Is credit card debt open account debt or a written agreement debt?
I am currently fighting a credit card debt action filed against me by Unifund. The issue is whether credit card debt is open account debt subject to 3 year SOL in the State of Washington or a written agreement debt subject to 6 years. I asked the same question on another forum and received an answer from a person calling it a written agreement debt subject to 6 years SOL. However, on various webistes on the internet, they list credit card debt as open ended debt and not a written agreement debt. Does anybody has a bonafide confirmed answer to this question?
Furthermore, to assert their claim that the subject debt is a written agreement debt, Unifund has attached a standard preprinted "Retail Installment Credit Agreement" stamped signed by some authorized officer and dated 1994. The agreement does not have my signatures on it. It acutally does not even have my name on it anywhere. I also don't recall ever receiving this agreement. My credit card was issued to me in 1987 and this agreement is dated 1994. My questions regarding this agreement are:
! Can they use this agreement to prove that the debt is a written agreement debt subject to 6 years SOL even though I never signed the agreement, it does not have a principal amount, interest rate or an expiration date?
2. Can they use this agreement eventhouhg it is dated several years after the card was issued?
3. Is this agreement admissible because it is a preprinted standard agreement without my signatures? It actually looks like preprinted standard terms and conditions they probably send to every card holder.
4. Does anybody know if they started this practice of sending these agreements in and after 1994? I never received one in 1987 when the card was issued to me.
It should also be noted that Unifund never verified the debt by providing me a copy of a signed application or any other instrument bearing my signatures. I asked them to do so within 30 days after receiving a collection letter from them.
The debt incurred during my recovery period (almost a year) in 2002 after a bad accident. After recovering from my injuriest, in 2003, I tried to pay on the credit card but Key Bank would not accept any payments because they had written off the debt. I wrote them certified letters (with return receipts) imploring them to accept payment or work something out, they never respodned. In October 2006, Unifund through their attorneys served me the papers
Any help or advice will be greatly appreciated.