I have a delinquent credit card account with Chase, which has been written off. The account status on my experian credit report is â??transferred,closedâ?. Several different debt collection agencies have made attempts to collect this debt. The debt has been bought by asset acceptance and they have added a trade line to my credit report for this same debt. They have also filed a complaint in the local municipal court, which I assumed was an attempt to obtain a default judgment. I attempted to negotiate a settlement but was unsuccessful. They would not go any lower than 60% of the amount that they claim the debt to be (which is 70% of the amount that shows up on my credit report for the chase account). In order to avoid the default judgment, I filed a certificate of service, a response to the plaintiffâ??s complaint and a copy of the summons with the plaintiffâ??s complaint. I then attempted to negotiate with them again but they would not budge from their original offer and they claimed that they have the documentation from the original creditor necessary to win the case. I have been reading advice on several credit help web sites and have found several claims that junk debt buyers usually do not have adequate documentation from the original creditor to substantiate their court case. Is it likely that they are just bluffing in an attempt to get me to pay a larger settlement percentage? Or is it likely that they actually do have adequate documentation to win the case? Basically, I have the funds available to pay a lump sum settlement but I have other debts to tend to after this one. This is the current priority only because they have filed a case against me. I am anxious to get this resolved to eliminate the mental and emotional burden but I am willing to spend the additional time and effort if it will benefit me economically. Conversely, I donâ??t want to continue â??spinning my wheelsâ? if they are likely to have adequate evidence to win the case and get a judgment for the entire amount. I am considering the following options and I am asking for advice regarding which path to follow: 1) believe them and pay their settlement offer of 70% to avoid wasting more time/effort on this matter (if, in your opinion, I am not likely to reach a lower settlement agreement or defeat them in court); 2) get a lawyer to help me fight the case (if it is likely that an attorney could get a much better settlement agreement or even win the case because asset acceptance will not be able to present adequate documentation); 3) call their bluff and continue attempting to negotiate a settlement before the court date (I am willing and able to increase my lump sum payment offer but obviously do not want to pay a penny more than I have to in order to get this resolved); 4) wait for the court date, show up to court and attempt to negotiate a settlement with their lawyer.
You should always assume that they have adequate documentation to prove the case but it appears that you didn't use discovery to make them produce it. So why haven't you used discovery? You have several tools available in discovery to make them produce the documents they claim to have for your inspection. Use them all. Demand for admissions is one of the most important of all the discovery tools you have at your disposal. Here is another indispensable tool and you should never go to court without this one. I went to the court house yesterday afternoon to get me one of these tools and there were quite a few people in line before me so I started cracking jokes as I often do. Of course there were a couple of lawyers in the line so I asked them what do you have left if you beat the devil out of a lawyer. Of course they didn't know. The answer is "Two lips and a briefcase". That got a lot of laughter out of the line but I'm not too sure how well the lawyers liked it. (LOL) Anyway, I used all of my discovery tools starting with demand for admissions. I sent mine to the plaintiff's lawyer and they came back with a boatload of false and misleading information (as usual) so I filed motion to deem admitted and in the process stated that they had provided me and the court with false and misleading information. They came back with a motion to amend their responses and admitted that they had "made errors" in their responses. Now that is really convenient. So I filed a motion to have the court allow them to amend their responses. Their motion to amend provided me with lots more information than they had ever provided before but still no accounting of the alleged debt after I had made 3 demands that they do so. So now I also filed motion to show cause why they should not be sanctioned by the court for providing false and misleading information and deliberate interference with the discovery process. The hearing is set for this coming Thursday and I seriously doubt that the judge will actually sanction them "in an amount of money sufficient to amend their bad behavior." Of course, I don't really care one way or the other but it certainly ought to wake them up to the fact that they are headed for a nice lawsuit in federal court for providing false and misleading information to a consumer. How on earth are they going to fight that when it is a matter of court record that they did and they admitted to the violation? It just don't get any better than that.