Hi there.

I'm so glad you're watching LIFE Ahead tonight.

I think it's going to be a very interesting show.

I'm the host of the show Sandy Thomson but it's really your show.

In fact, let me remind you all that this is a live call in show on this Wednesday evening here.

So if you have any questions for our attorney tonight, be sure and give us a call.

The phone number will be appearing periodically here in the next half hour at the bottom of the screen and just to remind you, if you're out of the immediate area, if you put a one 866 in front of that number, it's toll free.

Are you trying to make things easy for you to try to get information as as thoroughly as we can out to our audience.

Now our main topic tonight will be about a business owners issues for business owners and we have an attorney tonight that you've met before here on life Head and that is Amy Thompson.

>> Hi, Amy.

Nice to have you with us tonight.

And then Steve in the difference is Amy has a say no, you're over here, Amy that right?

>> No, I'm going I'm going the wrong way.

There she is.

Amy has a P in her Thompson name and I don't have a P that's how about tell us apart Amy That's right.

>> OK now Amy, I know that you are a creditor's rights attorney long name.

What does that mean?

>> What does as a creditor's attorney that is a long name I generally represent businesses and I say generally because I can represent individuals who I do a lot of work to help make sure that those businesses or individuals that are owed money get paid and so that could be through collection work.

Maybe a business has unpaid accounts receivable.

Maybe they're a landlord owner and we have landlord tenant issues.

Maybe we need to look at eviction work.

I do some work for financial institutions so mortgage foreclosures a little bit of anything to help them.

Those creditors, those people that are owed money make sure that they have every opportunity to try and get that money recovered for them.

>> Oh, that's admirable.

Now that's prizes me but pleasantly so that that such an expansive area that you even deal with renters on evictions and you know all sorts of things.

It's not just a one stop collection agency if you will and better your attempt is to let's say would that be to get the business owners the money that they're owed?

>> Right.

So depending on what the business age you know, it could be let's say it's a dental practice and maybe a business owner is winding down with their dental practice and they're either going to be selling it or they're going to be retiring but they have bills that ran they ran through insurance for the individual.

There's still an outstanding balance that that individual owes and they're just not paid for it.

That would be fall under what I call more traditional collection work but then it could be like I said, you know, a financial institution, car loan or they have a home equity loan and the individual is not paying for whatever reason I even may have to get involved for that business on the bankruptcy side sometimes individuals just they can't pay anything anymore, especially in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one has been tough for a lot of individuals so sometimes situations happen in life and their individual just doesn't have any other choice other than bankruptcy.

So I can represent that business or individual and seeing if we can file a claim in their bankruptcy, see if there's any assets, just see what sort of research and detective work we can do to try and get repaid for them for that client.

>> Well, I'm sure as you mentioned the coverage year or year and a half now whatever has certainly complicated everything and with so many people either out of work or less work than they used to have, they're probably a lot more financial situations to deal with, let's say.

And we're just get some kind of generic scenarios here.

Let's say that I own a business, a small business and I'm going to retire and go out of business.

But there are a number of people that still owe me money.

>> They have been sent invoices but they haven't paid me yet.

What are you going to do for ?

>> So a lot of times if we would talk to that client in everything when it comes to collection work we would consider kind I would consider contract work.

So just get to know my client in your business when you was in a service that you provided or was that a product that you sold that individual was there any contract that was entered at the time that you did this work or provided the service for this person that tells a lot looking at if there's paperwork and so actually to sort of sidebar with that if you are a business owner or if you are someone that's looking at providing a service or even loaning money, paper goes a long way.

Having things in writing goes a long way.

So we look at that if if there's security maybe that work you secured it with some sort of asset we would look to see if that's an asset that would make financial sense to try and collect otherwise if it's unsecured it was just a service provided and you're not paid for it.

We would probably recommend trying to collect through either filing suit small claims court depending on the dollar amount or in what we jokingly call Big Boys Court or Superior Court or so and the law the rule actually Indiana rules just changed recently and so you can file to pursue unpaid moneys against one individual totaling up to ten thousand dollars now and that just changed last month.

>> Prior to that it had been me say that again.

What is it about ten thousand dollars though.

>> So when you file in small claims court you can recover up to ten thousand dollars.

