Just received a summons and I am not sure how to answer it. I am so far behind in debt due to loss of income and bad money management. I am currently trying to negotiate with some creditors but this one got to court first. I don't know how to handle this since this is fairly new just at the charge off time. Any help would greatly be appreciated I can not afford a lawyer right now and hope that I can handle this without one. I am just shocked that this went so far so quickly. Thank you so much to anyone who responds! Who is suing you? Chase Bank USA, N.A. 2. For how much? $13000. 3. Who is the original creditor? Chase. 4. How do you know you are being sued? Served a summons. 5. How were you served? Were you served? Came to house. 6. What was your correspondence (if any) with the people suing you before you think you were being sued? None 7. Where do you live? FL 8. When is the last time you paid on this account? Sept 08 9. What is the status of your case (if anything has been opened)? You can find this by a) calling the court or b) looking it up online (many states have this information posted daily). I have to respond to the summons within 20 days. 10. Have you disputed the debt with the credit bureaus (both the original creditor and the collection agency?) No 11. Did you request debt validation before the suit was filed? If not, don't bother doing this now. No 12. Does your summons require a response? (Look hard!) If you don't get a questionnaire with your summons, you are still probably required to answer it in writing. If you don't respond to the lawsuit notice you will lose automatically. In 99% of the cases, they will require you to answer the summons, and each point they are claiming. We need to know what the "charges" are. Please post what they are claiming. Did you receive an interrogatory (questionnaire) regarding the lawsuit? Just allegations nothing that says interogatories. I have to file a response with the court, and also serve a copy of my response to the attorney. This is how it reads: At all times hereinafter mentioned, Chase is and was a national banking coporation with its primary place of business located in the sate of Delaware. At all times hereinafter mentioned, the Defendant was and is a resident of ....(county and state) This is an action involvong a claim for damages that exceeds $5000.00 but does not exceed $15000 The defendant had a revolving credit account with Chase and used the account to obtain purchases and/or cash advances and, as a result, became indebted to chase on individual balances for the account as follows: Account # and balance Chase provided monthly account statements to the defendant reflecting, among other information, transactions to the account since the preceeding billing period, the total amount due on the ccount, and the minimum payment due. The defendant did not object to the aforementioned account statements at any time. The defendant owes chase $... that is due on the account together with interest from April 2009, and cost of suit. Wherefore, plantiff, chase, respectfully requests entry of judgement against defendant ..., in the amount of ... plus interest and cost of suit. JP Morgan Chase- Legal Department Attorneys for plantiff (a local address and phone number) 13. What evidence did they send with the summons? An affadavit? A statement from the OC? Anything else they attached as exhibits? They sent a statement copy from two months ago.
Hopefully you can learn from this. Many people are in similar situations and learning too. They may see other things on your CR and think they need to get it done quickly. Do you have any defenses? Do you have anything to attempt a settlement with them with?
It is unlikely that the poster has any viable defenses. Few people do unless the debt is outside statute of limitations and they can prove it one way or another or they can prove that they have paid the debt in full or they are not the person who incurred the debt and failed to pay. I can't think of any other defenses that will win consistently. Can you?
So, in the absence of any viable defenses, the strategy would be to go on the "offense" and try to exclude their evidence? something else?
Amazing that the last time you paid on this was only in September and they are suing you now. : ( Have you looked at your credit reports? Do you own a home, vehicle,stocks? Change your bank account as they will be able to know where you paid payment from. I believe you are going to get a judgement against you although it will take a month or two from your court date , AND you may be able to postpone it further. If you have nothing then so be it. If you have things then I would negotiate a settlement with them. If you can come up with 5K then I think they are going to accept HOWEVER NEVER EVER offer what you are willing to pay so try at $2500 and see what happens. I have been in court where the judge asks if you can pay, and you tell them you offered such and such and the judge gets ticked off wi th the plaintiff and tells the plaintiff that that is that and you will pay such and the plaintiff accepts . Another thing is the judge will also ask if you can pay and if you say NO but would like to work out something I have seen when the judge says, OK what can you afford and let you pay off the debt in very small amounts, say $100 a month. It all depends what you have and they can get. ALl they want is money and they WILL take an offer unless they know they will have an easy time getting something away form you. Will they?? Woofer
Ok, how do I respond Thank you all who have respnded so far. What I need to know is how do I respond to the summons. There is no court date yet as far as I can tell it just says I have 20 days to respond to the summons. I would like to propose a settlement with them do I wait for court or can I negotiate before then and how? Can I contact Chase at this point or do I have to go through the court. I can't afford much by I can make a small payment every month. I don't know what they would see on our credit report that would excite them we have a home but it has a mortgage, we also have some land but that is mortgaged too and we have been trying to sell it but with the current market it is worth less than what we owe and the bank is trying to modify the loan right now because we are so behind. What I am most afraid of which I have heard people talk about is wage garnisment. We can barely make it now if they take our pay we would lose our home. Does anyone know the likelyhood of them garnishing wages? Or would they most likely put a lean on our home? Again any help is greatly appreciated. And those of you who may be behind with Chase be careful apparently they are quick to sue these days.
