First of all Hello to Everyone. Iâ??ve been reading through the material and the boards for some time and need help with a situation that occurred with a co-worker today. A girl that works in my office was served with a summons by a local attorneyâ??s agency for $250.00 The background: In April, 2003 she took her daughter to the emergency room. They had insurance with a deductible. In most cases you are billed by the hospital for your deductible if it is not paid at the time of service which was the case for her. Fast forward to today. She was served with a summons for the deductible by a local attorney. She had NEVER previously received a bill from the collection agency that sent the info to the attorney requesting suit, no communication from the attorney and no bill from the hospital. The summons came with a printout they received from the collection agency, a detailed list of services from the hospital and what appears to be a letter the attorney supposedly sent to the home. She is 100% sure she never received any communications from anyone regarding this bill or she would have paid it as itâ??s only $250. She was living in an apartment until August of 2003 and then moved into a house and has been at that address ever since. She never put a change of address in with the post office when she moved; HOWEVER, the insurance company always had the proper address. Additionally, the information the collection agency appears to have sent to the attorney shows her current address and contact numbers. So what I can gather from all the documents is that they had proper contact information to send her a bill but never did and now want to sue her for it. Sheâ??s pulling her reports right now to see if they are reporting on any of her reports and if they had done any pulls to verify her address. They obviously had to at some point to have the current address unless they had gotten in from the insurance agency. Obviously she needs to file an answer to the summons but should she send a validation letter to the collection agency? Is there even really a point to that? Sending one to the attorney wouldnâ??t really do any good Iâ??m guessing because theyâ??ve sent all the proper â??evidenceâ? with the summons. Iâ??m not sure where to direct her on this one. Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. Thank you!
