[ckinganswers]

One last credit card to clear up. I have 2 weeks left to answer in writing before they proceed to place judgement.

I want to dispute it because I am not clear this law firm really ownes the debt or has an original contract.

When I asked the attorney on the phone to produce proof that they are responsible for the claim, he said "Oh I think we are beyond that point". I called the original creditor (Capitol One) and they said it was "charged off" and they kept sending me into some automated voice system for Lawyers something network. They would not talk to me about a settlement plan. Said it was out of their hands.

Filing summons is not proof that they own the debt, correct?

I think I have a shot at disputing and winning. Can you give me the rundown again on how to proceed again?

1. ask for proof -the original signed contract/cc agreement
(If they produce it, pay up that's it)

If they don't/cannot produce an original, then what?

Sorry to ask, but I need it spelled out for me pretty clearly
Thanks again.

[mr.yet]

File your intent to defend with the court, if you don't they will by default obtain a judgment.

Than file a discovery with the plaintiff to produce the original contract to prove their claim, not a copy the original contract. This you send to their attorney, not the court.

Try to limit your request to about 12 items, like did this firm purchase the alleged debt from the creditor and stuff like that.

[ckinganswers]

Thank you Mr. Yet,

I will try to file today!

[ckinganswers]

Mr. Yet,

Does this sound correct?

I am going to file a discovery with the plaintiff, "Credit Card A" to produce the original signed (our supposed signature) credit card contract ?

Ask the law firm to provide evidence they do in fact represent "CCA" as assignees or did they purchase the debt? ( or are they called assignees either way?)

Ask to see the above referenced original contract in full. (If it was debt purchased from the creditor,is it my right to review this and find out exactly how much they purchased it for? If the debt was assigned to them to collect for "Credit Card A", is there a contract for this? And would it state the amount that "CCA" expects to collect? (anything above this amount would be theirs)

Anything else I should ask? This is a bit scary to me. I am afraid if they produce all of this stuff, they will demand the debt in full plus all sorts of legal fees. All I really want is for them to quote me a settlement amount I can actually pay. I am hoping that the court will help us come to an agreement that is satisfactory in this case? Or would the court force me to pay whatever the collector demands and force me into bankruptsy?

Thanks for reading.

[ckinganswers]

As of today, I have filed an answer and now have sent 12 questions, certified mail, to the lawyer basically asking to validate the debt, provide a signed contract and proof that they have a contract with the original creditor, the nature of that contract etc. I borrowed 12 of the 44 questions from the debt validation document circulating (thanks a lot! Mr. Yet).

Today I got a certified letter /list of questions from the lawyers. They ask: "Set forth the names and addresses of all persons having knowledge of the transaction and defenses which are the subject of this suit: the relationship of such person(s) to the Defendant; and the nature of the knowledge of each such person" (perhaps I could name everyone on this message board, lol)

There are 19 questions, most of them seem to suggest they think we are going to deny the debt is ours. One question even asking us to provide account records of the debt. (uh if they own the debt, wouldn't they have these records? )

I think I should hold out and not answer these questions until they actually answer my questions/validate the debt? Mr. Yet says to deny deny. But how would it look if I do not answer and end up at my court date?

I plan to keep posting updates to help anyone in a similar situation.

[mr.yet]

Today I got a certified letter /list of questions from the lawyers. They ask: "Set forth the names and addresses of all persons having knowledge of the transaction and defenses which are the subject of this suit: the relationship of such person(s) to the Defendant; and the nature of the knowledge of each such person" (perhaps I could name everyone on this message board, lol)

There are 19 questions, most of them seem to suggest they think we are going to deny the debt is ours. One question even asking us to provide account records of the debt. (uh if they own the debt, wouldn't they have these records?!)

I think I should hold out and not answer these questions until they actually answer my questions/validate the debt? Mr. Yet says to deny deny. But how would it look if I do not answer and end up at my court date?

I plan to keep posting updates to help anyone in a similar situation.

You do not have to give them an accounting of the alleged debt, you don't have one.

Quote: " I hearby dispute the alleged debt, since Plaintiff failure to provide the original contract for me to determine the signature is mind. In todays world of computers anyone can copy and paste items on any document scanned. Therefore I cannot provide information requested by the plaintiff since they are fishing for information and have no valid proof of their claim"


They are trying to get you to admit something so that they can obey a summary judgment in court without providing the original contract.



I personnally would not answer.

[Fr_Chuck]

My yet is 100 percent on this, do not admit you owe the debt, you go from the point that you don't have any idea what they are talking about

I had an exact thing happen, my wife signed up for a "free" listing in a music directly ( she is a singer) Well we got a bill for hundreds of dollars, we dusputed it and they sent us a copy of a form that was so obvoious a cut and paste it was almost funny, you would think they would have done it beter, it looked like they actually cut it and taped it together.