(LOL). But it really gets much, much worse than that. Almost countless other violations on top of that one. But will I win in local court? My guess is that I will not but one never knows. They might just decide that I am more trouble than it is worth to them and dismiss hoping that I won't take them to federal court. Then again they might just go for the judgment and a few more cases against them, one at a time. One can never predict what will happen unless one just lies down and takes his/her whipping which I'm not about to do. So what? Turn the tables on them and go to federal and see how well they like court action. (LOL) I had one of my students come over to my house last night and show me the check he got when he took a debt collector to federal court. A really nice settlement. Will it benefit you economically? How about this? More than 950 people took debt collectors and attorneys to federal court last month alone. The win rate was better than 99% and the average settlement is about $3800. So can it benefit you economically? You bet your boots it can. So what? Make them eat it. Pay them? Well, do that if you want to but I'm not going to pay them when I can make them pay me instead. After 173 straight wins in federal court with never a loss I'll let you be the judge of that Get a lawyer? I'd rather have a great white shark in my swimming pool than a lawyer in court. I'd stand a better chance of winning against the shark. (LOL).[/quote] because asset acceptance will not be able to present adequate documentation);[/quote]I wouldn't want to bet on that. Then you need to start learning how to fight now and hope it isn't too late. You would probably have a better chance of negotiating a settlement with the great white shark I spoke of later. (LOL)
You should always assume that they have adequate documentation to prove the case but it appears that you didn't use discovery to make them produce it. So why haven't you used discovery? You have several tools available in discovery to make them produce the documents they claim to have for your inspection. Use them all. Demand for admissions is one of the most important of all the discovery tools you have at your disposal. Here is another indispensable tool and you should never go to court without this one. I went to the court house yesterday afternoon to get me one of these tools and there were quite a few people in line before me so I started cracking jokes as I often do. Of course there were a couple of lawyers in the line so I asked them what do you have left if you beat the devil out of a lawyer. Of course they didn't know. The answer is "Two lips and a briefcase". That got a lot of laughter out of the line but I'm not too sure how well the lawyers liked it. (LOL) Anyway, I used all of my discovery tools starting with demand for admissions. I sent mine to the plaintiff's lawyer and they came back with a boatload of false and misleading information (as usual) so I filed motion to deem admitted and in the process stated that they had provided me and the court with false and misleading information. They came back with a motion to amend their responses and admitted that they had "made errors" in their responses. Now that is really convenient. So I filed a motion to have the court allow them to amend their responses. Their motion to amend provided me with lots more information than they had ever provided before but still no accounting of the alleged debt after I had made 3 demands that they do so. So now I also filed motion to show cause why they should not be sanctioned by the court for providing false and misleading information and deliberate interference with the discovery process. The hearing is set for this coming Thursday and I seriously doubt that the judge will actually sanction them "in an amount of money sufficient to amend their bad behavior." Of course, I don't really care one way or the other but it certainly ought to wake them up to the fact that they are headed for a nice lawsuit in federal court for providing false and misleading information to a consumer. How on earth are they going to fight that when it is a matter of court record that they did and they admitted to the violation? It just don't get any better than that.(LOL). But it really gets much, much worse than that. Almost countless other violations on top of that one. But will I win in local court? My guess is that I will not but one never knows. They might just decide that I am more trouble than it is worth to them and dismiss hoping that I won't take them to federal court. Then again they might just go for the judgment and a few more cases against them, one at a time. One can never predict what will happen unless one just lies down and takes his/her whipping which I'm not about to do. So what? Turn the tables on them and go to federal and see how well they like court action. (LOL) I had one of my students come over to my house last night and show me the check he got when he took a debt collector to federal court. A really nice settlement. Will it benefit you economically? How about this? More than 950 people took debt collectors and attorneys to federal court last month alone. The win rate was better than 99% and the average settlement is about $3800. So can it benefit you economically? You bet your boots it can. So what? Make them eat it. Pay them? Well, do that if you want to but I'm not going to pay them when I can make them pay me instead. After 173 straight wins in federal court with never a loss I'll let you be the judge of that Get a lawyer? I'd rather have a great white shark in my swimming pool than a lawyer in court. I'd stand a better chance of winning against the shark. (LOL).[/quote] because asset acceptance will not be able to present adequate documentation);[/quote]I wouldn't want to bet on that. Then you need to start learning how to fight now and hope it isn't too late. You would probably have a better chance of negotiating a settlement with the great white shark I spoke of earlier. (LOL)
