I had a credit card with AT&T, which was charged off in 2/99. (According to my credit reports) Now a CA is telling me that account is owned by Citibank and they are sueing me for the balance when AT&T had it. No place on my credit reports is Citibank listed... on that account or on it's own TL. What I don't get is how someone else besides a CA would get a charged off account. Now, my first thought was that all the AT&T accounts were sold/transfered to Citibank. Fine.. but then why would the AT&T account have been charged off?? Doesn't make any sense. Still waiting to get a reply to my interrogatories I sent them, but I wanted to see if anyone had any thoughts on this since it doesn't seem to add up in my book. Thanks!!
Opps.. Sorry.. What I ment is if the account was just plainly sold to another company, there would be no reason to have the account charged-off. Just because it's transfered or sold doesn't mean that you close the account and label it charged-off. What I mean is if the account was charged off, why would another credit card company take over the account as if it was still open?
AT&T may have closed the account and charged it off, but retained it in their portfolio as a charged-off account rather than selling it to Sherman or RMA, or Asset or someone like that. Now when AT&T sells its portfolio of CC accounts to Citi, the ones in the "nonperforming" category go too (not that Citi pays much for them ... they probably get evaluated at something like 2% of face value). So Citi owns the account. They can sell it, sit on it, or sue on it. Looks like they sued in your case.
Ok, so lets assume they did that. The next question - last payment was made feb 1999. It is now 2004. The SOL for NJ is three years. The 2/99 payment date... err, date of charge off rather (I believe its the charge off date) mean it is out of SOL?? Thanks!!!
Recently , Citibank has been purchasing debt portfolios, and reporting them under the "citibank" name. They have a different name for this division, which escapes me at the moment- but they are a subsidiary of Citibank.
Re: Re: CC company bought charged off acct? At first blush, the answer would seem to be yes ... but there are a few things that can affect that, and you would need to look at the statutes and case law in New Jersey in order to render your SOL defense bulletproof (or find out that it's fatally flawed before being told so by a court). You need to gain a basic understanding of what (if anything) can restart the statute of limitations, and make sure none of those events happened with respect to this particular matter. You need to understand tolling, if there is tolling in New Jersey, and whether it applies in this case and for what periods of time, if any. Then you need to answer the complaint, with a properly-pleaded affirmative defense of the Statute of Limitations having run (use it or lose it!). And if the Plaintiff doesn't accept it, voluntarily dismiss the case with prejudice and go away forever, you're going to need to conduct discovery on the defendant to obtain the records you'll need in order to prove up your Statute of Limitations defense. Whew. That may be daunting. There are naca.net attorneys who may be able to help.
