A few parents in Central Texas are being mailed collection letters for instruments that were rented. The only thing is, they attempted to return the musical instruments, but could not.

One mother is like many other parents who rented from the now bankrupt local music store in 2008. Her son finished the work with his rented clarinet in May 2008, and she tried to bring it back to the music store.

When she got to the music store, there was a note on the door letting customers know that they were out of business and no one was in there. On a number of occasions, she tried to go by the store, and even called other locations. To add insult to injury, her bank could not stop the automatic monthly payments that were being taken out of her account.

Around two years later, when the payments had halted, the mother sold the clarinet for ninety dollars. All in all, she was charged three hundred dollars after the point she tried to return it. The young mother thought that that would be the end of the clarinet situation. But soon after she received a five hundred dollar collection notice from a collections agency on behalf of the instrument maker Conn-Selmer. The instrument makers had received her information as part of the bankruptcy process.

The young mother was taken aback. She couldn’t fathom that she had been charged for the year when she couldn’t return it, and now that she is expected to pay money, she felt as though the store owed her money, not the other way around.

After a local news channel contacted a spokeswoman for Conn Selmer to find answers for the parents who had received collection bills, the spokeswoman said that the company will be sending letters to all parents who received collection letters. The letter will supposedly detail how parents who feel as though they are being unfairly treated can challenge the debt.

Mallory McGuinness works for a debt collection company. She also does articlesabout finance and business, consumer spending and collection agencies.

Every day more consumers fall behind on their credit card debt payments and leave themselves open to being threatened by credit card debt collectors. Some people simply cannot afford to pay their growing minimum-monthly credit-card debt payment(s), as a result they begin to feel hopeless and guilty.

Some who go through this, however, realize that they do not need to feel guilty and submit to debt collectors.

They understand they can use a proven legal strategy to make the debt collector prove the debt is owed. Denying and disputing an unsecured credit debt with a debt collector, not the original creditor, works, according to Credit Card Debt Survival Guide. This strategy forces the other side to prove their case.

A credit card debt collector is required by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act to send a statement to the consumer with the debt saying that:

1. The debt collector can assume that the debt is valid if the consumer does not dispute the debt’s validity.

2] The consumer must notify the debt collector in writing within thirty days that the debt is disputed.

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act also allows consumers to write to the credit card debt collector stating that they refuse to pay the debt, or that they would like the debt collector to stop all communication regarding the debt.

By taking the action of disputing and denying a credit card debt and then requesting that the collector stop all communications, you have made the debt collection effort harder. The collector must return to the credit card company to obtain documents which they then have to forward to alleged debtor. They have to validate the debt with copies of original documents according to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

With an unsecured, unsigned credit card debt, a debt collector has to get the consumer to admit to owing the debt. Effectively they need an admission of “guilt”. The initial exchanges between consumer and the credit card debt collector set the tone of all communications between them. If a consumer denies and disputes the alleged debt, and also forbids further communications, often the collector will look for an easier target.

Matt Highlander researched and wrote the Credit Card Debt Survival Guide. Learn about debt settlement and legal nonpayment strategies for eliminating credit card debt.