>> I say OK you have up to ten thousand if it's if it's more than that you're pursuing depending on the circumstance would probably recommend you go in the Superior Court or Big Boys court side.

>> I see.

OK now also you mentioned that there's nothing like having some good old paperwork.

Let's say that again in this business that I have maybe I'm providing a service or a product and somebody owes me money for it but I don't have anything to prove that I gave them that service or gave them that product are the odds of me reclaiming that money good at all or not?

>> You still can have a clean but at that point it's more than likely going to become a he says she says situation.

So let's say to kind of piggyback on your example I loan John five thousand dollars and it's just a verbal agreement.

I give him the five thousand he says I'm going to pay you back and whatever time I'm going to pay back in the next year or whatever and that year comes and goes and John John skirts and he's gone.

I still have a claim I could still go after John.

I could send him a letter.

I could try to contact him if I don't get anywhere with that I could still look at filing Sue in small claims making a claim against him.

What would happen is is more than likely we would have to go before a judge and argue our case if John doesn't show up for the date to argue his side or mine he does or doesn't owe the money.

I can ask a judge to issue what's called judgment.

That basically is a court order saying I have the right now to go after John to get this five thousand dollars and I can do that in a couple of ways I can try to garnish if John if I know John's working somewhere I can try and garnish his employer and take money, maybe take it from his wages if John's not working.

But I know maybe he has a bank account.

Our firm for example, have different resources we can we discover certain information to help collect on those.

But if I knew that John banked over the bank next door I could try to garnish his bank account if he had money in there but I would at least have that right to do that if John showed up to that hearing and he gave his side of the case, it's going to probably come down to just where the judge falls with the evidence.

The testimony it's provided by each side.

>> So it's it's not as it's not a solid the other thing too is let's say you hire let's say you hire an attorney like myself to collect on that you would not be able to get reimbursed in judgment for attorney fees unless there's something that was signed in writing that says if John doesn't pay me and I have to sue him or I have to hire an attorney to collect this money, I'm able to get attorney fees that John's going to have to pay unless that's in writing that generally is not going to be granted.

>> So that's another reason why papers important does it become your advantage if John doesn't show up in court then it could become an advantage because so there's different ways that you can obtain if you let's say you go to court.

The goal in court is to get a judgment from a court that says here's an order that gives you the ability we believe that you wrote this money you can go collect on it and you can get that order a couple of ways if John doesn't show up and to the hearing I can ask for what's called a default judgment because John because John was given notice that I'm suing him and because John didn't show up by him not showing up, it's essentially him admitting that it's his debt he owes it.

If John didn't show up or John didn't show up, we can still ask for judgment but generally we'd ask for what's called summary judgment.

So essentially we're both arguing then like I said, the judge would make the decision on if that judgment would be granted if John maybe in this this does actually happen more often than you think.

Let's say I sue John for the five thousand dollars and John gets my paperwork and he reads it and he goes Oh my gosh, I don't want I don't want to I don't want to see something happen.

You know, covid happen.

I lost my job.

I just couldn't pay any if he were to call me up or call the attorney up and say that we can actually get John to sign what's called agreed judgment where John's essentially saying I'm not arguing I'm not disputing that I owe this debt and we're going to go to the court and let the court know that we're in agreement that John owes this money and then it's just a matter of how are we going to get paid back.

>> So you're kind of renegotiating that deal with John then, right?

>> Right.

And then that's going on what the client prefers some clients they want every every amount that is owed to them.

It's a lot for a business or an individual to carry money may not be paid for a service that was provided.

They rely on they have employees, they have whatnot other businesses just depending on their situation they might entertain a settlement offer.

So sometimes you'll have individuals like John might say hey Amy, I'm not arguing that I owe you the five thousand dollars and I'll sign this agreed judgment.

But would you be willing to take a reduced amount just because times have been really hard?

This is all you have and that's up to the client.

Any time I get a meeting like that we would talk to the client, see what they want to do or even want payment plans or things like that.

You could negotiate OK?

Right.

It's better to do that than not show up.

I feel a little sorry Amy.

By the way, for any viewers out there that are named John, we really put the ad on tonight.

>> OK, let's say that I you know, I want to collect money for my business but somebody owes me do I have to have a lawsuit to get that or can an attorney help me negotiate out out of court so attorneys can still help negotiate?

