can a credit card company sue you

A credit card company will sue you if their in-house collections department has not been successful in getting you to pay your outstanding credit card balance. The in-house collections group are a part of the credit cards company who are responsible for working with you to get the overdue credit card balance paid. They will usually try several actions against you in hopes to get you to pay off you balance as quickly as possible, such as freeze your available credit line, increase your APR to the default interest rate, which can be as high as 30 percent, or even higher. They will persistently contact you via phone to get you to pay off your debt, and sometimes they will work with you to set-up an automatic bill pay option from your checking account.

If the in-house collections department fails at collecting, then the credit card company does have the option to take you to court, because by you signing the application, you signed a contract in which you agreed to pay back any money borrowed by using the credit card and well as any interest charges and fees. By not making your minimum monthly payment on your credit card, you have basically broken the contract with the card issuer.

Most credit card issuers prefer not going to court, because it is costly and time consuming, rather they will allow an arbitrator to resolve any disputes. An arbitrator is an individual who is trained to review information from both the cardholder and the credit card issuer. If the cardholder insists that they are not liable for the money, the card issuer will initiate a court action that will make the courts assign an arbitrator to make the decision about how much money is owed to the card issuer. This decision is binding on both parties.