We did almost to the detail what my yet has been saying and they did not show up in court that day.

[mr.yet]

If they fail to apppear on the court date, request that the court dismiss with prejudice their claim.

[excon]

Hello checking:

The suggestions mr. yet gives are great at obfuscating their claim, and throwing a few punches of your own at them. I agree absolutely with these tactics.

However you must not confuse denying with lying. IF this debt is yours, and they manage to step through all the roadblocks you're throwing down, you'd better believe that their going ahead with their lawsuit.

Eventually, you will be asked under oath, if the debt is yours. If the answer to that question is going to be yes, then you're going to wind up paying the debt, PLUS the lawyer fees, and the lawyers are going to slam you for making them jump through hoops.

Only you can tell when it's time to wave the white flag. Right now, you're only risking money. If you lie, you're risking your butt.

excon

[ckinganswers]

Mr. Excomic,
Thank you for bringing that up, because, yes, I am fully aware of this fact and the "gamble" I am taking. I have gotten to this point because this alleged law firm/collections agency has not validated that they in fact are legally representing the creditor. Are you suggesting that I simply take them on their word? Suppose I do and some other collection agency calls me in a few months?

As I stated earlier, I called the original creditor to confirm that they had passed the debt along to a collection agency. My intention was to determine who. They would not answer me and instead sent me into voicemail three times. I left messages and got no response.

Before you jump to slam me, let me make it clear.

I am prepared to pay the debt, as long as I pay it to the correct party. Correct me (gently please) if I am wrong, but is it true that any collection agency can claim to own the debt? Is it not my right to determine the correct party? And if so, to clarify that this party has a contract which states that they can, in fact, slam me with all of their lawyer fees according the alleged original contract I signed?

Tell me if you think I am a complete fool. I have managed to clear up 3 other cc debts without such fanfare because the original creditor offered this information without a problem and worked with me on a reasonable pay schedule or settlement.

If this law firm can send me a copy of any such agreement showing they are responsible for collecting this debt for the creditor, then I will continue to try to work something out. So far, they have been unreasonable and nasty.

And are you suggesting that if they cannot produce such contracts for me, that a judge in a court of law can simply ask me under oath to speak the truth? And if I speak the truth he or she can determine what, if all, lawyers fees I should pay? Regardless of the absence of a contract stating what I am responsible for?

The truth is, I didn't really want to go this far, and I am scared of the outcome. But stupid or stubborn, I won't be a carpet. I have tried to work something reasonable out and if they want it all, they can just jump through hoops then!

Thanks for your input

[mr.yet]

The Debt Collector is claiming you owe money for a alleged debt, simply denying that you don't until they produce the original contract which they must have to proceed, you are within you rights.

THey have brought forward the claim, now they must prove it, you don't have to prove it for them, remember the Fifth Amendment.

Make them prove what they say is true.

Look at it this way, You owe me $5000.00 and I take you to court, I file a suit against you.

You say, "your crazy I dont owe you any money so prove it."

Well the only way to prove it is a signed contract which I don't have only a alleged copy of one.

What are you going to tell the judge?

You say, I never sign the alleged document it is fake. If they have a contract show me the original where the ink will smear if rubbed.

A copy of alleged document is no good, remember copy and paste.

[bretb]

You ARE correct.

I have been sued TWICE by collection agencies. Here's what you want to know.

1. Collection agencies (all of them) are scavengers.
2. They buy bad debts for pennies on the dollar (literally) and attempt to collect or scare you into payment.
3. "IF" you get sued (there's some cost involved here, so it would have to be a substantial amount, say, greater than $3,000 or so) they're "looking" for a DEFAULT judgment to help make it easier to collect the debt.
4. If they cannot get a default judgment (meaning, if they can't bring a law suit against you and have you do "NOTHING", then they WILL RUN from the fight - it's happened to be TWICE).

>>> The MOST important thing NOT to do when you're sued: Nothing.

... If YOU do NOTHING, they WIN 'EXACTLY' what they want= Default Judgment

However, if you do what I did, when sued for $9,000 and for $27,000 (two different accounts - both balances concocted astronomically high), you'll have the collection agency back pedaling quickly.

When they file a "complaint" against you, you MUST file an "answer" with the court in response. If you do not respond within the time allotted by the court, the collection agency will win a default judgment and have one more tool to attempt to get your money from you. With a default judgment, they can garnish your wages; take further collection action which is more difficult to combat.

My answer was as simple as a letter (though I did "try" to make it look official, for the court's sake) saying, "I have never held a credit card from [collection agency's name]" (usually a different company than the "original creditor" that you REALLY owe the money too.

