00:00:37 Mary. I see you here. Yeah. I was clicking on mute, but nothing was happening. I think that I need to see how we can hide. Oh, I think I'm okay. I think it later was, was close. Good to see you. Good to see you too. Okay. So I haven't done a webinar where there's other participants listening in. 00:01:05 So let me just figure out how to do this. So I'm going to make you a cohost and then I'm going to turn off the participants somehow. How do I hide them? Let's see. No, Well, I thought that there was a way where I can hide the participants that are not us. I'm not seeing a way to do that. Hide non-video participants. 00:01:44 There we go. Okay, great. Awesome. And now I'm going to do, Nope. That was now I'm going to do gallery view. Okay. Great to be here with you today And dead. We are recording. So this is a bonus training that is going to be in the lift foundation system forevermore, and we've invited our li live lift participants to listen in today on us recording it. 00:02:19 So we do have some live folks here, but mostly this is going to be heard on a recording by those going through the lift foundation system, which I think, you know what it is, but just in case, let me just give you the background that the lift foundation system teaches the legal insurance, financial and tax systems that business owners need to have in order to grow their business with the most trajectory, 00:02:49 least risk possible. And so that they can know what they can do themselves, what they need to hire out. And then if they need to hire out that they are able to hire the right people. And today our interview is really in service to a couple of things. One of course, I want to get into your conscious communication teachings. And I would love to give everybody the one sheet do not say list, 00:03:23 but also I want to, you know, as a debt collector, I want to get into some of the specifics around what to do when you have debt and the debt collectors are calling. And so that's the context that I'm holding for us today. So before we get started officially, do you have any questions for me? Are you talking to me or your membership? 00:03:48 No, you, yeah, there won't be. So if, if we have time, we can do some questions at the end, from anybody that's here live, but I do have a live Q and a happening this evening where they can also come and bring me questions. So we don't need to do live Q and a necessarily today. Okay, perfect. 00:04:07 So it's my understanding that we're going to do some, some Q and a, between you and I right now about debt collections, about what to do when you're getting calls and from a legal perspective, as well as if you want to know anything about best practices for people setting up their businesses and what to do when someone owes them money, we can talk about that. 00:04:28 And we can also talk a little bit about communication, so, and yeah, so let's just get started right away. Thank you so much. Okay, great. I love that Mary. So let me do a formal introduction then, and hang on just one second. Let me pull it up for one thing I do want to note for everybody. Cause I think that this was really awesome. 00:04:53 What you just did, Mary, you all might notice that Mary reflected back to me what she heard me say, and this is a foundational piece of conscious communication. I imagine Mary, that you either teach that or it's just so much a part of you because you are a conscious communicator at, I don't even know if you noticed that you did that, 00:05:19 but what you just heard Mary do where I said a whole bunch of things. And then Mary reflected back. What she heard is something that I think most of us could use more practice with. And so I just wanted to point to it so that you can go back and actually rewind if you're watching the recording or come back to the recording later and watch what happened there and see how you can bring that into your business with your team members, 00:05:48 with your kids, with your family and see actually what transforms around your communication patterns when you do that. So anything you want to add on that, Mary, before I actually introduce you, This, that, that was super perspective. Perceptive. I think a really important reason to do that is because there's so much of communication that is lost in translation. 00:06:10 And so what you say and what the other person hears isn't necessarily the same thing. So for all kinds of reasons, I mean, number one reason is just the way our brains work. We can only process and comprehend so many words per minute. And all of us are different. Another reason being that coming from two different industries, a lot of times people tend to speak in industry jargon. 00:06:32 And so what one person hears and understands may not be necessarily what the speaker meant it to say. So I think that always, it provides a lot of clarity to make sure before you even get started, that you're on the same page because how many legal disputes happen because of miscommunication. I'm sure it's enormous. It's huge. And, and, and what I often say is that two well-meaning big-hearted people can say the exact same words and mean totally different things. 00:07:03 And because nobody knew how to check it out, or they just didn't check it out. It turns out that they were on completely different pages and now there's a huge conflict. So we're going to dive into that first. I'm going to introduce you to my guests today, Mary shores, who you've already started to get to know here a little bit. And I think you can probably see why I wanted to have here, 00:07:24 have her here with us today because her knowledge is vast and she is a conscious communication teacher. She is a bestselling hay house, personal development author, and the owner and CEO of what has been called one of the most unique collection agencies in the country. Mary's philosophy of maintaining a positive approach to life and to debt collection has reframed her entire organization and the lives of those she's trained. 00:07:58 And this tried and true communication strategy has not only ensure her success in collections. It has also built a lasting positive reputation for both her clients and customers. And Mary has spent the last 12 years perfecting this philosophy and training organizations across the country on communication skills and other leadership upfront collections and personal development topics. Mary's book is called conscious communications. And before we end today, 00:08:28 Mary is going to share with you how you can download a really powerful one sheet. I downloaded it myself, thought it was so great called the, do not say list a pro tip guide for implementing Mary's three step communication code. And I think that you can, you can see just from what we were talking about before I introduced Mary, what abroad application these tools have. 00:08:54 So Mary, thank you much for being here with us today. My pleasure. So why don't we get started then with the debt collection piece and both the side of if you're a business owner and you've got that collectors calling you what to do, and then we'll, we can transition into if you, as the business owner are trying to collect debts that are owed to you, 00:09:17 what, what should you do? Okay. I think that one of the first things to understand is that there are laws surrounding the debt collection industry. The name of the law is called the fair debt collection practices act. It's a very robust law and it's built to protect the consumer. Now what's interesting is that I'm assuming that people that are on the call today are business owners, 00:09:43 because I, you know what I know you're doing. And so the law can be different when it, with respect to business owners. So the law was created to protect consumers and all of you are technically not consumers own a business. So whether, so there's some things to understand. First of all, it would be whose name is the debt in? 00:10:04 So depending on how you signed your contracts, you know, I'm assuming that a lot of people on the call are small businesses. And that means that you've probably given a personal guarantee for the debt. So when you signed the contract, it wasn't that, you know, ABC heating and air sign the contract. It was me, Mary shores, making a personal guarantee of that money. 