Help! Being sued by capital one

What law firm is it from?

I know from experience that Capital ONE does follow-thru with lawsuits.

Whatever you do...................show up for the court date (preferably with a lawyer, but not necessary)

If you DON"T show up, they can try to get a default judgment.

Are you currently working and/or have income?

 

I'd think you should deny everything. Yes, I realize that you know you owe the debt and both the judge and the attorney know it as well but I think you should deny it anyway. I wouldn't admit anything and make them prove that you do owe the debt. Why just lay down and take your whipping without a fight. Don't make any sense to me to just roll over.

I doubt that is SOP but it does happen sometimes.

That depends. If you know why you should talk to the lawyer then I'd say that you should. If you really don't understand why you need to talk to the attorney then I wouldn't.

Not stupid at all.

While the letter you sent may or may not have been a mistake depending on what it said but basically it wasn't a mistake at all. The important thing is when did you send it. How long after you received your first communication from the attorney. If you sent it within 30 days after you received your first communication from the lawyer by whatever means then the lawyer is forbidden to move forward with any collection activity at all until the debt has been properly validated.

At least you got that much figured out about right.

Now that is what interests me. I'd like to see a copy of that affidavit. That can be the key to winning for you. What I'd be interested in seeing is who the affiant is and who the notary was and where is that notary authorized to be a notary? Those are very important things to know. Those three bits of information are sufficient to tell me whether the affidavit is a phony or not which it probably is. I've seen lots of affidavits and most are as phony as a $3 bill. Yours probably is too and that can be the key to winning.

I really can't answer that question for you. Might have to ask a lawyer about that but then you have already had one experience with a stupid lawyer and the next one probably won't be much smarter.

 

Same situation here!!

I just received a summons today from Capital One. I live in Georgia. I have never been contacted before by the attorney listed. Needless to say, I will be following this thread closely.

 

Depending on what the validation letter said/requested you did the right thing. As Cap1sucks said, deny everything in your answer. Basically what you have done after being notified you MAY owe a debt, you disputed it with (the letter), now they need to come up with proof (legal proof) you owe it. I did the same thing. So they need to either send you the proof or bring it to court. depending on how old the debt is that could be hard for them to do. just make sure when the lawyer comes to talk to you before you 2 approach the judge (usually they do) and he asks if you want to settle, ask if they brought the proof you requested (make sure you bring you CRRR with you to court along with a copy of the letter you sent).If not, when you face the judge explain to him you requested the info (show letters and cards) but they never replied and he (the lawyer) says he doesn't have it now either. See people can go around saying you owe them money,but if they plan to sue you they need proof, no proof, no money. Worked for me.

 

Well, I can't give you my contact information here because of forum rules but we can get the job done without either of us giving contact information by using Google Docs. First of all you need a google gmail address and once you have that then you can go to docs.google.com and sign up for a google docs account. Once you have that you can scan the affidavit and then upload it to your google docs account. Once you have it uploaded you can give me permission to see it via the share option then send me a pm (private message) here and I can go look at the affidavit to see what I can figure out to help you. All of that can be done in less than an hour if you have a scanner.

 

That isn't an affidavit. That is nothing more than a statement which alleges that you owe a certain amount of money. If it were an affidavit it would bear the signature of both the affiant (person making the statement) and the notary public who witnessed the signature of the affiant. None of that appears on the document you posted.

 

If this is the OC and not someone who claims an assignment, they will likely have someone who is considered competent to create an affidavit to allow in business records. Even if you choose to continue to oppose this lawsuit, you are going to have to deal with the attorneys, probably on the phone, via the mails and in court, therefore dealing with them regarding a possible settlement isn't probably out of the ordinary.

 

The OC probably won't be filing the lawsuit. Most likely it will be a debt collector who, as you say, might have someone who is considered competent to create an affidavit to allow in business records. Most of the time those affidavits are about as valid as a $3 bill. Defendants universally accept them as gospel truth and thereby make a huge mistake. Affidavits are seldom used but if one is used, allowing it to go unchallenged is a sure way to lose in court.

Most defendants attempt to use some form of affirmative defense as their response to a complaint and that is another huge mistake because an affirmative defense is by definition an admission of the charges while attempting to offer mitigating circumstances. One cannot logically admit to the complaint and then attempt to salvage the situation with lame excuses. As in football it is an absolute must that one hits the ground running with the ball. Attorneys are 3rd party debt collectors by definition so the first step is to catch the pass (initial contact by any means) and demand validation of the debt. If the initial contact is by summons then a properly constructed validation letter should be sent along with the response package that must be mailed to the plaintiff's attorney.