I think I also said something to the effect of, "Plaintiff has not provided with me any signed document for said account and balance." I did mention statute of limitations, but stupid Ohio, has a TEN FREAKIN' year statute of limitations on debt collection law suits, so the idiots could probably sue my damn great grandkids for Pete's sake.

Anyway, I'm still fighting this crap on my credit reports, but I'm much more comfortable with that than being in a court room.

The most important thing I did was to file an " I did mention statute of limitations, but stupid Ohio, has a TEN FREAKIN' year statute of limitations on debt collection law suits, so the idiots could probably sue my damn great grandkids for Pete's sake.

Anyway, I'm still fighting this crap on my credit reports, but I'm much more comfortable with that than being in a court room.

The most important thing I did was to file an " to the collection agencies " to the collection agencies " with the court. Once that was done, the first company (suing for $9,000) immediately dropped the suit (as soon as I put the ball back in their court, by filing my answer to their complaint).

The second company let it drag on a little longer. Once they filed their complaint and I filed my answer, a court date was automatically set. This suit was for over $20,000, so it was in the court of common pleas (serious money or serious crime court - umm, a little more scary, yeah).

Because an automatic court date was set, I knew I'd have to take a day off work and throw on a suit and head downtown. As I thought about it, the creditor was in NV and their attorney was in GA (both states more than 600 miles away). It just kind of 'came' to me that they were going to have anyone there. It's a collection agency... you know, the scum of the earth...

Anyway, I decided before even going to court to compose a "motion to dismiss" with the court. Once that was done, the first company (suing for $9,000) immediately dropped the suit (as soon as I put the ball back in their court, by filing my answer to their complaint).

The second company let it drag on a little longer. Once they filed their complaint and I filed my answer, a court date was automatically set. This suit was for over $20,000, so it was in the court of common pleas (serious money or serious crime court - umm, a little more scary, yeah).

Because an automatic court date was set, I knew I'd have to take a day off of work and throw on a suit and head downtown. As I thought about it, the creditor was in NV and their attorney was in GA (both states more than 600 miles away). It just kind of 'came' to me that they were going to have anyone there. It's a collection agency... ya know, the scum of the earth...

Anyway, I decided before even going to court to compose a "missed" (basically, another nice letter (lack of better term) asking the court to dismiss the lawsuit because the plaintiff that 'thought' they wanted to sue me, didn't even show up for the court date) and here I am looking pretty styling in a suit and all.

You gain a little favor from the judge in those situations. :)

All in all, after the collection agency "name" the court date, and I then took the initiative to 'take the next step', the judge set a date to 'hear' my motion to dismiss. Once the attorney was notified that I had filed a motion to dismiss, they immediately told the judge’s clerk that they would submit the paperwork to drop the lawsuit.

NOTE: It still took a few weeks, and some follow up calls by the judges clerk to the collection attorney's before they actually DID finally FedEx the paperwork to the courthouse, but within a total of two to three months of being officially sued (in common pleas court, none the less), I received official document from the court that the motion to dismiss was granted and the lawsuit was officially dropped.

REMEMBER: they do NOT want a costly legal fight for a debt that likely cannot even prove anyway. They ARE a bully looking for wimps that scare and give in easily, or, better yet, people to NOT DO ANYTHING.... this gives them an automatic (default judgment) against you.... aka: YOU LOSE the lawsuit by not responding.

The absolute WORST thing you can do is: Nothing.

Just because attorney's can write documents that look official, doesn't mean that your documents have any less legal power. I filed a motion to dismiss not knowing the first thing about the legal document other than the "throw out" the law suit.

One thing I now from serving jury duty... the judges hate cases that proceed to trial. They'll give both parties every chance and even encourage working things out before it goes to trial. If any suit like this was actually to go to trial...

HE he he...

I would compile about 100 pages of any question that I could think of. I'd ask the plaintiff so many questions that the trial would go on for days. The judges MUST allow you to ask any questions that you have prepared to ask in court. (remember the huge stacks of paper on the tables in court rooms)... even if the judges knows your tactic, he risks having an appeals court throw out the judgment as a mis-trial if he doesn't let you present your ENTIRE case.

Baby, my case would go on forever. I'd bankrupt the scavenger collection agents with legal bills. They'd wish they never sued me... he he... actually, it will never go that far, because the whole point of collection agencies filing a lawsuit is not so much to collect the debt as it is to:

Get a DEFAULT JUDGEMENT against you when you DO NOTHING after receiving the court's notification that a 'complaint' has been filed against you.

You absolutely MUST file an " and the fact that it's just a letter asking the court to " to the 'complaint' with the court by the deadline on the complaint notification. You'll know it when it comes. It's usually sent via certified mail... you have to "sign" for it. :)

Good luck!