00:10:27 And so if that is the case, then it can become a consumer. You know, the consumer laws can begin to take over, which is in your favor. So the first thing to be very aware of is that you do have a right to an itemization of your debt. Now, how you exercise that, right, is that you would write into the company within 30 days of receiving your first notice. 00:10:49 So each collection episode is required by law to have a first notice mailed to the consumers or to the business. Now, what this means is that a first notice is a pretty, it's a, it's a uniform word for word document that every collection agency or collection agency or attorney is going to be using the exact same verbiage because that verbiage is written in the FTC PA. 00:11:18 Okay. So the first thing is they are required to send you a first notice. Now they're not required to make sure it gets delivered to you. Okay? So it happens all the time that where we may send out a letter, but we can't guarantee delivery of that letter. So this is not a, you know, this is not a process server, 00:11:36 kind of a situation it's reliant upon the mail. Once you receive the letter, the couple of things you could do is you could make a phone call to the office, to the collection agency, to inquire about what the debt is about. Or you can write a written letter to request an itemization of the charges. So that's your right now. I want you to understand that if you do not do that within 30 days, 00:12:02 that you could be forfeiting that, right. Okay. So the FTC PA the fair debt collection practices act is very specific that the consumer has a validation period. So this is called the validation period of 30 days. So once that 30 day time period has expired, you may not be able to have the same validation period. So what would that mean within 30 days? 00:12:30 The things that you can do are you can dispute the debt. Now I want to talk about a little bit more about disputing the debts and what that means. And the reason I wanna talk about this is because we went into way back machine. Okay. So let's go way back to 2005. When every, you know, bill Clinton decided everyone should be a homeowner, 00:12:52 right? And so all of a sudden you had all of these credit repair companies coming out, telling you they could fix your credit. Well, what they were doing was they were disputing everything on the credit report, hoping that it would be removed okay now, or they, because the, the law, a different law actually called the fair credit reporting act, 00:13:15 the F C R a requires that if a consumer, if a, if you know, or you should know that a debt is disputed, that you have to indicate so on their credit report. So Allie, let's just like, give an example here. Let's say that you have a debt turned over at my agency, and then you call me and you just start complaining about the debt. 00:13:39 Like you don't say the words, I dispute this debt, but you make it very known to me that you do not agree. You owe the money. I am now required to indicate in my system to, to Mark that account or flag that account as a disputed account so that when it hits your credit report, it's going to be reported on your credit report as a disputed account. 00:14:01 Now, if I go in that way back machine, again, a lot of these credit repair companies were doing this thinking they were helping consumers credit, but what they were actually doing was hurting them because the mortgage companies, the underwriters from loans began to get very wise to that. So it's obvious if you've got someone's credit report and they've got, say, 00:14:22 20 bad debts on them on there. And every single one of them is disputed. Well, common sense even tells you that they owe the money. They're just trying to falsify their credit report. So I just want you to be very, I want you to understand that if you really don't believe you owe the money, this is not that you didn't like the person. 00:14:43 It's not that you weren't happy with the services. I am a person that always goes back to the black and the white. And what does the black and the white meet? It means the words on the contract. It is not your opinion. It is not the other entities opinion. Would you agree, Allie? Yes. It's the words, the black and the white, 00:15:02 because you know why that's what the judge is going to care about. Yeah. So let's, let's pause there. Let's pause there for one minute and, and talk about this before we, before we even talk about that, let's talk about reporting on the credit report. Sure. When something comes to you for collections, are you reporting it on the credit report or has it already gotten reported on the credit report? 00:15:26 Like how do things even get onto the credit report? Like they've missed, you know, 10 payments, one payment. Do you know? Do you know about that part? Yeah. That's a great question. And thank you so much and definitely love to talk about credit reporting. It's one of my passions. And so any, I think the more people understand credit reporting the better. 00:15:48 Yeah. So let's just talk about a couple of different entries on the credit report. So you have your revolving credit. So this would look like things like a credit card, or perhaps you've gotten a personal loan or a business loan or a line of credit. This would be in the revolving credit section. So there is a, you've got things that are reported. 00:16:07 These would be accounts that are reported or line items on the credit report, but then you can also have, what's called the derogatory section of the credit report. This is the bad stuff. So if you get something derogatory, it could be that it's a judgment. So if it's a judgment, all judgments are reported to credit. It could be that it's in collections now, 00:16:30 not all collection agencies report to credit, but most of them are going to do that because it's really your best leverage to get an account paid. Okay. So now the account from a collection agency standpoint is not going to be reported within that validation period. So because the consumer needs to have the opportunity to say whether or not they dispute the account. And then once that period has expired, 00:16:57 then the account can be reported to credit. Once it is reported to credit, it can remain there for up to seven years from a collection agency. Now that is seven years from the most recent date of service. So not seven years from the date, it went to collections, but seven years from when you received the service, it could also be seven years from the time you made the last payment. 00:17:19 Okay. So that's just a couple of like basic things to know about the credit report. Now let's say you have a credit card or revolving credit or a line of credit and you made payment late. So another thing that can happen on the credit report is you can have payments that did not get made on time. And those could get takeoff points from your credit score. 