Know where you stand — before you pay, sign, or panic
DebtDecoded reads your situation — who is calling, what has arrived, your state, your dates — and works out the things no fill-in form can tell you: where you are in the process, which deadlines are still live, whether this debt looks too old for them to sue you over it in your state (time-barred is the legal word), whether one small payment could restart that clock, and what a court judgment could actually take from you. Free. No upload, no account, nothing stored.
Free checker · No upload · No account · Nothing stored
The journey — seven stages
The best paid letter tool on the market will happily draft your letter — and pointedly refuses to say whether your debt is too old to sue on. We tell you straight, show every deadline that could apply, and name the law (the statute) behind each one.
What happens after a court judgment, and what to do about very old debt — no one else sells help for those stages at all. In studied California courts, only about 3% of people whose pay was being taken ever claimed the protections they already had. The map for those stages is this site's reason to exist.
When the right answer is a lawyer who fights debt collectors, a free legal-aid form, a nonprofit counselor, or the company that files your court Answer for you — the checker says so, by name, before it ever mentions the kit.
One payment. Every stage of the road, and the deadline tables for all 50 states — every number with its law cited. No account, no subscription — and the free checker above stays free whether you buy or not.
DebtDecoded is education, not a law firm. If the checker points you to a free route — legal aid, a lawyer who fights debt collectors, a nonprofit counselor — take it. We would rather lose the sale than sell you the wrong tool.
Start with the stage you are in
The first letter opens a 30-day window that carries real legal force (the 'validation window'). Which letter to send, what it must make them prove, and what never to say on the phone meanwhile.
In many states, one partial payment — or one signed promise — restarts an expired clock in full. In a few states it legally cannot. Know which state you live in before you pay a dollar.
Most of these cases are lost by people who never answer. Your state's exact deadline, what an Answer is, and who can help you file one.
Paycheck rules, bank-account shields, and the federal-benefits protection — by state. You have to claim these protections yourself; they are never automatic.
No. DebtDecoded publishes plain-English consumer-rights education — checkers, state deadline tables with the law named for every number, and letter parts worded to the federal rules. Nothing here is legal advice for your specific situation, and no one here will contact a debt collector or a court for you.
The CFPB's sample letters are good forms — but a blank form cannot tell you whether your debt is too old to sue on in your state, whether paying $25 would restart the clock, which letter fits where you are, or what a judgment could take from you. The free checker on this page answers those questions; the kit adds the worksheets, the call log, and the full deadline tables with their laws cited.
No. The decoder runs entirely on this page, from the answers you type. There is no account, no upload, and no email gate.
Then the checker will tell you — by name: a lawyer from the NACA directory (they fight debt collectors for a living) when the collector broke the rules, legal aid for free court forms, a nonprofit NFCC counselor when paying through a plan is genuinely the best move, or Upsolve when bankruptcy is the honest answer.