>> We don't have to immediately go into filing a suit and so there's different regulations in every area of law and there's a couple of different acronyms that you'll hear when it comes to collections specifically you'll hear FDCPA it's fair debt collection Practices Act.

Another acronym you might hear is CFP.

It's Consumer Financial Protection Collections is a heavily regulated area and so actually by law an attorney shouldn't just take your account and go file a lawsuit.

They're actually required to first submit or mail or send out what's called a demand letter which is the same person to that person you're trying to collect money from, is that what you're saying right.

>> Right.

And looking at the other side, that's a protection for the client to the last thing you want to do is mistakenly Sandy Thomson, Amy Thompson more common names than what you would think.

I jokingly say I give out the last for my social or my date of birth more than I care to sometimes just because there's more than one Amy Thompson in this area.

>> And so you want to make sure that you're really identifying the proper party that you're trying to make this claim against and then it also allows that person to have the opportunity to respond your medical debt, for example.

And this would be for any viewer that's even watching this there could I don't know I'm sure there's viewers that maybe you went to the doctor for something you thought your copay was paid or you didn't have a copay and all of a sudden you get a bill or a collection letter you didn't even realize that it wasn't paid.

A demand letter is kind of the same purpose.

It's to notify that person hey, maybe you weren't aware of this but this account's been turned over.

It's showing unpaid.

If you have paid this we can let's work it out.

Let's see where we're things went wrong.

It just gives them an opportunity to sort of get all the information they needed before they would pay.

The last thing we would want is for someone to pay a debt that's already been paid or that they really don't know.

>> Right?

Yeah, I get that actually Amy, there was a situation once when I had a medical appointment and I paid my copay there in cash or whatever and fortunately I kept the little receipt well a month or so later then I got a bill from that hospital or wherever it was, you know, that I owed this much for the copay and what I called him up and said no I don't I paid the copay.

Well, fortunately I had my little paper receipt which I copied and sent to him and they were like Oh we're sorry.

It must have been an error.

>> It's a computer error.

You can go see Andy Coulson got your copay paymen.

Maybe that was it.

Maybe that was it.

OK, Amy now what if this is theoretical business that I have?

What if I'm trying to collect from somebody and and working with an attorney to to get that done?

Do I have to put my business name in there?

What if I don't want to because I'm going out of business?

>> Yeah you don't you don't necessarily need to do that one of the things that we will do for our clients because reputation is everything for a lot of businesses, especially small business owners, some out of principle.

They want their name on there.

But like you said, some what we can do is we can have we could have our client or the business sign what's called assignment which essentially assigns that debt to our collection.

We can actually file suit in the name.

So the plaintiff name would not be that business that would actually be our collection agency, you name it.

>> And we do find that some clients do prefer that just because it does allow a little more an anonymity but that is an option.

>> OK, all right.

It's nice to know that there are different options.

How long is this process going to take, Amy?

That I'm going after someone that owns my business and I'm trying to collect that money?

>> Is it going to be a week?

A year what?

So attorneys like to use the term?

It depends probably often this is one where it depends to apply.

There's generally a 30 day window from when we send that initial demand letter and if a client says I just want to go straight to sue immediately we're going to have a 30 window where we send that demand letter.

And just so you know, I mentioned earlier we've got some programs and other things available that we can do because we have to do all that preliminary work but we can roll through that, send a demand letter from the time we file suit there has to be that initial hearing that gets set so that we can if we're going to have to pursue judgment through trial, if we're going to if we can reach an agreement with that party.

So that's where the independence falls into.

We've had some like I said more often than you than you think we'll send that demand letter and it's paid I mean they'll get the demand letter and a defendant says I don't want to deal with this.

I don't I don't want it on my credit.

I don't want to go to court.

I just want to pay it.

We have some they don't ignore the letter.

>> We file suit and then they realize OK, they're serious and they write them realizing that would this go on your credit report?

I mean if you were slow and paying back or not paying back, is that going to affect your credit report?

>> So that's going to depend on the on the client too and the business some collection agencies will report to the credit bureau.

Some clients will report to the credit bureau themselves.

The one thing that will will will fall and on will be once a judgment is obtained that judgment will show and attach to property.

>> So if you own a home or you own multiple homes and judgments obtain that can attach.

>> And so if you got to the point of selling your house that would show up as a lean and need to fight before you could sell your property.

