Judgement paid, Capital One says it's not....

WaMu was bought by Chase, and I can't believe they don't have records somewhere. They may be in storage or something.

Try contacting the executive offices, maybe the corporate counsel. Be very nice and tell them you'd really appreciate their help. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

Who did the closing--an attorney or title company? They should be the ones who actually issued the check. If so, try contacting them and see if they can help.

 

I didn't realize they were regulated by the Insurance Commission. That's a good move.

Hopefully the fact that there is an ongoing criminal investigation will be on your side.

I think this is a good move, especially since the state seems to be taking it seriously.

If they never made the payment you may have grounds to sue them. The judgment has probably caused you harm. On the other hand, if they have or do go out of business, there may not be anyone to sue.

Good luck--and keep us posted!!

 

Obviously you are not thinking about the possibility that Capital One just might be telling you the truth? The truth may be that they didn't get paid. The truth may be that the title company paid the court, not Cap1 and Cap1 may not have been paid because they weren't the true plaintiff therefore the court paid the actual judgment holder or their attorney. Attorney's most often want to get paid up to $2500 or more to take a debt collection case plus up to 25% of any money collected. They garnish the debtor and the court pays the attorney who deducts his cut and forwards the rest to the true plaintiff who takes another whack out of the apple or keeps it all if they bought the debt which is usually the case although Cap1 usually don't sell their debts. They just assign them to TSYS or other debt collectors.
There is also the possibility that the judgment was sold to a judgment recovery company who actually collected the money and since it is now an old judgment it just might be that a judgment recovery company has purchased the judgment and is the party now collecting the new garnishments.

Please believe me when I say that those are not just empty guesses. I know exactly how these things work. First of all, Cap1 usually don't sue anybody. They hire debt collectors who sue in the name of Capital One. Cap1 is famous for having TSYS of Georgia do their collecting for them. TSYS has a subsidiary corporation known as NAN for National Attorney's Network. TSYS sends the debt over to the NAN office which is at the same address as TSYS. NAN hires an attorney to sue defendants. TSYS is the true plaintiff, not Cap1. In the event they can't get any money they sell the judgment to a judgment recovery service for varying amounts of money, usually $10 to $20 per judgment regardless of how much the judgment is for. There is always a clause in the purchase contract that in the event of successful collection the purchaser pays a commission to the judgment owner of 50% of what is collected. It is done that way because if it were not done that way then the judgment recovery service would become a 3rd party debt collector and subject to FDCPA as well as being subject to getting hit with unauthorized practice of law and sent to prison. Since they ostensibly bought the debt they are now the owners and therefore not subject to FDCPA and if there is any court work necessary they hire attorneys to keep from getting hit with unauthorized practice of law.

So the question becomes one of how do you dig through all that rig-a-marole to get to the bottom of the dung heap? The answer is not that difficult. Go to the clerk of the court and ask to see all the paperwork in the original court case. Get copies of everything and take them home. Find out who the attorney was in the original case and check with them to see what might have gone wrong. Find out who the plaintiff really was. Check the paperwork to see if there were any affidavits presented to the court. If so check to see who notarized it and what state the notary was from. If the notary was from Georgia then you know there is a pack of rats feeding on the deal right from the start. One or more of those rats could be doing a bit of extra dipping into Cap1's till. Nothing unusual about that.

Another clue is how is it being reported on your credit reports if it still is. If Cap1 reports a zero balance and some other rat shows up trying to collect the debt then you have a start on the paper trail. Getting to the bottom of the mess and going after the culprit isn't easy but it can be done. Several of my wins in federal courts have been the direct result of TSYS and others filing false and fraudulent affidavits in various local courts. If they present a funny affidavit then that is providing false and misleading information to a consumer and actionable under FDCPA. TSYS is the easiest to catch at their dirty tricks but others can take some real investigative work.

Meanwhile, back at the county clerk's office ask to see the garnishment records and the payment records of the court on that garnishment. Tell the clerk you already paid that garnishment through the Title company and who the title company was. Tell the clerk that you are getting garnished all over again and you want to know who the garnisher is and where the money is going. If they try to tell you they can't give you that information take it to your state AG and file a complaint against the clerk of the court. All the information the county clerks have is public information and cannot be denied to the public. Find out if there was a satisfaction of judgment filed when the title company paid the judgment off.

Before you start digging go to Wal-Mart and get yourself an Olympus WS-311-M digital voice recorder and use it. Take a friend or adult family member with you as a witness. Keep a careful written record of everything that happens every step of the way. Keep those audio recordings too. When you get to the bottom of it all then start looking for your 3rd party debt collectors and learning how to make them pay you for their skulldoggery and dirty tricks.

