Hi all! I'm a 25 year old student whom is attempting to rebuild my damaged credit. I just paid off a $7,000 car loan without missing a single payment [Yay, me.] and that improved my credit score from the low 400s to the mid-high 500s. Teetering now on the edge of 600. I just got approved for a Cap1 Secured card with the $49 deposit. Going to keep the $200 limit it comes with and buy a tank of gas every month and pay it off in full to help improve my credit. [Don't need anything crazy, just using it to boost my score.] Anyway...My question is, when I was young[er?] and stupid, I racked up a good 3-4k in CC debt with WAMU and Chase and a few store cards. None of these have been paid since, IDEK...2005? It's now 2011 and that debt is now in the 12K range due to late fees, charge offs, etc. I got a letter from an 'attorney' claiming to represent the Chase card [which is now $2,800 instead of the original 1k, obviously.] and telling me they are going to sue me, expect a summons in the mail. I've gotten no summons [yet]...I make minimum wage [$7.40]. This debt is about 6 months shy of having the SOL kick in, as are most of them. [[I think. Debt was opened in Cali and MA, I now live in MI]] I know they probably want to sue before that hits. What is my best method of attack here? I don't make enough to pay them off at this point, I suppose I could continue improving my credit with my secured card and pray I don't get sued...I can't file bankruptcy or rather, don't really want to because I just paid off the car and I'm trying to rebuild my credit with more positive stuff... Also: The Chase card appears on my CR *four times* and I don't even know why. Is it for how many times they've sold it to someone else or just how old the debt is? Confused and now have a migraine. Any advice is appreciated!
Moving out of state can tinker with the SOL in interesting ways. It's been a long time since I've looked into this, but I seem to recall that if the SOL hasn't already expired, it gets tolled (paused) when you move out of state and resumes when you move back. I personally would double-check the SOL. For example, if you started the debt in California and your last payment was January 2005, and you moved out of CA in February 2009, you're outside the SOL. It's worth taking a few minutes just to double-check your math. Read the letter from the attorney carefully. Is he representing Chase directly, or is he representing a collection agency that represents Chase? If he's contacting you on behalf of a collection agency, then that's good news. Send a DV ASAP by certified mail with a return receipt. Keep it simple -- see the "Sample Letters" forum. More than two sentences is a waste of ink. Once they receive this letter, they are bound by federal law to halt all collection efforts -- including filing a lawsuit -- until they get in touch with the original creditor and get proof of the debt. Sometimes this takes a few weeks, other times it can take months. This process saved me once on an almost-expired SOL. I guess the lawyer took a long time to forward my request to the CA, who took a long time to forward my request to the OC, who took a long time to gather the documentation, then took a long time to send it back to the CA ... and by the time I got their response nine months later, the SOL had expired. If the lawyer is writing you on behalf of the original creditor, that's going to require a little more legwork.
Upon reviewing this monstrosity, it is indeed being sent to me by a collection agency. 'CACH, LLC purchased this account from Chase' I will send the DV letter at once. Although it has been more than 30 days, can I still do this? Should I still do this? Also--I moved out of CA a month later [meant to say debt originated in Oct 2004, I moved Nov. 2004], and the debt was paid on until Oct. 2005, meaning I had a year of good payments before everything went to sh*t.
Also, upon reviewing said report -- Both accounts opened in CA, the SOL is up as the last payment made on both accounts was in 2005. Per MA and MI state law, SOL is up in one more year if they wanted to go the 'state I currently live in' route.
Their so called 'statement' they 'supposedly' got from Chase says right on the bottom that "it is not a statement, it is a facsimile" [[Meaning it's fake, yes?]]...What shady tactics. Ugh. Will send DV letter tomorrow AM. Do I send it right to CACH, LLC to to this attorney's address on the front of the papers?
Yes - send the DV immediately via certified mail. Since you are so close to the 30-day mark, drop whatever you are doing and send it immediately. In order to be meaningful at all, it must be received by them within 30 days of their first contact with you. Courts are sometimes lenient on this, so you might be able to stretch one or two days and go by the postmark of your letter -- but no guarantees. The SOL in both MA and MI is 6 years, so your SOL defense can't be raised until November 2011. However, if you went delinquent in MA and then moved to MI (or vice-versa), then the SOL in the prior state is paused. If you ever move back to that state, the SOL will pick up right where it left off. As I understand it, the SOL in your new state is now running as if you lived there the entire time; you should only have approximately one year left (unless you move back). As for the facsimile, well ... it's not necessarily fake, but that doesn't mean it will necessarily hold up in court. However, you may expect to see that exact same thing again in response to your DV. What constitutes "validation" has always been vague at best, and for the purpose of satisfying a DV, means pretty much anything. But remember -- one step at a time. Send the DV ASAP, as in right this instant, and then wait for their response. Send it to the return address on the letter you got.
Good! That's a good first step, but don't rest just yet. Call your local courthouse and find out if a lawsuit has already been filed against you in either small claims or district court (your locality may have different names for these, but it will PROBABLY be in small claims). If so, ask when the court date is and ask if you need to file any paperwork stating your intent to appear and defend yourself (you WILL appear, regardless of anything else). Keep us posted.