00:17:42 It wouldn't show up in the derogatory section, but it would show that you've been late and it would show how many times late. And I believe, I believe it has like a 30, 60, 90, like, were you late 30 days? 60 days, 90 days. Okay. So they wouldn't be in the derogatory section, but it would indicate that you have made late payments that is only going to cost a few points. 00:18:06 It's not going to cost probably an approval. The way that a judgment there's a public records section of a credit report. And the public records section is where the judgment is going to show up. If there's a judgment against you, which would mean that someone has taken you to small claims court and a judge has declared that a judgment against you and in favor of the plaintiff. 00:18:33 So if, if they are in, if somebody is in collections, the validation period has passed and we will come back to the validation period and disputing the validation period has passed. Now your agency or another agency has said, you're in collections and put that on the credit report. Can you also pull it off the credit report? Yes, we can. 00:18:55 Okay. So that is like what you're saying, leverage it's really in your best interest to talk to the collection agency because they can actually pull that off your report. So let's talk about that for a moment. So one of the things that I think it's really important to understand is how that would be done. So for example, if you called a collection agency and you said, 00:19:17 I will pay this account, if you delete it from my credit report, the answer that they tell you should be no, because it is prohibited from the FCRA, the fair credit reporting act. And it's actually known as credit bartering. The FCRA has decided that it's unfair for underwriters to not get the full picture. So according to the FCRA, whether the account is paid or unpaid, 00:19:46 it needs to remain on the credit report for that full seven years from the date of service. So what would happen is if you pay the account in full, let's, just say you owe $3,000 and you pay that account in full. If it's already reported on your credit report, then the agency needs to report. It paid in full, within 30 days of the day that you make that payment. 00:20:07 Now with that being understood, there are some other things that you can do and I will help you. I will, I will tell you exactly what you can do. There are some agencies that aren't going to pay attention to that, to that rule. Okay. So I think it's always worth asking the question, just be prepared that like, for example, 00:20:27 we would tell you no, because for us, it's not worth the violation in order to, in order to get that payment. Okay. But we follow it up with saying that you can contact the credit Bureau directly. You can do that. If everybody has a pin, please write this down. The web address is www.annualcreditreport.com. Now that's annual credit report.com. 00:20:54 The credit bureaus have initiated multiple years ago, like 15 years ago that each consumer is entitled to one free credit report per year per Bureau. So the way that you get that free report is you go on to www.annualcreditreport.com and you will create an account. And once you get an account, you'll have a user ID and a password just like every other website on the planet. 00:21:22 And you will have access to your credit report for a full 30 days. Now there are three credit bureaus. There is Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. So let's just use TransUnion. As an example, if you see an account on your credit report, through TransUnion, you can look at just the trans union report. You don't have to pull all three reports at one time. 00:21:44 And as a matter of fact, sometimes strategically, you can say, okay, I want to pull one report. And then three months later, I want to pull the other report because for the most part, they're going to contain identical information. Okay? Most companies are hopefully reporting to all three bureaus, but that's not always the case. Now, once you find, 00:22:03 Oh, I paid that account, the agency market paid in full, but it's still showing. And I know it's costing me points will, you can dispute that account online directly through annual credit report.com. Now I want to make this clear, this website is set up by the actual credit bureaus. This is not a credit monitoring service. This is not a, 00:22:25 this is not, they're not going to ask you for a credit card. Okay. So there's all kinds of services out there that offer credit monitoring. This is a free service provided by the credit bureaus themselves. There's no cost involved. So just rest assured, you're not going to be asked for your credit number credit card, and you're not entering into some kind of like monthly dealio. 00:22:48 Oh yeah. Yeah. So I there's some, you know, I used to participate@liketotalcreditcheck.com or something like that. I was like $18 a month, but recently I've been using credit karma on and it's free. It only checks to the bureaus, but I wonder is that as good as annual credit report.com because it's free also, Other than their commercials, I'm really not familiar with credit karma. 00:23:14 So I, I wouldn't be able to answer the question, but my, I will tell you, I don't use any of those services for me personally. I don't find it a value to use those services because I just don't want to be sold something else. And also, you know, I'm in a different position because obviously I understand credits, you know, 00:23:35 I'm, I'm might not be the best person to ask. Yeah. Once the, if you find something and you've paid it and the agency did not want to take it, then your next best thing to do. And this actually, I think works. You go to that annual credit report.com. You know, you strategically plan this out. So you've paid your things in collections. 00:23:57 And now you go through and you dispute them and you just want to dispute them for some oddball reason, don't dispute it saying you've paid it in full because then the credit Bureau is just gonna leave it paid in full cause it's already showing paid in full, right? You gotta be a little clever. So disputed for some other reason. Now what happens on the agency side is we get these electronic reports of all of our disputes. 00:24:19 And when we're going through checking them, anybody that has a zero balance, we just hit delete. It's just delete, delete, Oh, this is a good little secret here. No, this is not an insider. This is what's insider tips. Now, why would we do that? Okay. Number one, why would I want to pay my staff time and energy to prove up a debt that's already, 00:24:40 we've already made our money. We've moved on, right? Yeah. We have emotionally disposed of you a long time ago, and I'm happy you disputed that. The other thing is me personally. I am just a person that doesn't agree. And I feel like if someone has paid something, it does not need to follow them around. I mean, I that's honestly from my heart, 00:24:58 I just don't agree with that policy. I don't agree with it enough to violate the law, but I don't agree with it. So my insider tip, my little loophole has always been point. And also, you know, another thing about it is I feel it empowers the consumer to even let them know that that exists because most of the consumers that I speak to on a daily basis, 00:25:21 or my staff is speaking to on a daily basis, they're not even aware that they could do something like that. And the last thing I want them to do is go pay $700 to some credit repair company that just going to do exactly what I just told them they could do for Yes, exactly. Great. I love that. I love that tip. 00:25:38 So let's just go back now a step, which is in the first 30 days you get the first collection notice, hopefully you get it in the mail. They can call or write to the collection agency, your agency, or whatever agency is trying to collect and say, validate this that I owe this. Is that a good idea? Okay. Okay. 00:26:02 Well, I'm not sure that it is okay. Let's just talk about different options because every situation is different. One reason it's a good idea is if you really do not own the money. Yeah. Well, of course, right. Okay. If you do not owed the money, then the dispute should be done in writing. So the request could be done in writing. 