A client (nice lady, very sweet, very upset) calls me and says that she is being harassed by a debt collector (I promise to name them as soon as the case is closed).  Her story is common.  She had been contacted two years ago by a debt collection company claiming that she owed thousands of dollars for an old debt.  Whether or not she owed the money was not important, the company threatened a lawsuit and she had not met me yet so she did not know how to defend herself.  She agreed to a stipulated judgment with the creditor which included monthly payments until the claim was paid off.   Now, like any agreement, a stipulated judgment can be a useful tool to resolving a dispute, but in this case (and in many cases in the world of debt collection) it was a lopsided deal reminiscent of Faust.  Long story short, the deal contained a harsh term that purportedly allowed the debt collector at any time in the future to simply decide the deal was not good enough and then demand higher payments.  Now, I have read the stipulated judgment and I don’t think such a lopsided deal is even enforceable in court (something called an illusory promise comes into play – ask your nephew the first year law student about it).    Unfortunately, my client did not know that.  So, when the debt collector called her one year into the deal and demanded an immediate payment of ten times the monthly installment, she gave in.  However, six months later the collector called her again and this time a payment of twenty times the monthly payment was demanded.  That’s when she called me.  The collector is in violation of California’s Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, and as one of my mentors used to say, “we are on them like a bird on a june bug.” This one should be fun.