Yes Chase is taken on the bulldog approach to collection,they tried to make me reaffirm a bk account a year after it was disch.On a garnishment most states they can only take 25% of your wages so if you could work something out it would help you out.And they could put a lean on your property which isn't the worse thing that can happen.It's not good.
We can't really tell you how to respond to the summons except in a general sort of way. For instance, I can say that if I had to respond to a summons I would first of all determine whether the complaint had been lodged in small claims court or in district court. That's important because if it is lodged in small claims I may not be able to use discovery. I'd have to check on rule of procedure to see about that. If it were in small claims I'd probably file a graduated denial along with a countersuit. That should get it moved to district where I could use discovery. Of course, I'd have to present a cause of action that might at least stand some chance of success. If I couldn't get it moved then I would use a graduated denial in lieu of answer. If it were in district court I would use a graduated denial and send demand for admissions. How to do those things is what I can't tell you. There are other forms such as a certificate of mailing you will need. So, I've given you a good idea of what you have to do but not how to do it. Can't do that. The likelihood of wage garnishment depends on what state you reside in. Some states won't allow wage garnishment but most will. They may try to grab any money you have in banks first then go for garnishment. They could also put a lien on your home, attempt to take or take your vehicle(s), boats, or anything else of value that they can find. They can even send a sheriff to your home to see what they can grab and sell to help them get their judgment paid. All of those things are possible but nobody here can tell you what they will do. I guess you have heard of toxic assets. Your debt is their toxic asset but only the government and the banks have a bailout program. They haven't come up with any bailout programs for consumers and they never will. The sad part is that the big banks get billions from the government and still come after the consumer to get even more and we foot the bill through taxes and through judgments and garnishments. We get hit both ways.
Right, at this point they are following the rules and expecting you not to respond. They will then go to the court and get a default judgment against you. You can buy time by "Appearing". This means you'll get all the materials that the other side sends to the court. If you don't do this, you won't know what is going on. Generally you are also expected to provide an "Answer". This means you respond to whatever their "Complaint" alleged you did or didn't do that caused them to file suit. The idea is to get the issues out in the open so that the various sides can decide how far to take this. Your case is probably pretty simple, they claim you owe them money, you claim, what do you claim? If it's that you can't pay, that's not a defense. It's important not to respond with your personal problems. These are not defenses. Dumb Bob has listened to too many people explain how they made mistakes and that they are sorry about that and how circumstances overtook their ability to be prudent, or whatever. These are not defenses. What they are is none of the court's business. They change nothing, so they don't really merit saying. It really doesn't cost much to get a default. So why not get one on you? It would seem you don't know the process so you likely have no judgments against you. Dumb Bob thinks that you are prime target. Others have pointed out that they will likely first take everything you have in all your bank accounts. Well, they will freeze what you have and if you don't respond correctly, they will take it all. There are limits as to how much they can take if you correctly respond to them. Most states seem to allow you a few hundred dollars. So you should be able to use your accounts but you won't be able to store funds there. Everyone wants to get theirs before someone is impossible to collect from. These are difficult times.
This happened to me.... With Chase. The day I received the summons, I called them and worked out a payment plan. On my credit report, it says "account closed by grantor" and has a 30-day and 60-day late flag on two separate occasions. Other than that, there is nothing - i.e. judgement - on my report. It was my fault, they came after me QUICKLY, I paid it, and it's now behind me. Don't know if that's the right thing to do, but I felt horrible owing the money to them and wanted to pay it off. Good luck.
