I am wondering how First Select works. Do they purchase debt from Discover, or does Discover just turn their collections over to First Select, and then Discover gets the money, less a commission to First Select? From what I know, most collection agencies just work on a percentage, like 10 to 25% of whatever is recovered. How can one find this out? If First Select does purchase chargeoffed accounts, it seems to me that if they tried to sue the debtor, the suit would have to be dismissed, since there is no valid contract between the debtor and First Select. Is my reasoning correct?? Nanook
If the debt is more than 6 months old it hass been purchased. Most collection agencies do both. They certainly can purchase the debt and then sue you, if you don't know what to do, LOL. It isn't illegal. Matter of fact, if you move to a state where a license isn't required, you can purchase them yourself and try to collect them for a profit. Virginia does not require a license, and there are ads all the time in the insurance industry mags trying to sell debts to agents. Go figure - I guess they figure we are entrepeneurs.
Even if they purchase the debt, I don't think they can sue me to collect it. Yes, if they purchase a judgement (a proper, legal judgement), they can try to collect. BUT, we are talking about an unsecured debt. The company that purchases that debt has no legal claim to it, since I did not enter into a contract with them. Granted, if the original debtor decided to sue me, and they won a judgement, they could sell that judgement, and a collection agency could try to collect on it, I've seen the booklets, "business opportunities", etc. But here, we are dealing with contract law. I am not a lawyer, but I don't see how anyone can purchase something that someone says you "owe" and then sue you in court to get a judgement. I am obviously missing something. Again, I don't debate the fact that the original creditor, with whom you had a valid contract, could sue you, and if they won, they could sell that judgement to someone else to collect on, but I don't see how that can be done in this case, especially with an unsecured debt. Nanook
First Select apparently is also purchasing old MBNA accounts. My 9 year old closed credit card debt was purchased by FS on 10/2001. Funny thing -they sent a request for payment about a week before the notice was received.
That seems really dumb, on their part. I don't know what state you live in, but I suspect that wherever you are, the statute of limitations has long since run out, so they are SOL (not statute of limitations). Maybe they are SOLBU (Statute of limitations be up) Nanook
If the collector does not purchase the debt then no contract exists between collector and debtor. Supposedly if the collector purchases the debt from the collector then a contract does exist. Personally, I think it highly tenous if any contract between debtor and collector exists in either case. Just my personal opinion.
Yeah, the SOL is up. So far, they aren't reporting on CRA's. Maybe they thought they would get lucky and I would pay them???
Well, y'all can theorize all day long, but plenty of people have been sued by CA's that bought old charged off and sometimes stale debts, and they have had to pay them. There are plenty of lawyers on this board, post the question to them and see what they say. As far as stale debts go, most consumers do not know the law, they get a summons, don't show up in court, and wham bam, they have a judgment against them, their pay is being garnished, etc.
Granted. If you don't know the law, you will die by it. But, it seems to me that they have no legal, contractual basis to get an enforceable judgement!! I guess it is, really, a question for the lawyers. After all, legal theory is fine, but it is only the real truth, and the real world that counts! I have dozens of judgements against companies, but those judgements, plus 50 cents, will not get you a cup of coffee at McDonalds. What I want to know is how legal, or enforceable, is a lawsuit brought by a company that purchases an unsecured debt from a credit card company. BTW, my lawsuits, and judgements, have nothing to do with credit. I have sued dozens of companies that have broken various laws, with impunity, and, in almost all cases cases, with total knowledge and forethought that they were breaking various laws (and thus they have no assets to collect on). I am not a lawyer, but I will fight for all of my rights, especially since the credit card companies, in my case, have reaped annual returns of over 30%, even if I don't pay them another dime. In fact, even this, I think, should be taken into consideration. I have one account, which was closed 4 years ago, with a balance of 10K. I have paid over 12k during the last 4 years. Guess what, the balance is still 10k. If I can get out of this debt, I will. They have been paid very well. In fact, since I have had this account for almost 20 years, you could say that they have been paid VERY WELL INDEED. My goal, now, is to get these problems behind me and to move on. If I have to file some suits, so be it. If a company lent me money before my financial situation went south, in a major way, and they lost money, that would be one thing. But, all of my creditors have been paid 2 or three times what my credit line was, over the last few years!!! I am just looking for a reasonable, realistic way out of my situation. Nanook
Nanook, I wish you luck, but you need another line of defense. Your cc account is the property of that company and they do with it what they will. Heck, for all you know it was probaby part of an ABS {Asset Backed Security} for years until you defaulted. They can sell the account to anyone and assign all of their rights to the transaction. Heck, I've got 2 MBNA cards and 3 FirstUSA cards and I never applied for a single one. The small regional banks I opened the accounts with, one by one sold their credit card portfoilios and never asked my permission. I just got a welcome aboard letter and then starting sending payments to a new address.
