This program will show you how to legally avoid being sued, and avoid having your wages garnished and your bank account levied. 

I call it “disappearing on paper.

This step involves a little time and preparation. The earlier you complete this, the better your chances will be of avoiding a lawsuit. The standard method of determining which law firm or attorney will be chosen to file suit against you is based upon your mailing address.

It is assumed by the collections department and the law firm that your mailing address is your place of residence. Since the bank must file suit in the county in which you reside, it must then locate a law firm that is local to this mailing address.

If the collection department sees that you reside in Phoenix for example, it will assign the collection to a law firm located in Phoenix. Remember that you originally confirmed that they had the correct address for you when your account was opened.

This is information that you provide, and when you move to a different address, you can easily complete a change of address form and include that with your monthly payment. What if you submitted a change of address form with an address several states away from where you truly reside and arranged to have your mail forwarded to you every two weeks? Would any creditor know the difference?

Provided that you would ultimately receive all mail, or that you pay your bills online so that this would not be a factor, probably no one would notice. In fact, if your account did go to collections, upon deciding to file suit, that department would attempt to locate a local law firm near your mailing address which is several states away from where you truly reside.

What do you think your chances of being sued would be at that point?

There is a chance that the bank would have archived a history of previous mailing addresses, and be able to try the next most recent address, or may retrieve a copy of you credit file and see if they can find your previous address that way. This can be countered by simply disputing your true residential address on your credit file and claiming it is incorrect. You can show copies of monthly statements to prove this. You can also make the change of address twice so that assuming the creditor retains only one previous address for you, it will be replaced when the second change of address is entered into your customer record.

What if you sent the bank a change of address notice with an address in an area of the United States that had a population less than 4,000 people in one county? Your chances of being sued by a local law firm would be dramatically reduced.

You are probably thinking that “ducking and hiding” is the solution to your debt problems.

This is absolutely not true, the method explained here has been used by many wise and learned estate planning attorneys. It is the same strategy used by famous people who want to avoid the press and public scrutiny.

Your mailbox address should of course be in a different state. You can complete the change of address notification for each credit card account to which you wish to apply these strategies. The mail they send you can then be automatically forwarded to your local address for response.

Some of you will ask “What happens if I do this and they sue me anyway?”

You cannot be sued until service process is perfected, and in nearly every jurisdiction (county and state), that requires personal service by a licensed process server. Rarely are creditor lawsuits of this type permitted to be served via certified mail or even first class mail.

Assuming the worst case, that process can be made by mail, and that the plaintiff’s attorney has obtained permission from the court to do that, you will always file in every example, a motion to dismiss for improper service of process.

The argument you make is the only one you must make and not submit with any other arguments, that the complaint must be dismissed because service of process was not perfected.

You will explain that you are not a resident of that state and you can include an affidavit so stating, but do not disclose your current residential address for obvious reasons. You can use your mailing address as the return address and you can either arrange to have it mailed from the mailbox service (re -mailed by placing the motion and copies sealed in envelopes with the correct postage and then inserting those in a larger envelope with instructions to the mailbox service) or just mail it from your local address. Be sure to arrange this with your mailbox service to be sure they are willing to do it. They might charge a small fee also.

Do not schedule a hearing on this motion. In some cases the plaintiff will proceed to request default judgment or summary judgment, and again, respond by filing a second copy of the motion to dismiss for improper service of process.

If the court awards judgment anyway, you can then file a motion to vacate that judgment and argue that the court never obtained jurisdiction over you since you were never properly served with the summons and complaint. The details are provided by your attorney.

What happens if the creditor calls me to determine if I am still answering the telephone at the same phone number that matches the address they had on file for me?

There are several ways of preparing for this, but the most important fact to accept is that you will need to change your telephone number. Changing your phone is not to avoid harassing phone calls, but to make it appear conclusively that you have moved to the new address as indicated on your change of address form.

The new voice over Internet (VOIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol) technology services will allow you to utilize the Internet to make phone calls and also allow you to choose a telephone number prefix and area code from nearly any location in the country.

In other words, you can change your home telephone number for free by telling the phone company that you have been receiving some threatening calls lately and many times they will change the number for no charge. The number will show an area code and prefix for your service area, very similar to your previous number.

That will work perfectly; however, if you want to take this to the next level and make it appear as if your area code and prefix match the location for the address you have chosen, you can use any of the VOIP technologies.

To find one, just do a keyword search on the Internet. This is recommended over a traditional phone number change just because it is a number you can use no matter where you live or how many more times you move or change your address, and the Internet connection services are generally less expensive than the regular phone service.

There are also voice mail services which can provide you with the area code you want and allow you to record a message for all debt collectors directing them to limit their communication with you to writing.

To obtain the greatest benefits from this strategy, you will want to establish dual residency. You cannot have a driver license in two jurisdictions (states), so dual residency would need to be established using other means. You are already a residence in the state where you currently reside and own a home, have any type of license, mortgage, lease, vehicle, vessel or aircraft registration, state issued identification, children registered in public schools, utility bill, tax bill, enrolled in a public school and/or registered to vote.

Any one or more of these establish residency, including membership in a state sponsored organization. It is perfectly legal to establish dual residency and many people do this as a matter of course for college tuition purposes, privacy and other legal objectives.

You can obtain a major benefit by establishing residency in another state and greatly reducing the risk of being sued (service of process); however, you can further reduce the possibility of wage garnishment by changing your residency to a state where wage garnishment is not legal.

Did you know that there are four states in which the law prohibits wage garnishment?

They are Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. 

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