Hello Everyone, Let me start off by saying in advance that I appreciate any help that users here can offer by way of advice. Basically the short-version is that I have been fighting Palisades Collections in court for a truly INVALID debt that I supposedly owed to AT&T. I called AT&T myself and have spent hours on the phone with them. Apparently a lot of records were jumbled/lost after the merge with Cingulair (sp?). I never, EVER received any correspondence from Palisades about this supposed debt over the past five years. Their first communication was when I was served with the lawsuit. AT&T representatives and managers (several of them) have tried and failed to locate any information about my previous account activity with them. They do show that there is a balance of $2000 in collections (and I NEVER had a $2000 bill with them, and the bill was paid off when the account was closed). They refused to provide me with any paperwork affirming that they have no valid information regarding my account however. In court, it has been postponed several times and continued by Palisades. I have mentioned to the various judges several times that I have requested validation of the debt. Palisades has never provided validation. The secon-to-last time I was in I restated to the judge that I have been continually requesting and not receiving validation. He said we would set it for bench trial and if they can't provide some proof to me of the debt by 2 weeks before, then the case would be dismissed in my favor. Well, when I arrive in court today, right before I was called, the judge got in a yelling match with an unrelated attorney right before I was called. When I went up, I didn't even get a word in edgewise. Basically, the judge dismissed the case without prejudice. But that means that Palisades can just go and re-file a lawsuit, continuing to badger me until I settle, right? I never got to point out to the judge that they failed, still, to provide validation of this debt. Is there anything I can do? I can't even use this dismissal to have this removed from my credit, can I? Is there any way I can go in and ask that it be re-opened and dismissed with prejudice against Palisades? Thanks for your help, Tesseract
Fight fire with fire If it was dismissed without prejudice, then they can file another suit. Will they? Who knows. That would be betting on you not showing up so they could get a default judgement, so it's possible. RE: your credit report...Dispute the tradeline with the credit reporting agency as "not mine." (if you haven't already) If that comes back "validated." Then you can ask for how it was validated. Read up on the requirements of the FCRA before you do any of that so that you can: a) follow the proper steps in the proper order b) collect the necessary information for a lawsuit against the CRA and the CA. c) read up on the FDCPA to see if you might be able to sue the CA for their collection activities (I'm not sure you can or not from reading your post). Don't take it lying down!
