even with a default judgement - they could not make you pay without ILLEGALLY scaring you into doing so. You need to some expert assistance -www.budhibbs.com A consumer advocate website that specializes in Collections - free advice and you can probably find an attorney. Collection Agencies do not like this site because it exposes all the nasty ILLEGAL TRICKS they use. They do not want you to have expert advice at all. DON'T LET THEM INTIMIDATE YOU INTO ANYTHING! As for the idiot bottomfeeder responses - they show why you work in collections. NO ONE ELSE WILL HIRE YOU!

Get real - You work for one of the worst third party debt collection agencies Your "company" buys out of date debts and then tries to collect them with tactics that would make Bin Laden proud Go too www.budhibbs.com and learn your rights about these bottom feeders I sued one of these so called "collection agencies" and won

THIS IS COMMING FROM A DEBT COLLECTOR, FIRST OFF YOU PEOPLE WOULDNT HAVE THIS PROBLEM IF YOU JUST PAID YOUR BILL. SECOND COLLECTORS " CAN CONTACT NEIGHBORS AND FAMILY". THE REASON BEING BEACUSE ALL YOU PEOPLE AVOID PHONE CALLS AND LIKE TO JACK UP CREDIT CARDS AND NOT PAY , HMMM WONDER WHY ALL THE LATE FEE ARE HAPPENING. THE COUNTRY WOULDNT BE IN THE ECONOMIC MESS. THAT ITS IN IF YOU JUST PAID YOUR BILL, RAISING ALL THE HONEST PEOPLE'S INTREST RATE THROUGH THE ROOF. THANKS DEBITORS. I TALK TO PEOPLE EVERYDAY THAT HAVE FILED CHAPTER 7 AT LEAST 3 TIMES, OPEN UP CREDIT CATDS AGAIN JACK THEM UP AND NOT PAY. THEN THANKS TO GEORGE BUSH RUN AND HIDE. TAKE SOME PRIDE IN YOUR SELF AND JUST PAY YOUR BILLS. OH YEAH DONT BE AFRAID ITS ONLY A PHONE, WE CANT BITE. I KNDA HOPE OBAMA BRINGS BACK OLD SCHOOL COLLECTIONS. KINDA HARD TO AVOID PEOPLE KNOCKING ON YOUR DOOR. WELL THATS ALL FOR NOW BUT IN CLOSING IF IT WASNT FOR ALL YOU SCUMBAGS I WOULDNT HAVE A JOB

Ha ha. No, I'm not laughing at you. I laughed when you said that Doug Barrett contacted you. I know him quite well. He's overall a great guy, a lot of fun and always knows how to get us laughing. And that actually IS his real name. And yes, he can be a pitbull on the phones which, in our line of work, is actually a compliment. He's just really great at detecting BS and calling people out on it. The good news is that you'll never see "Dougie" in court because he just stays in the office and makes the calls. The bad news is that, YES, you actually can be physically apprehended for failure to show up at a previous Supplementary Process hearing. I've seen it happen and it definitely shakes up the average debtor who's confident it can never happen to them. The $300.00 is what it costs CLO to retain the services of the sheriffs we need to take you away. Let's face facts, though. You got yourself into this mess because you just ignored CLO for way too long. You're better off just facing the music because it doesn't stop until you pay what you owe. Try to come up past the 50% mark and submit another offer. Make sure you can pay it on the same month you're offering it. CLO is so driven by hitting that monthly goal that they won't even want to bother with you unless you're making an offer for the same month you're in. Good luck.