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jmathu2493 · May 14, 2007, 11:43 AM

I received a summons in the mail for a debt to AT&T which is about 6 years old and sold to Palisades Collection. I sent a validation letter to the attorneys wolfroff and abramson who represents Palisades asking them to validate the debt via certified mail. They never responded to the validation letter instead they got a judgement against me and now they have frozen both of my checking accounts. The summons was for 741.00 but they doubled the payment plus bank fees. Now I have an overdrawn checking account of -1800.00. I went to court to get a motion to vacate the judgement and have a court date, what shoud I expect and what do you think I should use as a defense? What are my changes of getting this judgement thrown out?

mr.yet · May 14, 2007, 11:56 AM

Motion to vacate, lack of proper service and if SOL has expired. Did you receive notice to go to court for the judgment?

vicente · May 14, 2007, 12:01 PM

First of all why the did they freez your checking acc's and why do u owe them money and what for and why is it 6 moths old :confused: :p

jmathu2493 · May 14, 2007, 02:02 PM

I got a summons but did not answer the summons. Instead I sent the attorney a letter to validate the debt which they never responded to. The debt was for an at&t bill that I had about six years ago.

jmathu2493 · May 14, 2007, 02:05 PM

I got a summons but did not answer the summons. Instead I sent the attorney a letter to validate the debt which they never responded to. The debt was for an at&t cell phone that I had about six years ago which I was disputing with at&t.

Dirty12 · May 17, 2007, 09:19 AM

You should NEVER disregard a summons. I received one and went and the lawyer didn't have a thing to validate debt in front of the Judge, SO case was dismissed!! Very, Very rarely with a debt that old, will they have the proper paperwork.

ScottGem · May 17, 2007, 09:30 AM

Originally Posted by jmathu2493

I got a summons but did not answer the summons. Instead I sent the attorney a letter to validate the debt which they never responded to. The debt was for an at&t bill that I had about six years ago.

Big mistake! You needed to file an Intent to Defend with the court. That's how they were able to get the default judgement because YOU let them. What probably happened is they got your letter of validation and checked with the court to see if you filed the Intent to Defend. When they saw you hadn't, then figured they didn't need to respond to you because they could get a default judgement.

The problem here is that unless the SOL had expired, your only grounds to vacate were that you didn't know what you were doing. You are going to explain to the judge, that you ignored his summons because of your ignorance of procedure. If you are lucky, you will get a kindly judge that will take mercy on you.

However, if I were the judge, I would not vacate the judgement, but order a new hearing on it. This means your account stays frozen pending your defense against the original suit.