00:26:23 Now you could, you could try your hand at a phone call, but let's just talk about written requests. First. The reason it's nice to have a written request is because once you send that written request into them, their timer starts ticking. Okay? Because the FTC PA says they have 30 days to respond to your written request. If you just call them on the phone and say, 00:26:49 Hey, Joey, I don't know that money. There's no law holding them to anything. So your written request is your documentation. That that 30 day time period has begun. Okay. So that's one reason it's offers a layer of protection. Here's number two, if they do not respond to you within 30 days, they now must drop that debt. Wow. 00:27:18 It's lost. So it's, it's Allie you'll know this one because you're an attorney and I'm not an attorney. I only play one. Yeah. You're doing a great job where You dismiss something without prejudice. Maybe it means you can reopen it and it's called dismissing it without prejudice. So it means that it can be reopened. So let's just put it that way. 00:27:40 It doesn't mean the debt disappears from the universe. Okay. What it does mean is that the agency would either need to like take it off your credit report. Okay. Because they did not respond. Now, a response does not mean they have to give you the paperwork, but they have to touch base with you within 30 days. Now, why is that? 00:27:59 It's because sometimes they can't get their hands on the paperwork from original client. So the original client is also referred to as the original creditor. Now you have a right to know who the original creditor is. And that sounds so simple, but the truth is sometimes debts are bought and sold and at different agencies. And it can be actually difficult to know. 00:28:22 You might look at a letter and see some bizarro name on it that you don't recognize. You have a right to know who the original creditor is. Of course you do. Okay. But if, if that debt was sold and sold again and sold again, then it may not be very apparent who the original creditors. So you know that one's important to you. 00:28:42 You need to know who the original creditor is. If you do not agree that you owe the money, please write a very simple dispute letter. What does simple mean? It can be as simple as this, I dispute this debt. That's it? That's it great Strategic perspective. I mean, Allie, as an attorney, wouldn't you agree? You don't want your clients calling opposing counsel and giving them the full story. 00:29:10 Right? Right. And that, that is a, that is a big one. So when you are talking with, with debt collectors, when you're sending a letter, one sentence, keep it simple. You don't need to tell everybody your whole story Information. That's not necessary. You know? No, let's say, let's say it's an account that got turned over to collections, 00:29:34 but you already paid it. Okay. Then it's reasonable to say, here's my proof of payment. And if you have a canceled check, you have some kind of way to prove that payment that is absolutely appropriate because that's going to help them process their information quicker. But what we see a lot of times is people writing these six page letters with detail. 00:29:55 Now sometimes that's appropriate. Okay. So I'm not saying in all cases that you have to keep it simple. If you've got something that is against the black and the white, okay. Here would be an example. The other day, my person that handles my disputes, her name is Karen. She's brilliant. She brought, she always brings me like the stack of the disputes that she needs help with and a consumer disputed a bill. 00:30:22 And she's going on about all these facts. Right? And I said, wait a minute, what is this bill for? And Karen says to me, well, she didn't, she didn't show up at her doctor's appointment. And they have a cancellation fee for not show like a no-show. And it was Like $150. We'll just say it was $150. 00:30:43 And I said, but didn't you say that the referral came from like the ER, so it was like the appointment was made from a third party. So this patient shows up at the emergency room. The doctor tells her, okay, we made you an appointment over here at Dr. Jones's office and that she didn't show up. Well, here's, what's interesting about that one. 00:31:04 So who knows what the person was disputing about, but from my perspective, because I know the law, you cannot be charged a fee for something that you did not specifically authorize in writing in certain States. Now we're in the state of Illinois. So in the state of Illinois, that doesn't fly. You don't get to just make up a, a fee of $150. 00:31:25 Cause this person didn't show up at your doctor's appointment because you know what? You don't have anything in writing. Remember black and white, you don't have anything in writing authorizing you to do so now, just yesterday I went to the doctor's office and of course they presented me with a clip board and on that clipboard was all of these things. Okay. So what it say on page two, 00:31:47 if you miss your appointment and do not cancel within 48 hours, that's two full days, we're going to charge you $250. Okay. Let me tell you something. This kind of goes on the business side of things on this doctor's form. They had a paragraph paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, and you're supposed to initial every single paragraph folks. I don't know why whoever created these contracts, 00:32:13 but that's really, I don't like that because also one has to do is not initial that paragraph. And then now we don't agree to what we did in the initial two. So when I'm in talks about debt collections, especially best practices, unless your industry requires you to have a paragraph by paragraph acknowledgement, please don't do that. Just have the signature at the end, 00:32:36 at the End. And if you're concerned about like, Oh, well, what if, you know, someone changed just put like page three of three page, one page, one of three, page two of three. Don't have them initial every single page because here's what happens if they sign the contract, but they didn't initial the page. They didn't agree to any of the terms and conditions on that page. 00:32:55 I'm right. Aren't I, yeah. Yeah. Well, at least there's a case to be made, you know? And, and, and you don't, you don't want any open questions because that's how you end up in court. Exactly. And I have seen this happen. So, you know, again, if, unless your industry requires it. 00:33:13 Yes. So there could be a case where I see it a lot is like in leases, there's no reason a lease needs those extra initials. You know what I think it's like one person saw it on a contract though. They thought, okay, you must have to do that. And then they started copying and pasting it. And now next thing you know, 00:33:32 10 years later, everyone's doing it. So that is how most contracts happen. It's true. Don't do that unless you are required, unless you have some, you know, reason that requires you, please don't do extra things. Your contracts keep them very simple. So here would be another like reason somebody might dispute a bill. Let's say they're being charged interest on an account, 00:33:55 but they never signed anything agreeing to an interest rate. So in a lot of States, that's not going to, that's not going to be okay. So if you just tell me I'm going to dispute the debt, I'm now looking at them. I, if I'm doing my job correctly, I should be looking at that and making sure every charge is legit. 