 

There are two points that it seems you may be missing. The first is that it seems to me you may not have grasped the point when I said Cap One probably didn't sue you in the first place. Most credit card banks don't normally sue debtors and haven't for many years. Most of them sell their charge offs to debt buyers who file suit using the name of the credit card company or bank. Cap One (for instance) charges off the debt as being noncollectable and sells the debt to a broker who buys the debt in large bundles ostensibly worth many millions of dollars. The broker breaks the bundles down and sells them to debt collectors in smaller bundles. The debt collector attempts to collect and when they get nowhere they either sell the debt again or send it to an attorney near the debtor who then files a suit against the debtor naming the credit card bank or company as the plaintiff even though the orginal creditor bank has no knowledge or financial interest that a lawsuit has been filed and will receive no money from the outcome of the lawsuit since they have already been paid by the broker they sold the debt to.
Cap One is one of the exceptions to all of the above. They don't sell their charge offs. They hire debt collectors who attempt to collect for them and those debt collectors hire attorneys who sue in the name of Cap One but the proceeds of the lawsuit go to the lawyer first then to the debt collector who hired the lawyer then to Cap One, each taking a cut along the way. The court also takes out handling charges each time it gets money from the debtor or debtor's bank or employer. That is basically the way the system works as it applies to Cap One and some other credit card banks. Citibank and others actually own the debt collection company as a subsidiary corporation. These differences may seem unimportant to the average consumer but in reality it can make a huge difference under FDCPA.

It sounds to me like there may be another side issue that you may not have thought of and that is the fact that each state has a separate statute of limitations dealing with judgments just as they do for almost all other things. Since I don't know what state you are from I'll use Oklahoma law as my illustration. Under Oklahoma law a creditor has 5 years within which they must bring action against the debtor or the debtor no longer legally owes the debt and can present a statute of limitations defense and win the case. Once the judgment is finalized a new statute of limitations starts and the judgment creditor must make some meaningful and demonstrable effort to collect on the judgment within 5 years or the judgment is no longer enforceable. It can however be renewed for another 5 years so long as the application for renewal is done within that first 5 year period.

So is your current problem now outside the statute of limitations for judgments in your state? To find that out you must check your state statutes and the quick and easy way to do that is to go to lawdog.com, click on the tab that says state laws, state by state. Then go to your state and click on it's link then click on the tab that says courts and judgments then look in the upper right hand corner that shows the graphic depicting a small dog Just left of that graphic will be a link that says judgments and scroll down to the bottom and you will find all there is to know about judgments in your state.

Others may tell you to go to their favorite web site or message board where you supposedly can get the same information much more easily but I've never found any other web site that is nearly as accurate and is kept up to date as state laws change from time to time as they sometimes do.

So if that judgment they now want is out of stat then you have the perfect defense even if you never paid a dime to anybody.

If it is out of stat then all you have to do is prepare a motion to dismiss based on SOL and tell them to go take a hike. Preparing a motion to dismiss and enforcing it is easy to do and you don't need to hire a lawyer to do it. All you have to do is prepare your motion, a notice of hearing on your motion and a certificate of mailing, file your motion with the clerk of the court then go to the judge's chambers and present your motion. Ask the judge's secretary to set a hearing date then go file the signed notice of hearing with the clerk of the court. Once that is done send a copy of all your documents to the plaintiff's attorney certified mail return receipt requested.

Preparing your motion isn't all that hard to do. Most of it is being careful of what you say in your motion. Don't use a lot of fancy wording. It isn't necessary. You can go to a great many forums where they will tell you that you need to put a copyright sign after you name, spell it in all caps, tell the court that you are acting Pro Per, Sui Juris, by special appearance, and all manner of other nonsensical stuff. Don't fall for any of that. Don't fail to tell the court that you motion or move the court to grant you the relief you seek. Courts are courts of law and not churches so you don't pray that the court do something either. You move the court by filing motions and petitions and other documents, not with prayers. This stuff isn't rocket science. You don't need a degree in law to act on your own behalf. About all you need to know is the parts of a legal document and how to prepare them, how to do your own research and the rules of civil procedure and you can get along just fine all by yourself so long as you keep away from all the nonsense found on most message forums.

I frequently visit an e-group that preaches stuff about your strawman and your tin man, notary presentment, filing 1099-OID forms with the IRS, acceptance for value (A4V), and how you can beat up on debt collectors by taking their letters, turning them over an endorsing the back side and sending them to the U.S. Treasury who will pay the debt for you. The U.S. Treasury must honor your money order because when you were born they created an account for you using your social security number as your account number. As you pay your taxes you create a credit account you can use to pay your debts. (LOL) Some of the things they try to teach really do have a basis in ancient law from back in the days of King Looie and all his hooey but not in modern law. What they teach might be funny if it weren't for the fact that so many people actually believe that crap because it all sounds so good. As usual, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

 

The Ohio Department you referenced produced some real results for me in many different instances. Generally, I don't recommend governmental complaints insofar as they tend to say everything is a private legal matter but, the aforesaid agency really goes after corps in Ohio.

 

That question is one that can be answered but in most instances only after spending a considerable amount of time and money to get to the bottom of it. It usually requires the tenacity of the proverbial bulldog as well. Your local court system does have most of the information you need. Forcing them to give you the information may turn out to be a daunting task in itself.

