Hello: Today I received a Civil Court summons dated from December 17th. It has the wrong address (it was sent to an old address originally). The question is simple, I have actually forgotten about this debt since I moved a year ago, and I would like to simply negotiate and pay it off in a couple payments. However, am I past that stage? The summons says I have 30 days to appear else a judgment may be filled against me. However, I didn't receive it from neither the court nor the creditor until today. The state is New York. The debt was originally (as I recall) somewhere around 400 (which would have been max), and now they are claiming around 900, which seems excessive to me. Any help would be appreciated.
Don't know how this thread slipped by me. What's the court date? You said the summons was dated December 17th. Did they just now serve it to you at your new address, or was it forwarded through the mail? If it's a legitimate summons and you've been properly served and the court date hasn't passed yet, you MUST appear in court unless you receive a notice from the court stating that the suit has been withdrawn or dismissed. Even if you work something out with the debt collector, you need to respond to that summons and go to court. If they tell you that they'll "take care of it", don't assume that they actually will.
I work in an office with some attornies and I asked them what they thought. I ended up calling the debt collector and settling with them. Without investigating the relevent laws, I do believe they did "serve" me pursuant to the laws of New York state; however, I could have contested that. They had not sent in a judgment yet, and I'm not sure if there ever was a court date. I did ask for a stipulation to adjournment while we negotiate, and they agreed. However they agreement they sent me was no such thing. Once the debt is paid off they will send a stipulation of discontinuance to the court. I tried to have this "with prejudice" but they would not agree. I then asked to see a copy of this stipulation, and they wouldn't let me see that. I asked how they could make reference to a document in an agreement without my full knowledge of what I am signing? They advised I seek legal counsel and still declined to provide. As my lawyer friend said, their guns were loaded, and it was too late to act. These places are machines and they have people in court all the time. It's not like they need to "Send" an attorney to court. I am not sure if I played this situation right or not. I do feel this was usurious, as I only borrowed around $400.00 as I recall. The interest on a year is about 480 and that means the fines were over 400 not including the legal fees they extracted. I suppose i could have hired a lawyer to advocate my situation, but it would have cost me far more than I would have saved, which is what these firms are betting on. That is a shame. Anyway, Thank you for your feedback. I'll bump this thread in three months when I send the final payment and can finally see the stip of discontinuance.
If they want to file again after you pay they can and might these people are a bunch of goon's and thugs.So br prepared this time and delete all your old addresses from your credit reports.
There was no court date set. They didn't have to file for adjournment. That was just a ploy. You see, in NY courts they file the case but nothing happens until somebody files a request for an RJI which stands for Request for Judicial Intervention. The cost varies from county to county and even from court to court depending on the size of the county. Costs for that range from about $75 to as much as $150 or more. Needless to say, plaintiffs don't want to pay for that so they try to hoodwink defendants into paying that for them. But without that RJI being filed and paid for nothing is going to happen. Of course not. It was all a sham in the first place. One way to shut you up and get rid of you was as good as any other. (LOL) I'll bet they have some way of evading that too when the time comes and they got all the money they want from you. By the time they get that it will probably end up being much more than is now claimed. Come back in the 3 months and tell us how much more they are trying to milk you for.