00:34:14 Okay. If you wrote me a letter and tell me, I want you to look at this specific thing, it could be helpful, but what if there's something else that you didn't even know would potentially, you know, void, void the debt. Right? Right. So if there is a very specific thing, like you never agreed to a cancellation fee, 00:34:38 somebody else made you the appointment. Give the story. I think so. Give the detail, not the story. Give the detail. Okay. What's the difference between the detail and the story I called them. And I spoke to Jodie and, and, you know, I told Jody 17 times, and then they did this and then they said this, 00:34:55 and now I'm in this, just give the black and the white, Just the bottom line. I didn't make this appointment. I never agreed to this payment. You'll look at, if you'll look at the contract or you'll look at what this says, you'll clearly see, I didn't agree to that. Very simple. Yes. Okay. That makes sense. 00:35:14 But you could also just write, I dispute this debt when they write, I dispute this debt. What then happens on your end at the collection agency? I have a little tickle in my throat, just so you know, I might drop Great. Thanks for letting us know. Okay. So what's going to happen on our Side of things as we're going to start an investigation and I take these investigations very seriously. 00:35:47 And so we're going to pull all of the paperwork. So I want to see the entire ledger. I want to see every piece of how that debt was created. I want to look at any contracts, excuse me, one moment. Okay. Those of you that are here with us live, if you do have any questions that are coming up, go ahead and post them in the chat. 00:36:14 And I will hopefully have time to ask them of Mary, but I I'm just loving this conversation. It feels like we could talk for hours here. I think so. I think it's fun So much to unpack and I don't want it. I want to make sure that I want to make sure that everything, everyone understands everything they want to. So whatever we don't get finished today, 00:36:40 I'm happy to come back and talk some more, no, no issues with that at all. Okay. So we have a very robust process and it's because I really respect the consumer's right to right to dispute. And there are plenty of times that I will side on the site. You know, I will side with the consumer rather than my client. Now that doesn't always get me brownie points with my clients, 00:37:04 but it is important. And there's a lot of integrity built into that process. So when we received the letter of dispute, we're going to log it. So we know like when our 30 days started ticking. And then the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to start reviewing the paperwork. So I want to see all of the dollars and cents and how they came up with the balance. 00:37:23 And if there's anything that, that is out of the ordinary, I'm going to be looking at that. And then if there is a contract that created the debt, I want to see the contract too. So most things are pretty cut and dry, and we're pretty, the person who's been doing, my disputes has been with me over 10, maybe 15 years. 00:37:45 So she really, really, really knows her stuff. Yeah. Now for credit Bureau disputes, we're not really required to do that. We're not required to do a full investigation. So disputing on the credit report is not the same as disputing within the validation period of the debt. Got it. Thank you so much. And really you want to only be disputing on, 00:38:08 well, I wouldn't say only disputing on the credit report, but the credit disputing on the credit report track secret is when you've paid it off, it's paid off. It's going to get sent to you. Let's get a zero balance. You're not the only point. If you dispute a debt on your credit report and you owe the money, the only thing that's going to happen is the count is going to get a little indication that you've disputed. 00:38:36 It is not going to cause an investigation. In fact, it could actually make your credit worse. Yeah. It can be suspicious If you have a lot of these disputes, which you were saying at the beginning, like, Oh, they're just trying to game the system. So you don't want to be disputing really. If you haven't paid it off, 00:38:57 if it's not a real dispute Right now, let's talk about the difference between asking for an itemization and a dispute. So asking for a validation, you want someone to validate the debt means that you want them to send you a copy. They, they basically have to prove the debt. So if you ask for a validation, then you're basically asking the company to send you a copy of the itemization of the account. 00:39:25 So if you get a bill for $3,000, then you're going to get an itemization back saying what constitutes that $3,000. Yes. Also, if there's a contract involved, you should get a copy of dot contracts that to you as well. So this is very important because, you know, we want to be careful about what we're saying dispute with, because we don't want that to look unfavorably on our credit, 00:39:49 but you do have a right to have an itemization of your charges. You know? So the medical bill, I want to see, because you might want to know, well, did insurance pay this? Right? Yeah. Or insurance should have paid it in a situation like that. I know you're doing a lot of medical bills. If somebody, if insurance should have paid it in their mind, 00:40:13 it didn't. Yeah. That could take forever. What do you do in that situation? So what we're gonna do is it only it's in our favor to help the consumer. So if the insurance really is supposed to pay, then we want to help the consumer get that payment. So what I'm going to personally do is figure out why the insurance didn't pay. 00:40:36 So most of the time, I like how you put it in the person's mind. And It's like, you have to be a rocket scientist to understand health insurance gets so complicated. Oftentimes people don't understand their policies, their deductibles change. They have different deductibles for different kinds of services. And so most of the time, 90% of the time the insurance company didn't pay because it wasn't according to the policy for them to pay that particular charge for whatever reason. 00:41:12 And then you've got the people who they've got like a primary insurance and they've got a secondary insurance and then they go, well, my, I don't want ever have any out-of-pocket expense. Well, yes you do. Because the secondary insurance does not pay until the deductible of the first insurance has been met. So see, there's all these weeds. Do you have somebody in your agency explaining this to people? 