Can a Collection Agency sue me when I never signed an agreement with them?

You wont be arrested if you dont show up but you will lose your case and a default judgment will be filed on you.Then once the ca gets a default judgment they will try to collect on it.They can send you a court form asking you certain questions about your financial affairs.If you fail to answer you can be forced into court to answer these questions.If you still refuse to comply you can be charged with contempt.Do you owe this money?Is it a large amount?The good news is a large percentage of judgments are never collected.

 

U.S. Marshall's do not deliver any papers from any debt collection agency,
They don't deliver summons from county courts. It was delivered by a sheriff or a process server who works for a private company.

Then it may not have been a summons either. Did the papers have a court stamp on them? If not then it wasn't a summons to appear in court. A summons is a separate sheet of paper and tells you that you have been commanded to appear in court. It also has other indices such as a certain number of days you have to answer the summons but almost never specifies a date upon which the matter will be heard by the court.

No, they won't put out a warrant for your arrest for failure to show at that hearing. If they get a judgment and then go to court and demand a garnishment and demand that you show up for an assets hearing they can put you in jail for contempt of court.

February 14th is only a few days away and you need to file an appropriate answer to the summons in court or ask for an extension of time to do so.

If you fail to prepare and submit an answer to the complaint in writing many courts will grant the judgment without listening to anything you have to say.
Since your time is so short I think that filing a motion for extension of time to answer might be a good thing for you to do.

You would have time then to answer the complaint, develop some affirmative defenses and file those, then prepare and send interrogatories, admissions and demand for production of documents as well. All of those are essential if you are to have any chance to defeat their complaint.

You will also want to be certain that you take a court reporter to court with you for all hearings except scheduling conferences. This is absolutely essential if you wish to appeal the judgment or any ruling by the judge.

They didn't have to validate the debt but by going to court and setting a hearing date without having validate they have committed an offense known as overshadowing so you would have reason to file a federal suit against them for that. You could also file a countersuit against them for the violation but it is likely to fall on deaf judicial ears in the lower courts. It isn't a viable defense because the only matter before the court is whether or not you owe the debt.

 

The bigger question is are you judgment proof?If your broke and do not have any assets such as money in the bank.equity in proprty {house,car}?Do you have a job?In ny they can only garnish 10% of your wages.Remember a judgment is only a piece of paper that gives them court permission to try and collect the debt.If you have no money or job there isnt a whole lot they can do with that judgment. Well maybe they could use it in the mens room.

 

Sorry but that is misinformation. They can garnish up to 25% of your take home pay after taxes.

Only partially correct. A judgment is a court order proclaiming that you owe the debt but does not give any permission to collect.

That's not necessarily true either. They can garnish bank accounts and can take certain other assets you may have as well as putting lien on any property you might own or have an interest in.

The laws on what assets they can and cannot take are to be found in the statutes of every state. Some states are much more debtor friendly than others.

 

Probably. But if you don't answer the complaint or don't go to court they won't have to prove it. It is your task to make them prove it if you can.

Neither one. You have to prepare it then file it with the court. You might want to file a motion to dismiss their case. That would require preparing a separate motion, a notice of hearing and you would have to prepare a certificate of mailing for most documents you file or send to the plaintiff's attorney.

You must file your paperwork with the clerk of the court including certificates of mailing. You have to file with the court and send the plaintiffs attorney copy of all the paperwork including certificates of mailing.

Telling you that on a public forum would not only come far too close to unauthorized practice of law and I'm not an attorney. It would also run the risk that others would copy it and try to use it improperly leading them into big problems. I'm simply not going to go there.

There can be an almost unlimited number of affirmative defenses depending on the type of case and the situations. One might be that you are not the proper party in the case. The card was never issued to you. Another might be lack of jurisdiction under any one or more theories. Maybe they filed suit in a county in which you do not reside. You already paid the debt and can prove it. In theory there are a wide variety of things that might make a viable affirmative defense. In practice it usually boils down the the fact that you don't have any or they don't apply to your case. That's why there are attorneys who can tell you what your affirmative defenses are and what will apply to you. The problem you have is finding a competent attorney who has the requisite experience in the particular field of practice and would be willing to defend for a price you can afford to pay.

Yes, interrogatories actually means questions. Questions you want to ask them and often the sender already knows all or part of the answers but lacks some details they need to acquire. You are limited as to the number of questions you can ask. That can run from 25 to maybe as much as 35 questions depending on your court rules of procedure. It is best to ask no more than maybe 10 at first and then send a second set of interrogatories after you get the answers to the first set (if you do which isn't likely). You also have to keep away from multiple part questions, questions that are ambiguous can be seen as misleading.

Admissions are often much the same. You can't demand they admit things which demand legal conclusions be given and there are many other types of admissions you can't demand. Again you have to know and use your rules of procedure and evidence.

You can demand production of such documents as the agreement(s) signed or agreed to by you and the plaintiff, any notes you might have signed, accounting of the purported indebtedness, things like that. You can also demand a list of prospective witnesses (if any) and what they can be expected to testify to.

If you answer the summons you can almost count on the fact that the plaintiff's attorney will send you demands for those things too and maybe more. You will need to know how to answer those without revealing any more than you absolutely have to. When they answer demand for interrogatoris you can count on the fact that you will get no useable information at all.
Those things are as much a game they play and play very well as anything.
Either party can also demand discovery in the form of taking depositions in which the parties meet and demand that the opposing party submit to a grilling about the case. Those can get downright hard to deal with. You should never go to a deposition without an attorney and a court reporter.

Sending letters to the court is often nothing more than a waste of time.

Yes! You need to file an answer to the court. But the fact they may have done something wrong isn't a defense.

As far as I am concerned telling you how to do that would also be likely to amount to the unauthorized practice of law.


Thank you for your time and helping me!![/QUOTE]

 

Let us know how that works out. Should be interesting.

 

If this was well over 7 years ago, wouldn't the SOL be up?

 

I must have missed something here. Where does it say the debt is well over 7 years ago?

 

SOL means Statute of Limitations. It is state specific. Each has it's own Statute of Limitations for each type of debt. Credit cards are considered to be open ended accounts and usually have a shorter SOL than written contract types of debt.

When the SOL starts can also vary from state to state but many specify that it begins when you failed to make your last payment to the creditor and others say that it begins when chargeoff occurs. What can stop the tolling of the SOL also varies from state to state. In some states if you even make a $1 payment on the debt that starts the SOL all over again. You just need to know the SOL law for your state.

If you can use the SOL defense and it does apply to you then it cannot be defeated. If you can use it but don't present it at the judgment hearing you will lose the defense.

Again, you usually have to prepare a proper motion to dismiss based on SOL to make it work.

If you use the defense and it is out of stat the plaintiff's attorney will usually dismiss his own case without prejudice even if your motion to dismiss is plead with prejudice.

If Plaintiff's motion to dismiss without prejudice is granted that means the case could be refiled again at a later date although it is highly unlikely that would ever happen. The debt could be resold to some unsuspecting debt collector however who might accidentally file again. On the other hand, I've never known that to happen. I am just saying that the possibility exists.

Another thing to watch out for is that some states do not allow voluntary dismissal without written agreement of both parties or upon order of the court. That is to be found in their Rules of Procedure. Some of the states have that in Rule 41. Some states have a different numbering system for their rules. You just have to know the rules for your state. They are available on line for many states. Most of the rules are pretty easy to understand but some of them are not.

What I am telling you here are just general knowledge. I'm not an attorney and I'd be ashamed to admit it if I were.

 

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