I received a letter yesterday from a debt collection agency that said they had purchased an account on 12/21/06 that had a debt I owed to US Cellular for cell phone use. I thought there was some mistake so I called and was told this debt was dated 3/18/96 and was for $334.42. I had not heard anything about this since 1996 and had forgotten about it. What happened was a person I was trying to help because their trailer had burned and they had no place to live was staying at my house until he could get housing. He used my cell phone without my knowledge and ran up a large bill. I thought it had been taken care of. Will I be required to pay this debt? It would really be a hardship now because I am on a fixed disability income and it takes all my income to pay my living expenses. Thank you for any information you can give me.
Linda1946

Since this unsecured debt is over 10 years old the statute of limitation has passed. They know they cannot take you to court to obtain judgment against you. They will try to scare you into paying them, Don't LISTEN to them.

Tell them if they call again, the SOL has passed and all contact with you will be do in writing. Tell to to cease and desist in their attempt to collect on this alleged debt.

ASk them if they have the original contract, if not NO CONTACT- NO CLAIM.

I received a letter from a collection agency that they had purchese my account that is over 12 years old from a department store . The last payment made to the department store was in October of 2000. Can they get a judgement against me?

Each state has different statute of limitation laws. Read this article U.S. Records Survey is Complete, the Findings Open Up Alarming New Concerns - Yahoo! News