Successful settlement negotiations often begin with a few foul words and I’d like to tell a story that should explain why.
I once worked with a finance company that had a debtor who owed them a about $20,000.00 pursuant to a court judgment. This guy absolutely refused to pay the money he owed and he claimed that he had no means to make monthly payments towards his debt because he was out of work. Well let’s just say I was a little skeptical of his claimed inability to pay. So I did what I do best… I found out where he worked. Not only did I find out where he worked, but I found out where he banked, that he had direct deposit, and I also found out what day his direct deposit hit the bank. I made arrangements with the sheriff to serve a bank levy the same day as his direct deposit so that he wouldn’t have time to take the money out, spend it, or pay his other bills.
The bank levy was served and froze $1,800.00, his entire pay for two weeks. He called me immediately. He was livid, calling me every name in the book! He said that he was going to get evicted now and that his life was ruined because he couldn’t afford to live. Now, I realized that he was feeling frustrated, and that he was just venting. I also knew that the $1,800.00 we were levying was not going to be as devastating to his life as he felt in the moment. I tried to calm him down. And I suggested he find a way to resolve this situation, because it wasn’t going away since this levy (and the underlying judgment) was court ordered. I even offered to consider a settlement if he wanted to come to the table and discuss a voluntary payment resolution. Let’s just say that after a few more verbal jabs, he hung up on me. Well about two hours later, he calls me with his dad on the line. Apparently, the dad’s name was also on the bank account and he did not take too kindly to this situation. His dad was just as bad. Cussing me out left and right, claiming that he was in my area and was going to drive to my office and beat me up. I did everything I could to talk reasonably with these two, but just like the first call, I was hung up on again. The next morning I received another call from the debtor. I must admit that when I saw the caller ID, I was somewhat looking forward to the creative language, but the tone of this call was drastically different. Instead of yelling and swearing, he apologized to me, saying that he shouldn’t have behaved so poorly on his previous two phone calls. He explained that he was just upset, but that he now realized that this situation was no one’s fault but his own. He wanted to move on with his life and this judgment was hurting him. He asked if I would still work out a settlement. I said yes. You see, this is business, not personal. I understand that financial troubles happen, in fact, I have had financial troubles before, so what I offered him was this: If he will talk with his dad, other family members, or his bank, and can get a total of $14,000 together to pay in the next two weeks, I would stop the pending wage garnishment and file a satisfaction of judgment with the courts so that he could improve his credit and finally take control of his financial situation. He said that he didn’t believe he could come up with that amount of money (he countered at $3,000.00 which just was not reasonable), but he would see what he could do.
A couple of days passed until I received another call from the debtor. This time he sounded optimistic. He advised that his dad was helping him out by way of co-signing on a loan at his bank. Within one week, the $14,000.00 was paid. In fact, his dad, who had previously told me over the phone that he would show up to my office and punch my lights out, actually showed up at my office to drop off the settlement check. I love this work! To think that before the bank garnishment, this debtor, who swore up and down that he was broke and couldn’t pay, suddenly paid $15,800.00 in about two weeks time.
I have learned that if a debtor has refused to pay before a lawsuit has been filed against them, has refused to settle after being served with a court summons, and then has refused to make payment arrangements after having a money judgment
awarded against them by a judge in a court of law, they most likely will never pay unless you can take something from them. In the above example, the debtor refused to pay and even lied about being out of work. However, once something was taken from him ($1,800.00 from his bank account) he became emotionally involved and thus was suddenly motivated to settle his debt as soon as possible.
Moral of the story: CRIERS ARE PAYERS. The more emotionally involved the judgment creditor can get their judgment debtor, the more likely they are to collect on the judgment.
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