Quick summary: JDB atty filed suit and claimed to have served me personally at a friend of mines address I never lived at but was a temporary mailling address over 3 yrs ago. I timely answered the suit luckily because I had found out thru the court it had been filed. My answer included my new last name, updated address & phone # and affirmative defenses. I then received a pre-trial date from the court. For some reason, the JDB atty mailed a letter to my friends address,dated 7 days after I filed my answer, stating that they had filed suit and to call their office to arrange payment. Today, my friend recieves another letter from the attorney stating that the deny my affirmative defenses and include a certificate proof of mailing form. What the heck is this? Why would they keep sending stuff to the wrong address? Is is normal for them to send a "reply" to my answer? Do I just continue to wait for my pre trial date? Is there anything they can do in the interim?
"JDB atty filed suit and claimed to have served me personally at a friend of mines address I never lived at but was a temporary mailling address over 3 yrs ago." Check with the court. See what's been filed and if the court demands *personal* service of a summons or if it can just be mailed. If the JDB atty [or their agent] swore that you were *personally* served and you weren't - that's perjury and fraud on the court. "Why would they keep sending stuff to the wrong address?" Incompetence?
I filed my answer anyway so that a default judgment would not be issued. How would I pursue that? Also, why would they keep sending stuff there even after receiving my answer and updated info? How could that benefit them? I called the court and nothing has been done since the pre-trial was set.
"I filed my answer anyway so that a default judgment would not be issued." Very smart move. "How would I pursue that?" Easy answer would be to ask the Court Clerk. Ask about the service of summons and if the court demands that it be *personally* served. Some courts allow it to be done by mail, some by private personal service and others have the sheriff do it. They should be able to provide you with any file with the Summons details regarding actual service of the summons. If the court demands that you be personally served, that someone has to physically hand you the Summons, and that never happened it's quite serious to make a claim that it did. It's called "sewer service" and to swear that they did something they did not is perjury. Judges take a very dim of perjury and fraud in their court. Go to "Example of 'sewer service'" posted 04/22/06 here.
He may be incompetent, or he may be looking for a default judgement, one way or another. He might have sent the original summons to some address that appeared on your credit reports, expecting it to be old and hoping you never got it in time. Now, even though you have informed him what address he should contact you at, he is continuing to use that address. He is also disclosing your debt to a third party, contrary to FDCPA. As a result, you will have less time to respond to everything he sends there, and possibly miss some deadline to his advantage, while he will probably claim you never notified him of your current address and since you did respond to mail at that address, he had every right to assume it was your legal address, or the address of your "agent", and that any errors that result are your own fault. How much is at stake, how old is the debt, is it past SOL, and is there any reason he would prefer to win by default instead of on the merits of his case?
The debt has to be over or close to 6 years. It is over $6000. The attorney provided no proof of the debt with the summons/complaint other than some computer print out that only they could possibly decipher. It is possible, I suppose, that they just dont have much in the way of proof.