The first thing people don't stop to think about is that all courts are also corporations. They have to be corporations because they have employees and those employees must be paid, their benefits have to be paid and their witholdings have to be paid to IRS and SS the same as though they worked for a private corporation. They must have EIN numbers just like anybody else in order to file the employment taxes for their employees. Courts also must have a Dunns number and other credit information available as a matter of public record. Courts and most government agencies are no different than anybody else. They too must borrow money from time to time to keep operating just like most of us so they must have a good credit rating and they do. So they must keep accurate books and records of all transactions including money collected from fines and garnishments. Their books and records must be open to public inspection as a matter of law and citizens have the right to that information by law. The courts usually don't want to dig up that information and provide it for many reasons, but in such cases as yours it can cost them a great deal of employee time and money to provide you with the information you need so they often try to deny you the information you need.

I've tried to obtain such public records several times over the years for various political projects I've worked on so I know how difficult getting the needed information can be. Public officials and their employees can be exasperating to work with if they want to be but those records are public information and they must give them up if it is demanded.

Trying to fight these lawsuits in local courts can be impossible or nearly so. I checked my public record again yesterday evening and there was the lawsuit I have been expecting for several weeks now. They filed it as a small claims case yesterday afternoon so I haven't been served yet and no telling when the sheriff will come calling with the summons. They filed it in small claims so I can't use discovery. It was about 5:30 when I found the case and by 6:30 I had eaten my supper and prepared my response and certificate of mailing. I'll go to the post office this morning (Sat.) and mail those two documents off to the plaintiff's attorney then go down Monday and file my response with the court then sit back and wait to see what happens from there.

I hope they get stupid and send me their discovery demands. I've seen this law firm do that many times in small claims cases. If they do I'll just ignore them and hope they also get stupid enough to file motion to deem admitted although it is unlikely that they will get that stupid. I was thinking about filing a suit against them in district court because if I did I could remand the small claims case up to district so I could use discovery but I decided against that because in reality it would get me nowhere. They would still win in either case and get a judgment plus it would alert them to what is going to come after them later down the road. I'll just take their judgment and let them try to come after me.

I got a pretty good judge. I know him well and I know that he tries to bend over backwards to help Pro Se litigants but I'm also certain that no matter what I do he will have to grant them their judgment. If they had assigned some other judge I would most likely have been forced to file a new case in district to get out from under a bad judge but this one is about as good as they come.

Lots of fun is going to be had before this one is over and done with.

 

All that investigation may have produced nothing of any useable value to you whatever if you are in foreclosure since the only question before the court will be whether you have defaulted on your payments or not. Their fraudulent acts will not be the question before the court unless you put it there and can prove beyond any shadow of a doubt (almost ) that you were also defrauded by those same people. But even if you can do that it still will not resolve the issue of whether or not you defaulted on your loan.

In order to use the information you have it will probably be necessary to file a federal case and in order to get that done successfully you most likely will have to get a mortgage fraud audit. Doing so can also be frustrating for the simple reason that there are so many scam artists out there who have absolutely no idea about how to conduct a fraud audit or what to make of it after they do yet charge very high prices for their garbage.

We have such a person here in town. I recently came up with a copy of a fraud audit that person did and have photographs of the first 15 pages of the resultant summary on my google docs pages. They are available for public viewing by clicking on my google docs signature line. The rest of the 147 pages consist of nothing but copies of all the payments the defendants made throughout the life of the loan and other personal documents which I cannot reveal in public for personal privacy reasons.

The final 2 pages are the revealing part. They are noting but claims of suspicious activity and suspected fraud by the auditor with no references as to any laws which might have been broken. The audit is essentially worthless for any and all practical purposes. Then the auditor privately suggested that the couple hire and attorney who is a close friend and business associate. They did that and the attorney wanted another $2500 to drive about 180 miles round trip to the courthouse and spend maybe half an hour trying to argue the case. They want the homeowner to start the case Pro Se and have the attorney put in his appearance at the last moment in order to surprise the plaintiff. History proves that said attorney may or may not actually show up. Needless to say the homeowner simply don't have the money to pay the additional $2500.

Another customer of this auditor has claimed that after months of delay no results have been obtained from the auditor. I am told by this other person that on several visits to the auditor's home the auditor drank at least 3 or 4 glasses of wine in the presence of the customer. I have been told that there are multiple attorneys who would like to be able to prove that this person is actually engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. I have no idea whether there is any truth to that claim or not but I do understand that where there is smoke there may actually be some fire as well. These kinds of supposed experts abound all over the net. I know of several web sites where mortgage fraud audits are being advertised. I have no idea whether or not any of them are actually qualified to do what they claim to be able to do or not and I'm not going to make any statements about any of them. I just know they exist. My point is that there are probably some scam artists out there and even though they make fancy statements about their qualifications they may or may not be qualified regardless of their claims.

All I can say is that long experience has taught me that the more they boast about their supposed qualifications the more likely it is that the claims are little more than smoke and mirrors.

 

The government agency should be able to find the bank accounts of the title company and find the check. It's then simply finding who cashed it and going from there.

If Apex thinks they do a good job, I think I'd give them some time to work on it. Just make sure you give them any information you come up with.