00:41:39 Every person in my office understands the stuff inside, outside backwards and forwards. And I have one person in particular. Who's my insurance experts. Her name is Marie. We call her the wizard. So whenever it gets too much where the average person can't figure it out, we go to Marie and she creates a graph and wow, she figures it out, 00:42:01 but it can be overwhelming to understand medical bills, especially, you know, if you have a surgery and then you've got bills from the anesthesiologist, you've got bills from the radiologist, you've got bills from the laboratory. And then the moment you think you got everything paid off and it's six months later, you get some other bill that you don't understand. And the reason for that is, 00:42:23 is because it may have legitimately taken to the hospital three months before they shared your billing information with ever who that third-party company was. It's it's honestly a lot of people innocently end up in collections for reasons like that. So from the business owner's perspective, right? So, so we've been talking so far about the consumer perspective, but you are a business owner and you might have things that need to be collected. 00:42:51 And my company, we actually do use a collection agency to collect on, you know, our payment plans that don't get collected on a membership. You know, somebody signs up for a year long membership and then doesn't pay, we have a collection agency. We did not have that in the beginning. I don't think my collection agency is like your collection agency though. 00:43:13 Probably not. And I met. And I'm guessing that your collection agency only works with big companies. Is that true? Or do you also do little guys like us? Most of our clients are a little, you know, of course we'd like to get big clients just like anybody, but most of our clients are small to medium sized businesses. Okay. 00:43:36 So, and is it state specific? Like, can we all be using your collection agency to collect on our Outback? Good question. So in order to, we are licensed in 26 States. What's interesting about the collection industry as a whole is that the state licensing procedures are different for each state. So that's a bizarre thing for an industry because it's not, 00:43:59 there are federal regulations, but there are also state regulations. So what is, what is okay in Illinois is not okay in say California, California has some can't. Remember if it's Graham leak, Gramm, leach, Bliley. There's that might be the one, but there's, there's different rules pursuant to what state that you're in. So we currently work in 26 States. 00:44:23 There are some agencies that are nationally licensed in what most agencies do to handle their out of state business. So this would be where the consumer resides and not where the business is located. That is determined by where the consumer resides either now or in where they were, when the debt was created. So if they live in Texas, when they signed a contract with you, 00:44:51 it can be in Texas, but let's say they moved to Arizona. So it can either be an agency licensed in Texas or in Arizona. Now, what the agencies will do is they have partnerships with other agencies. If, if I am, if I am trying to collect from a consumer who moved to a state where I don't collect it, one of the States I do not collect in is Tennessee, 00:45:16 basically, because Tennessee says, in order for you to get a license, the owner has to go to Tennessee and take a test. But I'm just like, no, I'm not going to Tennessee because I don't have any business. They're like a waste of time for me. And, and clearly I'd pass the test, but it just proved it to me. 00:45:35 Right. So that's actually really smart on Tennessee's part because see, then they're co they're protecting their local Tennessee businesses by not allowing those bigger conglomerates to come in and create a monopoly. Well, so let's just say my consumer moves to Tennessee. Well, then I have a partnership with an agency in Tennessee, and I'm going to forward that business to them. 00:45:56 I'm going to increase your commission because collections were works on commission, which is typically around 35%. Okay. It can be, if you get a really great deal, you might get 30 average is 33 and a third. So like a straight one third and typical is, could be 35. Or even if you're in a riskier type of industry, you could even see 40%. 00:46:18 Or if the debt is really old, like, so for us, if it's over a year old, it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be unusual for us to charge 50% right off the bat. And definitely if you have to go to court, you're charging 50%. Yeah, that's right. So there's your standard rates. It's going to be around one third. 00:46:37 If you, if it needs to get forwarded to an out-of-state agency, we're probably going to move it to 40% or 50% because we're now going to share commission with that other agency. It's still, you know, it's not a bad deal because you're not having to deal with it. So even for the increased commission, honestly, you not having to like take that back and then find them, 00:47:02 find another company. It's, it's just really a no brainer to let that process work. How, how do P what is your agency called? How would somebody find you if they wanted to be using your agency for collections? Sure. Our agency is called Midstate collection solutions and our website is mid-state collections.com. Mid-state collections.com. Okay, perfect. I'll tell you. 00:47:28 What I do is within give me 48 hours within 48 hours. So by Friday I will get an email to Allie with our contact information. And this do not say list that she's talking about so that you all can have that. And then my suggestion is that we regroup later to do an entire webinar just on the communication. Absolutely. I mean, yes, 00:47:53 absolutely. Okay. So is there ever a situation in which the, somebody who owes money should not communicate with a collections agency, like just stop answering their phone or ignore it? So let's talk about that. If okay. If you owe a large debt and you ignore the collection agency, there's a really good likelihood. You're going to make your situation worse, 00:48:25 and that agency is going to take you to court. So if you owe a large amount, so I'm not talking about like 20 or $30, I'm talking about if you owe thousands of dollars and you repeatedly ignore their attempts to collect, then what's going to happen is they're going to give that to their collection attorney. And the attorney is going to fall file a small claims case against you. 00:48:49 This is way worse than having a collection against you. And here's why, because once it goes to court, it's very likely to be in the favor of the plaintiff, which is the collection agency. Once there is a judgment, judgements are active for much, much longer of a statute of limitation than just a regular collection. So there is a statute like a standard statute of limitation on a collection. 00:49:15 Let's just say it's five to seven years. Okay. Now it could be different, like under different circumstances. There are things that change, but just for today, let's just say that's five to seven years. But if you get a judgment, it could be 20 years. It could be 30 years. It could be 40 years because they could go 20 years and then they could renew it for another 20 years. 