How to Beat Coast Professional

Legal Expert, Paralegal
Dena Standley, BA

Dena Standley is a seasoned paralegal with more than 20 years of experience in legal research and writing, having received a certification as a Legal Assistant/Paralegal from Southern Technical College.

Edited by Hannah Locklear

Editor at SoloSuit
Hannah Locklear, BA

Hannah Locklear is SoloSuit’s Marketing and Impact Manager. With an educational background in Linguistics, Spanish, and International Development from Brigham Young University, Hannah has also worked as a legal support specialist for several years.

Beating Coast Professional in court feels like this ^^

Summary: Coast Professional is a debt collection agency that specializes in collecting debts for universities and higher education organizations. If Coast Professional is badgering you about a debt, send them a Debt Validation Letter. If you’re being sued, use SoloSuit to respond to the lawsuit and increase your chances of winning the case.

There are probably a lot of emotions involved if you just learned that your debt has entered collections with Coast Professional. There may be a lot of stress, confusion, and uncertainty surrounding the situation. Breathe deeply and take a moment to relax.

Higher education institutions hire Coast Professional for debt collection services. Tuition, parking fines, auxiliary accounts, and other debt incurred on campus are all included in this category.

But if you want to prevent collection efforts or even lower your repayment amount, make sure to exercise all your rights under federal law before you pay a dime. SoloSuit has a plan for beating Coast Professional that you can follow. Here is what you need to know.

What is Coast Professional, and how does it work?

Coast Professional is a debt collection agency that offers a wide range of services as a full-service receivable management and contact center company. Their clients include hundreds of universities, campuses, cities, states, and counties. With over 200 clients, Coast Professional specializes in government relations for colleges and universities.

Here is what Coast Professional collects for the government:

All federal, state, and local government debts
Overpayments
Licensing Fees
Taxes
Court Fines and Fees
Toll-related Fines and Balances
Any other government-related debt

Coast Professional also collects for colleges and universities:

NDSL / Federal Perkins Loan Program
GSL / Stafford Loan Program
Health Professions Student Loans
Primary Care Loans
Institutional Loan Portfolios
Tuition & Student Receivable Accounts
Parking Fines
Accounts Receivables
Other campus-based debt

Coast Professional’s contact information is listed below:

Coast Professional phone number:
Toll free: (800)-231-0225
Direct: (318)-807-4500
Email: info@coastprofessional.com
Website: coastprofessional.com

Headquarters address:
4273 Volunteer Road
Geneseo, NY 14454, US

Main office address:
214 Expo Circle
Suite # 7
West Monroe, LA 71292, U.S.

Here are your rights under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) prohibits debt collectors from engaging in abusive, deceptive, and unfair debt collection practices. The findings presented in support of this legislation suggested that abusive debt collection practices "contribute to the following:

Personal bankruptcy rate
Instability in relationships
Job losses
Privacy invasions

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) explained its Debt Collection Rule In November 2021 (some provisions of the FDCPA), particularly on how creditors can contact you. Here's more information.

Respond to a Coast Professional lawsuit

Coast Professional must prove that they have the legal standing to sue as a third-party debt collector. They must also provide proof that the debt was transferred to them. Without evidence of the chain of custody, the creditor cannot sue.

Ask for the original signed agreement and the alleged balance you owe by sending a Debt Validation Letter before they sue. Many collectors lack this document and can't prove that you actually owe the debt. If a debt remains unvalidated, Coast Professional cannot take you to court for it..

If you don’t have time to send a Debt Validation Letter before Coast Professional files a lawsuit against you, you must respond to the case with a written Answer before your state’s deadline. Use these three steps to respond to your Coast Professional debt lawsuit:

Answer each claim listed in the Complaint against you.
Make your affirmative defenses clear.
Send a copy of your Answer to Coast Professional after filing it with the court.

Below, we explore each of these steps in detail. If you don’t like reading, try watching this video instead:

1. Answer each claim listed in the Complaint against you

By filing suit, Coast Professional hopes you will not respond, and a default judgment will be entered in their favor. But you can avoid a default judgment. How? File an "Answer" with the court where your case is filed after receiving the Summons and Complaint documents.

The Summons notifies you of the lawsuit, while the Complaint lists the specific claims that Coast Professional is making against you.

The first section of your Answer document should focus on responding to each claim listed in the Complaint. These claims are usually listed in numbered paragraphs, so your Answer should also include a numbered list with your corresponding responses.

