Back from court :)))))

Boy oh boy did hubby surprise me, I surprised me too. Bare with me, we were only allowed 15 each to speak, the defendents took 50 minutes, and most of it was errrs and ahhhh wells....

So we get there about 12;30 (I was SOOOO nervous)

Everyone (about 10 cases total) gets called in about 130ish. 6 out of the 10 cases one party doesn't show up...fast forward...

We get called up about 2pm. Hubby states his side of the case (I made him a nice little timeline) BTW Female Attorney was playing judge. Takes him about 2 mins. to state entire timeline Judge asks maybe 2 questions hubby answers fine

DEFENDENTS (OMG) they rambled for what seemed like an eternity at one point the defendent (who is the CA owner and an attorney) got up and went TOWARDS hubby, baliff jumped in and told him to only speak to the judge an not hubby.

So DEFENDENTS bring 28 PIECES OF EVIDENCE (or as they called them EXIBITS)
Basically all the exhibits were what they were SUPPOSED TO HAVE MAILED TO US. The best part???

The debt in reference was occured 12/7/00 one of their "you have 30 days to dispute letters" was dated 2/6/1999.

The judge asked them to stop yelling NUMEROUS times. The DEFENDENTS kept saying "we've been in business since 1927 and we have NEVER been sued" I replied with "your honor most of the population isn't aware we have rights regarding this"

I pointed out the dated discrepency and the judge started asking them how they could bill for something BEFORE the bill was incurred, they err well ahhhh "your honor they were willing to settle for deletion which we can't do"

She asked how we came up with $5K and when I went to answer the DEFENDENTS jumped in with "well she's under the impression it's $1 per violation" the judge told him it wasn't his turn. I said "well your honor there are 7 violations and SC court only allows $5K, but there are also punitive damages, hubby's been denied credit, we were denied an apartment, I was forced to put my name on a loan which now makes it look like *I* have this huge debt load that my income can't handle". She said "very well, there are punitive damages"

Summary:
WE ROCKED!!! The defendents kept calling it the FDCA, when they thought they were doing great we would just bring up the dated discrepency and how they must have predicted the future. They kept saying it was 4 postdated checks when it was only 3. They even had the reminder notice for the one that DIDN"T need a reminder. Their OWN paperwork nailed them.

We will find out in 3-6 weeks the results. It was great experience. If we lose we will appeal, their paperwork alone should make it an open and shut case.

OHHHHH the last thing I said was "your honor they are claiming it was pure error, the only reason why we brought them to court was because they did the exact same thing 2 years ago regarding another account with hubby."

Any questions

 

Hey I just wanted to add-
They looked like the typical collector sleazebag (at least the one's *I* pictured). They were talking about their Mercedes before we walked in.

Picture this:
2 overweight (beer gut thing) 60 year old men with TANS they didn't deserve and saggy necks Picture that when you deal with these AHoles

What I learned:
NEVER EVER EVER Tell the enemy EXACTLY what their violations are before court. On the court paper, just write "numerous FDCPA violations" Not the exact section.