00:49:34 Yeah. And not. And I mean, not to mention it, if you're, you have to report it when you rent, if they ask if you've had any judgements against you, it shows up in the public record as a judgment against you. It's a pretty bad thing to have. I think on your record, have show a judgment against you. 00:49:51 Yes. Quite avoidable. Let's call it avoidable. Voidable, it's an avoidable situation and here's how you would avoid it. So you want to enter in negotiations with the collection agency and at the very least make a payment arrangement. So here's some options. Many collection agencies will do settlement requests. And this is becoming very popular, especially if they have purchased the debt. 00:50:16 So some agencies are like, I'm a traditional agency. So I work on behalf of my clients, which means if I collect money for Allie, if I collect a hundred dollars, I'm to keep like 35 bucks and I'm going to send her the rest. Okay. So that's traditional non-traditional is the agencies that are purchasing the debt. So this would look like Allie, 00:50:39 I'll buy all those bad accounts from you for pennies on the dollar. So let's just say, I buy them for 6%. That means Allie's actually out. Okay. Like she's out, she doesn't exist. I've gotten my six bucks on that hundred and I'm done. You're done. Yeah. That means that I now own the debt. So now if I spent $6 and you offered me say $50, 00:51:08 well, I don't know. I guess I'll take that, right? Yeah. If it is a purchase debt and you can ask that, do you own this debt? Okay. Who is the creditor? If the collection agency is the creditor make a really small offer, make like start at 30% of the debt. So if you owe a thousand dollars, 00:51:28 offer 300, don't offer something ridiculously low, but you can offer, like, I want, this is a true story. I used to be married again in the way back machine. And when I got married, my husband at the time, he had some bad debt. And I found out that the company had purchased the debt. He owed $6,000. 00:51:49 I offered them 500 and they took it. Wow. Now I think I got lucky. Cause I was talking in circles around the person, you know? Yeah. You know, it's, it's really the power of being educated. And that's exactly why we're here today is to give you the education that you need so that you can go in with your eyes wide open. 00:52:10 And when you sound knowledgeable and you're confident, you're going to be able to get much, a much better arrangement. And I guess what I most want you to know is to not be afraid, do you agree to be afraid? You know, here's the thing. And this, this brings me to what my passion in life is. So no collection agencies are notorious for, 00:52:37 they there's a negative stigma because they have been so abusive. There's been an abuse of power that's happened. And over the decades, especially before the FTC PA was enacted, which was in 1986, debt collectors had free reign to like show up at your house, call your boss Threats on you. Collection agency. One important law is that a collection agency cannot threaten something that they are not able to do. 00:53:06 So they shouldn't be saying to you, like, I'm going to call childcare re or, you know, I'm going to call the child family services on you because they can't do that. They should not threaten you with a lawsuit unless they actually intend to file one. Now this is a big one. Okay. So they could get in trouble for that. 00:53:26 But, but a lot of consumers are uninformed of what their rights are. And so the agencies continue to behave this way, even though it puts them at liability for a lawsuit now for an FTC, PA violation is basically worth a thousand dollars per violation. So if someone violates the FCCPA, you should be able to call an attorney and say this happened. 00:53:49 And then that attorney would send the agency a demand letter. And they would probably ask for more than a thousand dollars, but basically in a court of law, that's according to the FTC PA that's a thousand dollars per violation. Okay. So if they violate a 10 things, that's $10,000 right there. What kind of a lawyer would somebody find if they were getting harassed by a debt collector? 00:54:15 So I would, you know, there are people who specialize that specialize in that, in the industry. But I would honestly just go to the attorney you trust because you want someone that's going to tell you the truth. I think that there's a lot of these attorneys that are predatory attorneys and they're just looking to get paid themselves. So they will, they'll paint a picture to the consumer that they're going to get this big payoff, 00:54:38 but really it doesn't work that way. And you know, you're going to go through months and months of haggling and, and the attorney's going to get most of the money. So I would go to who you trust in like initially. And then if that, if your, if your normal attorney doesn't handle that, then hopefully he, or she would refer you to somebody who, 00:54:58 who that they know of does. But I think collection law is pretty cut and dry. Really. If you're getting harassed, I mean, one letter from an attorney would scare the collection agency, right? No, I mean, it's not about, for me, it's not about being scared about just we follow the letter of the law. So if we get, 00:55:19 if we get an, a letter from an attorney, then we're going to act accordingly. And sometimes that means I'm going to Sue. You know, you know, if you said, if you lawyer up, why wouldn't I lawyer up? Right. I guess I'm talking about in the context of real harassment, we know that your collection agency is not going to, 00:55:39 you're not harassing people, but there is real harassment out there, right? Oh, really? There really is. And so let's talk about that. Do I want to finish it up the part about when you call the agents? So the, if they do not owe the debt, okay. The next best thing, or they do not own it. 00:55:57 Okay. So you were not able to save some money here. I was trying to save the money, but that's not going to be a political applicable in every single debt. So if they don't own it and you need to pay it in full, because they're not going to take a settlement from you, like our company, doesn't take settlements. We have our payment saying, 00:56:14 yeah, we can do the next best thing is to pay it in full. And let me tell you why paying it in full is the best option. Because if you pay it in full, within 30 days, then you have just saved yourself seven years of that ding on that credit, unless you do what I tell you to do and go and, 00:56:29 and market disputed so that you can rid of it. But I can't guarantee that that strategy would work with, you know, all agencies. That's just how we do it. So if you cannot pay it in full, like you literally just, you don't have someone you can borrow the money off of, or you just do not have the money that the next best thing to do is to enter into a payment arrangement. 00:56:51 Because as long as you're making those payments, then they're really not going to be harassing you anymore. So it would be better to make a payment arrangement, even if it's a small arrangement versus ignoring them altogether. Because once they've got that payment arrangement set, you know, they're moving their energy on to other people and they're not going to be bothering you anymore. 