In 6/02 I had a judgment filed against me from First Select, Inc., from a Fleet credit card of approximately $2600. I did not respond to it and it was successful. At that point, I contacted a debt counselor: Auriton Solutions and worked out a plan to pay my creditors $300 for 42 months, starting 5/02. I thought they paid everything off, including the judgment, so I didn't pay close attention - my concern was to prevent any further judgments filed against me. Last month I pulled a credit report for all 3 CRAs and noticed the judgment was still on there with no closing date. I have a credit report dated 3/04, where First Select reported me as current from 12/01 through 5/03 (evidently they were receiving payments). On 5/03 they sold the debt off to Credigy Receivables, Inc. (according to my judgment file). As part of this process, I had Auriton Solutions send me a printout of all the payments I made and who received them. Neither First Select, Inc., nor Credigy Receivables appear to have received any payments. The surprising thing is that I haven't heard from either one in the past 5 years. My courthouse investigation revealed that the judgment was entered in 6/02 but the file was misfiled for 3 years and essentially lost. It wasn't until 7/2005 that the file was found, as evidenced by a time stamp showing when it was filed. In doing research, I found that the SOL in my state is 6 years, so this debt is already up. However, I saw that a judgment in this state can remain on credit reports for 10 years. This judgment will be 7 years old in June, 2009. My questions are these: How do you suggest I remove this judgment from my record? Does it being open adversely affect my credit score drastically? Do I contest it in letters to the CRAs? Consult an attorney to have it removed? Pay it off by contacting the company that owns the debt? Please help! Thanks!
You need to find where all the money went.you can send them a letter demanding everything that was done this does't sound right
Are you talking about the SOL for collecting on a debt, or the SOL for a judgment? In most states the SOL for a judgment is 10-20 years, and it can often be renewed. Judgments can be reported on your credit report for 10 years. That doesn't mean that the judgment is out of SOL. They are two different things. Also, the SOL for a judgment runs from when the judgment was entered, not from when the account was defaulted.
Who is Auriton Solutions? What relationship do they have to the judgment debtor? If they are some sort of credit counseling outfit that you went to, they may have either kept most of your money in fees, or paid it to a collector rather than whoever held the judgment. That's why you always make sure that you are paying the party legally entitled to collect the debt.
More questions here than answers. Judgments should show on credit reports for 7 years, unless the state's SOL for the judgment is longer, in which case they can show until it expires. Typically though, the CRAs software drops them at 7. Tax liens show permanently or until 7 years after they're paid. BKs (ch7, not ch13) are the only thing that shows for 10 years. Problems in the clerk's office could give the judgment creditor an excuse to extend or renew they otherwise wouldn't have. Leaving all that aside, it's time to give Auriton a searching probe ... sounds like they did you dirty.