The time allowed by the court to respond to the complaint has to be considered too. Sometimes the response time is greater than 30 days and if so then the validation demand should be sent before the response to the court is due so the validation demand should go out CMRRR not more than 25 days after having been served while the response probably should not be filed with the clerk of the court until the 34th or 35th day. If the 35th day falls on a weekend or a holiday the defendant will have to adjust his filing date accordingly.

If the court allows 30 days or less within which the defendant must respond then the validation demand should go out in the same package in which he mails his response to the plaintiff's complaint. I think the best time to mail the response to the plaintiff's attorney is about 2 days after it has been filed with the clerk of the court. If it is done that way then the plaintiff's attorney will often rush in to file for a default judgment without checking to see whether a timely response was filed or not thereby making two huge mistakes.
1. Illegal continued collection activity

2. Allowing the defendant to make a fool of the attorney by filing an objection to the motion for default judgment


Once the attorney has received a timely demand for validation he can't move forward until he has provided the demanded validation. If he does then the defendant has the opportunity to immediately file a federal case against the attorney thereby putting a big hitch in his git-along. (LOL).

Another way to hamstring the attorney is to send demand for admissions in the response package. In most states the plaintiff only has 30 days within which their response must be received by the defendant so in order to avoid a federal lawsuit the attorney would have to provide the demanded validation before he could respond to the demand for admissions. A knowledgeable defendant can easily trap an attorney into one or more federal lawsuits and turn the tables on the plaintiff very quickly. Once the federal court has ordered the parties to rule 26(f) the defendant can work towards getting the lower court case dismissed as a part of the settlement. Another matter that usually comes up in the settlements is that the defendant will probably want a non-disclosure clause inserted into the settlement contract. There should be a very high price attached in case of violation of the terms and conditions of the settlement agreement. At least $1,000 plus court costs and attorney fees. More if they will agree to it but they usually won't. After all, they don't want their names turning up in the local newspaper or on the nightly newscast.
That too can and should be turned against them by demanding far stricter terms than they propose then disputing with the credit bureaus. If they respond they violate the terms of the settlement agreement and back to court we go. If they don't respond the adverse listing is gone thereby improving the plaintiff's credit score. Now that is the way to do your credit repair.

 

Help Needed here also

Thanks for the great info Cap1... I am also being sued by Capital One. Would you mind taking a quick look at my summons and giving me your opinion?

Thanks.

 

I'll have to turn you down on looking at the summons because those are normally of little or no value except to tell you how long you have to respond. I'd have to look at the complaint and any affidavits that might have been included. A copy of the agreement might also be interesting if you happen to have one or they provided a copy.

Put them up on Google Docs and make sure they are readable and then give me a link to go look at them. Don't make any difference if you post the link here or PM me with the link. Just be sure you use Microsoft paint and redact your personal information before you post them. Don't want any privacy issues going on here. Redact the name of the court and the case number as well. I don't need that information and best you redact it to preserve your own privacy.

 

Just sent you a PM with links to my docs. A couple of things to add:
1. the summons was the first communication I received from this Law Office
2. Nowhere is an account number listed for the referenced account

Thanks again for your time.

 

You have to make sure I have sharing rights to all the documents. Right now I can only open one of them

 

Try again...All docs are shares to everyone.

Page 1 is the complaint. Pages 2 and 3 are the customer agreement and Page 4 is the Arbitration Agreement.

Let me know if you still can't open the docs.

 

Of course they aren't going to go for arbitration. No affidavit I guess? When did you make your last payment to Cap1? If no affidavit then who are they going to get to testify? The lawyer can't do it. He don't have any first hand knowledge about the case. All he knows is what his client told him and his client probably isn't really cap1 at all. I'm looking at a case here locally where the plaintiff is a corporation. It is a small claims case so the owner of the corporation can sue in the name of his corporation without a lawyer but the problem I see is that the corporation isn't registered in this state. Seems to me the plaintiff has no standing to sue anybody if it has no corporate standing in this state. That one should be fun.

 

The only thing I received was the one page complaint, the standard customer agreement, and the arbitration agreement. I did not receive an affidavit. The last time I paid cap1 was back in 2008.

So I guess my next step is to file a reply to the summons. Should I just deny each item listed based on a lack of information? I think I will also send a DV letter after I file my response to the summons. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for your time.