Hi everyone, I'm new here, so I hope this is the correct place to post this. I'm just wondering if anyone has ever had the pleasure (insert sarcasm here) of dealing with a collection agency by the name of Cavalry SPV I, LLC. From what I have researched, it appears that they are just another huge junk debt buyer with offices all over the country. Here's my situation. About 2 years ago, I had a credit card through HSBC. I had a pretty low credit limit on it, something like $300. Back then, I fell onto some tough financial times and had to stop making payments on this card since I had much more pressing bills that needed to be taken care of, such as my mortgage, car payment, utilities, etc. I figured I would just have to accept the negative mark on my credit report from this and move on. Last week, I received a letter in the mail from an attorney's office that is located in the same state as me. They claim to have been hired by a collection agency by the name of Cavalry SPV I, LLC, who is apparently trying to collect the debt from my old HSBC card from 2 years ago. They claim that I now owe $1095, which sounds absolutely bogus to me. They then said in the letter that if they don't hear back from me within the next 30 days, they can expect their client (Cavalry) to request them to file a lawsuit against me. They also said in this letter that they would like to work with me to set something up to prevent this from happening. Also included with this letter, they included a separate form that they wanted me to fill out. It asked for my full name, address, phone number SS #, my employer's name and address, how much my mortgage payment is, the exact balance of my mortgage, how much each one of my utility bills is per month, how much I spend on food, gas, heating oil, and they even wanted me to send them a copy of my most recent pay stub! They literally wanted to know EVERYTHING. Don't worry; I'm not stupid enough to voluntarily fill this out and just hand them all of my most personal info! I know that I am in no way obligated to. The next day after I received this letter, I got in touch with the attorney at my state's consumer credit protection division to ask for advice on how to handle this, and he was extremely helpful and very quick to respond. I even faxed him a copy of the letter and form they wanted me to fill out. He confirmed that I am in no way obligated to fill out that form. He said they are just basically fishing for information to make their jobs easier. He also told me that I don't even need to call this attorney's office at this point. He told me what I need to do is respond to this letter by sending this attorney's office a letter requesting that they verify/validate this debt and confirm that I am in fact obligated to pay this Cavalry collection agency a debt that I owe to HSBC from 2 years ago. He also told me to request that they explain to me exactly how they came up with the amount that they claim I currently owe ($1095). He told me that if they are unable to provide full verification/validation of this debt, then they are required by law to cease collection efforts and stop contacting me. He then said that if it turns out that they do produce acceptable debt verification and that I am obligated to pay this company, then he can help me negotiate a reasonable payment plan with them. I am just wondering if anyone else has been in a situation like this before and what generally happens after you send a debt validation/verification request letter to the attorney that a collection agency has hired. I have been doing a lot of research online and it seems that, for the most part, a lot of junk debt buyers (which Calvary appears to be) are unable to produce proper debt verification/validation. Is that generally the case? I have never ever been in a situation like this before, so I'm just kind of wondering what to expect! The fact that they sent me that form requesting all of my personal information gives me a HUGE hint that they don't have a lot of my info, which makes things look pretty good for me. The attorney at the state's consumer credit protection services who has been helping me seems pretty optimistic and told me that I would be fine and not to worry. He thinks there is a good chance that they might not even be able to produce the proper debt verification needed in order for them to continue to try to collect from me since most junk debt buyers only have limited information on the accounts that they buy from credit card companies.
You received pretty good advice. Take it, and then await a response from the CA to your DV letter. You might never get one.
That's definitely what I'm hoping! At first it made me nervous to see that this CA had hired an attorney right here in my own state (about an hour and a half away from where I live), but the attorney at the consumer credit protection division really put me at ease and said that this is a pretty common practice with a lot of collection agencies, especially ones that are junk debt buyers, which Cavalry definitely appears to be. I'm going to send them a DV request letter this week and wait and see what happens. What's kind of funny is that in the letter they sent me last week, they misspelled my first name. To me, that pretty much screams junk debt buyer who doesn't even have most of my information, so probably won't be able to validate this debt!
Do you actually own a house, or did the JDB just ask about your mortgage expenses in the hypothetical sense of trying to see if you have a mortgage, or if not, what you pay in rent? Unfortunately, if you do own a house, then unless it is severely "underwater", the likelihood of a lawsuit--even for a small amount such as this--is pretty high. After all, the cost to the JDB would be minimal, because other than filing fees and court costs, the attorney would work on contingency, and the cost of their fees would be added to whatever judgement is awarded against you. If you own a house, then the lawyer knows that he will (eventually) get paid, because he can then place a lien against your house, which will accrue interest over time. Now if you don't own any real estate, then the letter you got from the law firm probably has no teeth. In other words, they are not likely to sue if they know that you have no assets which they can seize, attach, or place liens on. For example, back in 2009 when I lost my job, I was forced to quit paying on all my credit cards, which included a Discover account of about $4000 (which has since ballooned to around $7000) and a Citibank Visa with a balance of about $12000 (which has since doubled to $23000). Both of the creditors sent letters saying that "legal action" would occur, and both hired more than one law firm to send collection letters, including firms with local offices near me, but no lawsuit has ever been filed. One of the law firms, which is less than a mile away probably realized that since I live in a ghetto apartment complex, I am probably too poor to pay anything, so they offered to settle for 25%, just on the off chance that I could pay. (In fact I couldn't afford to). They sent another letter threatening "further collection activity" but that was more than a year ago, and I never heard from them again. The account was referred to a different law firm back in December of 2010, but again no lawsuit has been filed, or even threatened by that firm.
I do own a house, but that form that they sent seemed pretty generic and it asked how much my mortgage OR rent was per month and, if I do have a mortgage, what the balance currently is on it. It also asked if I pay a landlord rent. I don't. I do my own a house and my mortgage payments are current and always have been, but they don't know that. I really am not all that worried after speaking with the attorney for the consumer credit protection bureau for my state. He told me that this basically just has to run its course and I would be fine. He just told me to send them that letter asking for a debt validation. He basically told me that the worst that can happen after I send this letter is that they turn around and send me a valid DV and I do have to negotiate a payment arrangement if they are able to provide adequate DV, which this state attorney told me they could help me negotiate to make sure they don't try to totally screw me over in payments. He said that we can probably even settle for a lesser amount than the $1095 if it comes to that. However, this attorney that I am working with seemed pretty confident that they won't be able to provide an adequate DV since they are a junk debt buyer and he said that he has seen this a lot of times, where it is a junk debt buyer who hires an attorney, but when asked to validate they debt, they usually are unable to since they have limited info and they are never heard from again.
Be very careful when owning any assets such as a home. They can put a lien as mention before. Best bet is to set up a living trust and include your home as asset to your trust. I hate to see all your hard work with a lien attached. GOOD LUCK
