Do not ignore mail from court

Some of the biggest problems I see people encounter come from ignoring their mail.

For example, a lot of people who find themselves in terrible financial situations could head off a lot of the upsetting calls and letters simply by communicating with their creditors early on in the process. Creditors generally just want to get paid. More often than not creditors will work with debtors before things start to get out of hand. The bill might be wrong or it might be overwhelming, but the worst thing the debtor can possibly do is ignore it.

Even if you think the mail is going to the wrong person, even if you are certain the mail is for someone who happens to have the same name but isn’t you, don’t ignore it. Case in point, the “Bad Jennifer Ellis.” I didn’t ignore or hide from the calls and letters I got that were to the wrong person. I dealt with them. Had I not, my credit would have been a mess and my phone would have been ringing off the hook. But because I did deal with the problem, it never got out of hand and I was always aware of the situation. Eventually, I finally was able to resolve it. (I hope.)

You know what is even more important then dealing with mail from creditors? Dealing with mail from court.

Here is the case of a man who ignored letters from the court to his detriment. This man ended up being identified as the father of a child which was not his. The cause seems to have been a mistake in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, instead of dealing with the letters from the court, the man ignored them. He was repeatedly thrown in prison, forced to pay over 12 thousand dollars in child support, and generally, had his life made miserable due to a bureaucratic snafu.

What the man had to suffer is both inexcusable and horrible. It isn’t his fault that the court system made a mistake.  But his mistake was that he failed to respond, repeatedly, to mail from the court. He also, according to the system which is defending itself from the inevitable lawsuit, didn’t follow instructions provided to him by court employees who told him how to stop the problem.

No one deserves to have to experience what this poor man experienced. But he sure could have made his life a lot easier if he simply had responded to his mail instead of ignoring it.

 

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