Oddly, I have not had aggressive collection efforts against me. None of my creditors took me to court, and only MBNA apparently had an arbitration clause.
I should say, one creditor hired a sleazy law firm (one of those boiler room law firms that send out copies of copies of copies of boilerplate legal papers with bad spelling and grammar). They filed suit against me in Superior Court in the county where I live. When I got the notice in the mail, I went to the courthouse and got copies of all of the documents they had filed. They had claimed that they served someone named "Brian" at my residence on a certain date. I called the lawyer listed, and asked exactly who this "Brian" was and he gave me a description - caucasian male, late 30's, dark hair. But he wouldn't give me a last name, claiming that his computer was down.
Well, it was really funny because I absolutely knew they hadn't tried to serve me at all! It was like the perfect storm of circumstances:
1) I live alone
2) my doorbell is connected to my phone
3) I was home sick with the flu on that day - all day
4) I always answered my phone because my mother was in the hospital and I didn't want to miss a call if she took a turn for the worse
5) nobody has a set of my keys. NOBODY.
6) There was nobody staying with me.
So I filed an objection to their lawsuit on the grounds that they had not served me legally. I also filed a request to submit "in forma pauperis" - which was granted. So it cost me absolutely nothing to file my objection. Two weeks later I got a letter in the mail from the court saying that the law firm had requested to withdraw the lawsuit, without prejudice. I never heard from them again, and the 4 year SOL expired.
Sounds like they don't want to try too hard to collect in court, if a defendant is going to make them work for it. I read in another thread that they have lawyers who filed multiple lawsuits in the same court on the same day, show up for 10 cases, 9 defendants don't appear and they get summary judgments and it's on to the next jurisdiction. So if they can bat .900 without having to stand before the judge and make arguments, maybe they're willing to let the occasional argumentative defendant like me slip between the cracks.
I'm not naive enough to think people reading this should generalize from my experience. But I have to say I sure am glad I filed that objection! Because now the only thing I have to worry about is MBNA which sent me a letter this week (somehow my debt went from $31K to $34K to $38K two years ago to $61K this week? something's not right with that. I thought the cap on interest here in California was 10% but perhaps that only applies to judgment awards, not arbitration awards. Heck, maybe they've been charging me 23% annual interest all this time - that's kind of worrisome).
And if I ever get rich I can pay them all back just on principle. But it's nice not having to look over my shoulder or have to worry about them all getting judgments and liens and garnishing wages and attaching bank accounts.
Oh, and yes, divemedic, on the $61K offer I did wriite in a letter disputing the amount and requesting verification. I found this forum before I mailed it, so I hung on to the letter and will send it "return receipt requested" tomorrow.