OK, now let's say I'm not having much luck nor is my attorney and collecting this money that's owed to me can I go after their assets or their home or even with their spouse?

>> So there are a lot of times we get that question unless the spouse is involved meaning their name is on the bill, their names on a contract generally know the individual now if you had a business that owed you money but maybe you've got a personal guarantee signed by the business owner, even the business owner spouse then in that case, yes, you can go after anybody that signed on on the dotted line.

A lot of times we'll get people that will say well they don't own the house but they own a car.

Can I go get their car?

And that's all into again when we talk assets and is it really worth is it worth the time and money?

What's the value of the car?

What's the condition of the car?

Is it locally selling in Indiana or is there going to be costs that are associated to trying bring it back?

So that's going to mean it depends also you're not automatically entitled to any other assets unless it is part of the contract.

It was that your agreement was secured by those assets.

>> I say OK, all right.

Well that clarifies a lot of those things that I was thinking if I want to change topics just a little bit Amy, in this day and age it seems like there are more and more scams out there due to, you know, the world being so techie right now and scammers become more sophisticated, more international, more convincing and a whole lot of things like that.

>> Now let's say that I get a letter or an email that says you owe us X amount of dollars and it sounds real official and maybe they even have some letterhead on there or whatever else.

But I'm thinking I don't owe them any money.

>> How can I write this or what should I do if are scams like that?

>> So you're exactly right.

They're getting so much more sophisticated.

I find it on my phone.

I even get texts telling me your package wasn't delivered from Amazon or from FedEx, you know, regular places that I shop at and and it is very tempting to want to click on a link.

Letters are very convincing at this point.

The first thing I would say is if you get a letter and it doesn't sound familiar to you pause and and make sure you're reading all the detail on it.

If it doesn't pass your gut check, there's a good chance something isn't correct.

You could call there's I'm sure there's going to be contact information on it.

But if you think it's going to be a scam what you can do I mentioned that we send a demand letter for example.

That's a requirement for everyone you could contact that that entity and say show me proof.

I don't recall that this is mine.

Show me the proof of the service that was provided and they are required to do that if they don't, they do not have a fair claim against you.

The other thing to be careful about is that there are some collection agencies and we personally don't do this but they buy and sell debt and so there are you need to be careful.

Like you mentioned, you may have paid your bill somehow it didn't get marked correctly and it gets this debt gets sold to another agency.

Now you're getting a letter from that so always try to keep good records.

The state of Indiana actually has a consumer protection bureau.

I would recommend if you do end up doing your due diligence and it just doesn't smell right, you could report that and they can inquire on that.

Also Indian is really interested in trying to make sure that consumers are protected in these scams.

Scammers recognize the Indian as a tough state and they hopefully stay away from it.

>> But there's there's a lot I know we've had the Better Business Bureau in LIFE Ahead here and and their recommendation is always if you don't know who's calling drain and answer the phone if you get an e-mail and it's not familiar to you don't even open the email or you might get on a list.

Amy, your time is gone so fast we're down to about a minute now unfortunately because there's so much more I'd like to know so hopefully we can address some of these issues again another time and in a minute or forty five seconds.

Amy, what advice would you give to our viewers to help them through a crisis like this if somebody owes them money or or they're trying to collect money?

>> You and I would say for both sides the best thing you can do is try and see if either side as a creditor rights attorney my job is to represent my client and make sure that we do everything we possibly can to get that money recovered for that individual.

But we also at the same time want to make sure that it's valid.

The last thing to do and I think I really appreciate the clients that I have it's like we mentioned it's been a tough couple 18 20 how many months it's been now just communication's key.

So whether you're the creditor or you're the person that owes the money, try to communicate with the person with the money.

You'll find that generally those clients just they just paid but they're willing to work with you and that's certainly good advice and it's good some of the recommendations that he's given us that there are sometimes alternatives to being real hard nosed and suing them.

You might be able to work it out with an attorney helping you.

I hate it.

Our time's gone.

Already been Amy.

I hope you'll come back again and we're going to really explore scam some night too.

>> I want to yeah.

I want to thank Amy Thompson once again for being with us here tonight on LIFE Ahead and I hope you'll watch us next Wednesday night at seven thirty.

We'll have a new topic and some new guests and have a lot of information to share with you.

Meanwhile, have a great night and stay safe