Well a little backstory, back in college I received a card from citifinancial. I charged my schoolbooks on it, and allowed my mother to pay it off for me. Well instead, she obtained a second card from citifinancial with her name on it, yet still having my account number. When I returned from school a few years later, the debt was over $6k! The debt was eventually charged off, but it never went into collections on my credit report (I was going to dispute it because my mother's duplicate card wasn't authorized by me). There's three different citi files, the two most recent say that the debt had been "paid satisfactorily", and one in the middle simply says "current" with a zero balance. On my credit report, there's no collection record for Citifinancial. Anyway, in December, my mother calls me, telling me that she got a subpoena in the mail from a collection agency. Since we live pretty far apart, I didn't get the subpoena until January. It was a subpoena to show up in court in December of the following year (2008). Well I disputed the subpoena because of the fact that the debt wasn't mine, yet I was the only person on the subpoena. I never received a response. Then last week my mother calls me again and tells me that there's two packets from a collection agency. She forgot about the first one, but this second one says that the agency is filing a summary judgment against me because I didn't respond to the first packet (which I never got because they keep sending stuff to my mother's address). I'm going to my local court on Monday where this was filed, and dispute this filing in person. I've tried to contact this collection agency to give them my actual address, but no one answers their phone. My question is this; I was never served the subpoena in person, the debt isn't even on my credit report (in fact, my car loan is currently through Citi), my mother isn't on this case file at all, and I seriously doubt these guys even have anything I've ever signed. Do these guys have a case against me?
If you don't do anything, they'll get a default judgment. You are saying that they are seeking a summary judgment, which suggests that you did at least appear. It is interesting that they are suing you in the proper venue, or what would appear to be, where you live, but they keep sending things to someone far away. You should find out what proper service is in your jurisdiction. You want to generally make it clear that service was bad and not wait too long about it since dilly dallying can waive that defense. What you are saying is that you got a card and then someone else without your knowledge added themselves on your card and charged it all up to the sky and you never knew about it until you got the complaint? They'll probably wonder why you never looked at your billing. You'll say it was sent to your mother who was supposed to pay it, right? I wonder if it's a crime to add yourself to someone else's account without asking them. You might want to pay a few hundred bucks and get a real legal opinion on this. I think that it's settled law that if you add someone to your card, or lend your card to them, and they charge it to the sky, you are liable even if you had not contemplated that they'd do quite that much charging. So your argument appears to me to be limited to you didn't know anyone was on the account but you and no one was authorized to be on the account by you but you period, full stop, end of sentence. I wonder if you are essentially testifying for a future trial.
Thanks for responding Bob. What if the debt isn't showing up on my credit reports? It shows that these debts have been paid. Can that be used to help get this dismissed? As for the unauthorized charging, I had no idea that my mother was charging the account, since my credit card was on my person while I was in school. Citi issued my mother her own card with her name on it, but with my account number.
If I borrowed a thousand dollars from you, it wouldn't show up on my credit creport, but you could get a judgment against me. Does it really show that? Or have they been sold to someone else so they are just reporting in a way that you can interpret as paid? That sounds like an authorized user, which is legal. But the primary user has to agree to that. If you are that person and you didn't, I worry that your argument is basically saying that your mother committed some sort of crime. Think about it, if Dumb Bob set himself up as an authorized user on your credit card and went off and charged it to the sky, wouldn't you conclude that Dumb Bob was breaking some sort of law? So I was hoping that you'd go out and get some actual legal advice, Dumb Bob isn't an attorney, so that you could make the best legal argument possible without getting your mom in any hot water. Of course you are free to pursue this as a criminal matter, which I suspect would really help you in the civil case.
How was the summons served, via certified mail? Regular mail? Did the sheriff come out and leave it on the door, and mail a copy? If your mother signed for certified mail, or accepted the summons without returning it as, undeliverable as addressed, or something similiar, depending on the courts rules, it could be good service.
