Good legal advice sites?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Disclaimer: If anyone wants to strut in with any holier-than-thou horseshit, mods are more than free to lock this topic the instant it happens. I'm posting a serious topic and would like some mature replies because I don't know the first thing about this shit.

Santa Claus came early this year. OK, it was the sheriff and she was there to drop off a Civil Summons. More or less I have some credit card debt (who doesn't really) and I guess the collection agency picks one of the small fries out of a hat to sue every month. And so it was me..

First off, its not my intention to deny the debt and if I can get the collection agency to play straight with me, I'd be willing to work with them and get this cleared in the long term. Fat chance, but I'd at least like to try. As I said, I'm a small fry when it comes to debt. this one is $1,000. If I had a job, hey, no problem to fix that, problem is I don't and this kinda aggravates the situation.

I looked into the agency history and its kinda shaky. Comes with the territory, I mean, you're running a business based on buying and collecting debt in a time where people can't find jobs, homes are being foreclosed and factories are being shut down. Its the Lord's work, to be sure.

They almost seem to have a case with me, and I won't even deny they debt, really.

But I'm fairly certain the statues of limitations on this are up. Very certain, actually, so I think they're just assuming I somehow don't know that and want to spook the money out of me. Its also a pretty ill-timed part of the year for them to be sticking this on me, too. Lots of state holidays, mailing delays and such.

Kinda smells like they're trying to get the default judgement on me. Considering I have this to face in the midst of already trying to find a job, and the processing of a reply to the plaintiff's lawyer can be delayed by holidays and such. I'd almost consider it griefing. How can they expect me to pay, really?

I have a hard time believing my debt is so profitable to them that they would actually send out their legal dogs to deal with me. Oh and they want me to pay their legal fees for this. That's rich.

But isn't a Civil Summons more like a pre-emptive threat of a lawsuit or something? I talked with my father about this and he thinks it could be just another one of the boogeyman acts a collections agency will pull on you.

All that aside, I think I need to hire this guy, he seems to do four cases for $30.

[Malacite]

Re: Good legal advice sites?

Lawyers.com? I see it advertised on CNN every so often.

And I think (don't quote me on this) that you're right in that the summons is for you to discuss the matter with them before they take it to court (out of court settlement etc)

[Feba]

Re: Good legal advice sites?

But I'm fairly certain the statues of limitations on this are up.

Aren't they generally longer for civil penalties than criminal ones, though?

[Kailea]

Re: Good legal advice sites?

Kind of assholeish that they did this to you in DEC -.- I don't know anything about law or the like, so I can't help, but good luck man.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Good legal advice sites?

Aren't they generally longer for civil penalties than criminal ones, though?

So far from what I've researched, there hasn't been any distinction made for NC, I'm going to call one of the local free legal aid numbers in about an hour for details. But the timeline seems to imply these guys know they've either run out of time or are about to be out of it.

Edit: Ran a search, it is three years. This is the third site I've come across that's said it.

http://www.justanswer.com/questions/...-summons-today

Its also my understanding that if I ask them to acquire a validation of this debt in writing from the company that originally held my account, that it will not only delay the process, but possibly spook these guys into thinking I might actually fight it. Which means they have to actually spend more than this potential suit would probably be worth with no guarantee that they'd ever see a return on it.

If I make an agreement to pay now, I reset the statute to zero. So I think I should probably request the validation, which would also be using the holiday delays to my advantage. I have thirty days to respond and by years end, they'd have less and less of a leg to stand on.

[Malacite]

Re: Good legal advice sites?

Not to nit pick but... don't you mean statute?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Good legal advice sites?

It was late when I did the first post, every subsequent spelling has been correct

[TheGrandMom]

Re: Good legal advice sites?

Well each state can be different but I know in mine that if you start making reasonable payments to them they have to accept them and can't sue you. My asinine daughter thought that means if you owe $2000 and the bill collectors come after you, then you can pay them $5.00 a month and they have to leave you alone. HAHAHAHA...idiot. Reasonable would probably be $20-25 a month on a $1000.

But absolutely delay it if you can, especially if you are looking for a job. Gives you a buffer that if you do have to start making payments in the end, at least you've had some extra time to find a job.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Good legal advice sites?

Well, mild update. looks like after the first extension to find more data, my first hunch was the best one - the statue of limitations has run out and we can file a move to dismiss because the summons was issued a month too late for the debt to be considered valid. Additionally, it seems the state has issued larger fines in penalty to these collection agencies if they prove to be false debt (meaning, past the statute of limitations or just plain not yours) NC would seek $4,000 in the defendant's favor if the collection agency were to persist in this action against me.

I see the merit of the idea, too. When you think about all the foreclosures and layoffs going around right now, these agencies are out to do little else but cause grief to people already in a bad way. The president of the collection agency seeking action against me bragged about what a great stock investment his company was in 2008 and 2009 and how many people on Wall Street should buy in. Man's doing the Lord's work, naturally.

So this penalty is NC's way of saying - "Keep your bullshit out of the courts, kthx."

They didn't even know the true status of the account they had bought from the original debt owner, I checked into this as well.

Moral of the story here is: Know your consumer rights in accordance with your state. Don't let these guys walk all over you when they don't legitimately own your debt and lack information regarding it. Sums and interest rates alone don't cut it as information, either.

Had this been the original debt owner and I was in a better position to deal with it, I would have. But since this isn't the debt owner and its hard to make ends meet right now - it was wiser not to deal with them.

[Mezlo]

Re: Good legal advice sites?

Nice!

I wonder how much adversely affects your credit score though. Having a company write off $1000 of bad debt against you.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Good legal advice sites?

It does and its already had its impact there, I can't say by how much, though. It was pulling up the credit report that actually brought the plaintiff's claims further into question, though.

See, they can lie and it still goes on your report. There were three different versions of the nature of that particular account told to the three different bureaus - these guys didn't even know the nature of the account they had bought, but the original debt owner knew exactly what the nature of the account was.

As for the credit score itself, its a big fuzzy number that varies depending upon where you get your credit report from. You'll get a ballpark estimate at best, I doubt this particular debt affected my score as much as one particularly larger one I had after college.