Can you be thrown in jail for not paying your overdue credit card?

Question

My boyfriend owes about $5,000 or 6,000 on his credit card. He got a phone call tonight saying that if he doesn't pay $5,000 by Monday, he will get arrested for fraud (its Thursday night right now)... not once has the Credit Bureau sent him/us a letter saying how much he owes and where he should pay it...(I got one of these letters as soon as i got into the collection agency and i only owe $1,700!) This seems a little unfair to be demanding this much money without ANY mail notifications OR ANY phone calls other than the one he received tonight, at WORK!... can anyone give me some info on how this works or what we should do?? thank you...

Answer 1

No, they cannot have you arrested or incarcerated for an overdue credit card debt. Go with the previous answers, they're violating a federal law threatening him with jail.

Answer 2

Fraud is not an over-due credit card payment... You can go to jail for fraud.

No, you can not go to jail for owing money...  unless it's to the IRS.

Any threats made by a collection agency is illegal, you can report them for harassment if they are saying such things.

Answer 3

yeah, and its gonna be Ben Stein with a black strap on coming in to bend over and really show him what 5k feels like!!!  really, i think they trying to scare u...

Answer 4

don't be worried about it, i owe dell financial services 2,041, and they called me and said that they were gonna sue me for  the amount, and nothing has happened yet. It's just tactics that they use to make you pay. I made a credit check with Trans-union and i owe in total more than 9000. I have like 14 different accounts defaulted. so, don't worry. they haven't sent me to jail. by the way, this happened to me because im bipolar, and I could not maintain a job for too long.