Okay, so I am worried about what to do or what is going on. I have to appear in court on Tuesday January 20th and I don't know what will go on or happen. I am being sued by the collection agency Asset Acceptance. I am thinking this is from an account I had with Bally Total Fitness almost 5 years ago. Originally I had tried to back out of Bally's at the end of the first 30 days as listed in the contract to which they told me I was one visit short to be eligible for cancellation. This was incorrect as I had marked all my visits in my personal planner. I then refused to pay my Ballys contract agreement and still tried to find other ways out of the contract.
About 6 months later I was contacted by Asset Acceptance to collect the debt off the contracted amount being about $3400.00 with the interest that piled up. They agreed to settle with me on a payment plan with a starting balance of about $2300.00. I didn't want any negative marks on my credit worse than had already been done by the collections so I agreed to it. I made a $600 down payment to them and made a payment plan of $150 a month which was higher than I wanted each month but they would not settle for less per month, and this was even higher than what my payments would have been to Ballys in the first place. I continued to make payments until the balance was down to about $1000.00. Then one month my pay turned out to be less than usual and I called to make my monthly payment to them but couldn't make the full $150 but instead offered to make a payment that month of $100.
My account representative informed me that if I were to not make the full $150 payment that it would default our payment agreement and that the balance would then return to the full amount again, despite all the payments I had already made. I always had been told that creditors are supposed to accept payment no matter what amount you are paying, that they can not refuse a payment. I requested to speak with her manager, with whom I was told the same thing. I repeated I could not afford the full $150 payment but only $100 that month but next month would again be able to make the full $150. They both then told me it wouldn't matter, that I would have already defaulted payment agreement and the account would return to its original balance for me to have to repay all over again. They told me they could accept the $100 but that it would not matter on my account.
With hearing this I told them I might as well not even pay the $100 then if I was going to end up screwed in the end anyways. I ended up not paying the $100. Now it has been a few years since all of this and I got a letter in the mail needing to appear in court on January 20th for a balance of about $2300.00 the original amount on the agreement before I had paid it down to about $1000.00. I don't understand why this came up out of the blue a few years after last contact with them.
I have now been without employment for over 6 months, have no current income and am being sued for this total amount. Any advice or information on what they can do legally to me in the state of Indiana would be greatly appreciated. My court date is January 20th a little over a week from now. Please help if you have any information on the matter. I am worried if there will be a jail sentence since I am unable to even make payment arrangements or should I even pay this company since I technically should have no legal binding to this outside collection agency, except for the fact they purchased the account from Ballys.
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