Respond to each claim with one of these answers:

Admit
Deny
Deny due to lack of knowledge

Most attorneys recommend that you deny as many claims as possible, which forces Coast Professional to prove their allegations. If they can’t, they have no case. When you deny a claim, it’s kind of like saying, “Prove it.” Some debt collectors would rather drop the case than go to the trouble of proving everything in court.

Respond to your debt lawsuit in minutes with SoloSuit.

2. Make your affirmative defenses clear

The next section of your Answer is for your affirmative defenses. An affirmative defense is any reason that Coast Professional does not have a case against you, or any reason that you should win the case.

Here are the most common defenses you can use:

Statutes of Limitations: Claim that the claim was filed after the statute of limitations for debt collection had expired.
Lack of Privity: In your defense, you argue that there is no valid contract between you and the plaintiff (Coast Professional). In many cases, this defense works against collection agencies.
Invalid or fraudulent assignment of debt: Claim that the debt obligations were improperly transferred to the third party.

There are dozens of other affirmative defenses you can use to strengthen your case against Coast Professional. SoloSuit helps you list your affirmative defenses with the right legal wording.

Make the right affirmative defense the right way.

3. Send a copy of the Answer to Coast Professional after filing it with the court

After preparing your Answer to the Complaint and Summons, you must file it by the deadline. You can mail your Answer, but with SoloSuit, an attorney will review it before filing, then SoloSuit’s legal support specialists file for you. You should make two extra copies—one for Coast Professional and one for your records.

Now, let's look at a real example of a SoloSuit customer.

Example: John was sued by a debt collector, and he used SoloSuit to respond to the lawsuit. In his Answer document, John denied the majority of the claims against him and listed some strong affirmative defenses. Then, an attorney reviewed his documents before SoloSuit filed his Answer for him. A few weeks later, John found out that his case had been dismissed.

Settle your debt with Coast Professional

At the very least, debt collection agencies want to recoup their original investment plus a profit of between 25% and 50%. You should still do your best to settle the case as favorably as possible, no matter what they want.

Choose a payment amount you can afford and offer less if you can afford to make payments and send an offer using SoloSettle. A lump sum is very appealing to debt collectors, and only offer a lump sum if you can afford it. You may get a substantial discount from Coast Professional if you pay a larger amount.

Settle with SoloSettle

Make an Offer

Coast Professional has received many complaints

There may be nothing illegal about Coast Professional's collection practices. Still, their clients don't like how they operate.

As of 2022, more than 330 complaints against Coast Professional were filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) over the last ten years, while another 50+ complaints have been filed with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) in the last three years.

Complaints allege violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), and here's an example of what one client had to say about Coast Professional on its BBB profile:

"I was contacted by Coastal Professional via email regarding a debt that I was not notified was past due by the original debt holder. The moment I received the notice I knew something wasn't right, I contacted Coastal and they informed me if I wanted to dispute I could contact the university. After I contacted the university and they explained the issue on the account, I paid the University the outstanding balance the same day using their financial portal. Keep in mind that I was not notified there was an outstanding balance until two years later when I received a collections notice. The university has my phone number, email address, and old address. They chose to only send correspondence via mail and not use any other method of communication prior to sending this debt to this terrible collections company. A week or two after paying the debt, Coastal is contacting me to collect a $120 fee that I should not be responsible for.”

If you’ve had a similar experience, or you feel that Coast Professional has treated you unfairly in any way, file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The federal agency responsible for enforcing the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act allows you to file a complaint online. After you file a complaint with the CFPB, they will forward it to Coast Professional for further investigation.

What is SoloSuit?

SoloSuit makes it easy to fight debt collectors.

You can use SoloSuit to respond to a debt lawsuit, to send letters to collectors, and even to settle a debt.

SoloSuit's Answer service is a step-by-step web-app that asks you all the necessary questions to complete your Answer. Upon completion, we'll have an attorney review your document and we'll file it for you.

Respond with SoloSuit

"First time getting sued by a debt collector and I was searching all over YouTube and ran across SoloSuit, so I decided to buy their services with their attorney reviewed documentation which cost extra but it was well worth it! SoloSuit sent the documentation to the parties and to the court which saved me time from having to go to court and in a few weeks the case got dismissed!" – James

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>>Read the FastCompany article: Debt Lawsuits Are Complicated: This Website Makes Them Simpler To Navigate