00:57:14 Now here's the drawback from a, from a payment arrangement. It's still going to go on your credit. Even if, you know, even if you are say paying, you know, $500 a month, that is still going to go on your credit. So just be aware of that. That's why it's in your best interest to pay it in full. 00:57:33 But if you cannot and you, you just know that you cannot, the next best thing is to enter into a payment arrangement. Now, the reason you would want to do that because some people might be thinking, well, why don't I just wait until I have the money to pay it in full well, because you might not want to do that because they can Sue you. 00:57:50 And once they Sue you now, the account's going to probably increase interest. So interest is accrued in the state of Illinois at 9% on a judgment. You just, you know, and Andrew responsible for court costs. And any times you're going to be responsible for attorney fees. Yeah. So why would you want the debt that you couldn't afford to now become even larger when you could have handled it? 00:58:16 Like you could have paid something towards it. Yeah. And when you say pay something towards it, do you have like a straight across the board policy on what what's the smallest payment that you'll accept? Lots of people ask that question. And so every agency is going to be different. And I would like to say that for the most part, you can just continue to negotiate until you get the payment that you want. 00:58:44 Now, the law says we don't have to take a payment if the cost of putting that payment in the system costs like, so if you try to offer like five or $10 or even $25 a month, don't be surprised if they don't want to mess with that, because it could be that just the, it doesn't seem like putting a payment in the system would cost more than $25. 00:59:05 But believe me, with the amount of things that people do to process paper in today's world, it's an enormous cost. So the, you know, I think just being fair and realizing it's in your best interest to get it over with soon as possible. And I'll tell you why, because it is an emotional burden to have a debt. It is an emotional burden. 00:59:28 If you pay that debt off in three months, five years from now, you're not going to be thinking about it anymore. I promise you if I ask you for a debt, you paid five years ago, you, you won't know, but if you're still paying that same $30 a month, five years from now, every month, when you write that check or you make that credit card payment or whatever, 00:59:50 it is an emotional reminder that you have this debt and it affects you, there's some sort of energetic effect by it. And I just promise you ripping it off like a band-aid is, you know, the best thing to do. Yeah. It's interesting that you say that there are, there have been times. I think everybody here probably knows I've been in debt in my life quite a bit. 01:00:14 I actually love to use credit wherever possible, still even posts I'm nine, seven years post post bankruptcy now. And even now there's something in my system that when I need to make a big payment, even if I have the money in the bank, there's something that happens inside of me that makes me not want to pay it. And I actually have to do this kind of emotional, 01:00:43 energetic work to meet that feeling and then write the check or make the payment. And each time I do it, it's like building a muscle and building actually my capacity to be able to hold more. And I think that's, yeah, I think that's why, you know, now not, you know, seven years later, I have a company that's doing three and a half million a year. 01:01:08 What, when I was stuck at a million and a half for a long time, because I had to expand that capacity to move more through. What I think is really important to understand is that it's a trauma going through a debt situation. It's, it's traumatic. It's, it's traumatic to talk to a collection agency. It's traumatic to be taken to court. 01:01:27 It's traumatic. It's, it's a trauma to go through a bankruptcy. And the reason it's a trauma is because every person on this planet has a set of the same exact human fears. There are five basic human fears, which number one is poverty. So it's poverty illness, loss of love, old age and death. And that's true when one of these fears is triggered. 01:01:53 So if you have a medical debt, it's obviously triggering, you know, more than one thing. But since poverty is the number one, it can be very difficult. I'm fortunate because of the industry that I was brought into, my parents owned a collection agency like before I did, I really believe that I enjoy paying my debts because it's moving the money around. 01:02:18 And I just unique in That belief. Most people don't believe the way that I do. And I have a tremendous amount of passion about this, which is one of the reasons why I want to change the way we look at our debt. Like, I don't want someone to feel terrible because they have a debt. I actually want them to feel good because they're paying their debt because that's how you, 01:02:40 that's how you're constantly emotionally moving yourself forward through life. And it's just so very important. We should not be terrified, but we are because our culture has programmed us to be terrified of this. But the truth is, and especially in business, you might hold yourself back because you're afraid of getting that a hundred thousand dollar loan, but you need that a hundred thousand dollars loan because maybe you need to hire a salesperson. 01:03:05 Guess what? If it doesn't work out and, and you lose your business. I got to say, who cares? You know, how many people have started over? I've started over many, many times. I didn't never go to the point of bankruptcy because I, because I had some smarts that a lot of other people didn't have. You had tools you had to. 01:03:24 So we're definitely going to do more of this. I could already see, this is the beginning of something. Great. I hope I, I I'm out of time today, and this was incredibly helpful. So far, Mary two topics. I want to have you back about number one, the conscious communication. I'll everybody, the title of the book. 01:03:47 So they can read it before you come back. Yeah. I can show you a copy of it too. Right? So this is my book, baby. That was my dream come true. It's called conscious communications. And it is your step-by-step guide to harnessing the power of your words, to change your mind, your choices and your life. So it's definitely very hay house, 01:04:07 very Louise hay. And I always just say to people, you know, if, if you want to know me more, just jump on Amazon. If you read the description and a handful of reviews, you will know whether you want this book or not. So no pressure, but if you'd like to get one, I'd love you to have it. 01:04:23 Right. Get it. Yeah. Go to Amazon, get it, read it. Before we come back, we're going to be talking about that next time. And I want to talk way more about debt and credit and using it wisely because it is also one of my favorite topics, having them through the entire cycle of life, with it, and really coming to the conclusion that it is such a great resource when we know how to use it. 01:04:45 And when we don't know how to use it, and we don't know how to deal with it, it can be right. Listen, the big guys who are making the billions of dollars, we all know they're in that. You know, we all know they use, that's how they use debt as an investment. Yeah. What Trump did. Yeah. 01:05:01 It's such a huge resource. And you know, it sounds like you and I are on the same page of really supporting more and more women to utilize this resource wisely without guilt, shame or fear. And so I can see a lot more coming up on that. And Mary, thank you. So, so, so also we'll post in the Facebook group. 01:05:20 How to get the, do not say list worksheet, and we'll talk more about that as well. Next time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. So appreciate you. And thanks for everybody that was here. Live. We'll be back with you this evening, three hours from now where we'll have live Q and a thank you all so much. 01:05:40 Bye For now.