Broke-Ass Student Just Got a Whole Lot Broker
Jan 10th, 2007 by Jennifer Lynn
My broke-ass is being sued.
I apologize for being away from this blog the past week, but things have taken an unexpected turn. Last Wednesday, out of nowhere, I received a notice in the mail that Mr. Scumbag lawyer was authorized to commence a lawsuit against me on behalf of a federal bank for an alleged credit card debt of $5,000.
I immediately fired off a reply that I disputed this debt in its entirety and demanded a written itemized breakdown of any and all alleged purchases therein, along with all relevant dates. I sent the reply via certified mail and waited anxiously to hear a response. I have absolutely no clue what this debt is about or what it is for.
Well, three hours after sending my reply via certified mail, a female server appeared at my door and handed me a summons for the alleged amount of $5,000, plus over $500 for attorney fees for the plaintiff. (For those that don’t know, a summons is basically a piece of paper telling you; your ass is being sued.) My first step was to call my city court clerk to see if this summons was legit or not. It was.
I now have a few days to file an answer or these slimeballs win by default judgement. This is probably what they’re hoping for, and I’m sure as hell not allowing that to happen.
Once I officially file my answer with the court within a ten-day period as deemed by the summons, I’ll request a legal discovery in order to see exactly what these jokesters are claiming I owe. The ball is thus in their court to accurately validate this debt and let me know exactly what it is for, and to prove I actually owe them something.
But here is the baffling part.
I called the federal bank yesterday to obtain more information and to hopefully resolve the matter. The woman I talked with was unable to provide an itemized breakdown on this alleged debt. In fact, she was unable to locate any type of information pertaining to the account whatsoever. She tried for over ten minutes and seemed at a loss on what to do. When I asked her to please refer me to someone who could assist me further, she had no idea who I should speak with. She finally suggested I try calling a customer hotline, but was doubtful it would be helpful. And she had no number to provide me with.
Um, ok.
My next step, I called the scumbag “law” firm today and received some middle aged woman who also had no information on what the alleged debt was for, or any alleged purchases, or any dates of alleged purchases. Her excuse was that the debt was almost six years old and the information was therefore “unavailable”.
Excuse me? You’re suing me and you can’t tell me why and what for? Fucking brilliant. Were you expecting me to just bend over and take it? And if this alleged debt is supposedly almost six years old by now, why haven’t I heard from them earlier about it?
I smell something amiss.
I then did some research on the law firm suing me on behalf of the federal bank. Apparently, a statewide class action suit was filed against these guys in 2004 by residents of New York state, for rampant and abusive collection violations. This seems to be some high-volume collection agency with 100 or so staffers, with one or two attorneys. However, they claim to be a law firm and are some type of scam operation with a double layer of corporate-partnership veil. As one website stated, “not even Degerm, that nice blue liquid in airliner toilets, can mask the stench of these sewer pickles”.
Over and over, on repeated websites I read how this “law” firm is a bunch of scumbag glorified debt collectors who abide on the barely legal side of the law. They’re notorious for adding exorbitant and excessive fees. (The balance on their letter and on the summons are completely different, with over a 114% increase). They are also renowned for their sleazebag tactics to get default judgements on people without their knowledge, usually by purposely sending a summons to a wrong address, and then holding the unknowing victim’s bank accounts hostage by freezing the account.
It will be interesting to see what legal documents they can choke up for me. So far, I’m completely baffled by this.
I’ll be consulting a lawyer tomorrow to aid me in properly completing my answer form and filing it with the court.
Le sigh.
Not the best way to start the year. But it sure will be interesting to see the outcome. I’ve learned a lot through my research and will definitely share it with my readers after all is said and done.
By the way, if you haven’t checked your credit reports, do so immediately. Only one website is authorized to free annual credit reports you’re entitled to by law, and that is annualcreditreport.com. Beware of any other imposter sites. If you don’t know the importance of religiously checking your reports every year (which I’ve just learned the hard way), I’ll write an article explaining more later . But definitely do some research now.
I urge you all to do it as soon as possible, to protect yourself against any type of fraud on your credit history.
=^..^=
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DUDE! You’re kidding me. Jesus. What a &^$(! headache! Thanks for giving us a heads up. Is there anyway you can mention the name of the law firm?
You sometimes hear about these things and think that they couldnt possibly happen to you. Its out there and its real. I too checked my credit report with annualcreditreport.com and found plenty of discrepencies. Ripoffreport.com is a good site to research debt collection agencies.
OMG that is total BS. Some law firm is trying to collect money they can’t prove you owe??
Damn, what a bad turn of luck
Though I do wish you best of luck and if I could help I definately would!
Man, That’s awful
I hope they will back off when they realise you will fight back and are not an easy victim. Also, I came across this link the other day -http://redtape.msnbc.com/ You could check if they will do a story on this which might scare away the scammers. Good Luck.
That really sucks!!! I hope you’re able to clear this up. My fiance had her credit card number stolen a few weeks back; we’re still waiting to hear back from the bank but that’s nothing in comparison to this.
Good Luck!
I hope everything works out, Broke-Ass Student. Good luck!
This particular ‘law’ firm is listed on ripoff.com twice. Although I’ll hold off for now, I absolutely will reveal who they are.
Thank you, everyone, for continued support through this nightmare.
Thanks for sharing this with us! Hope everything works out and you should DEFINITELY consult a lawyer! Even if it costs. Sometimes they can write just one letter in the appropriate tone and you never hear of them scumbags again. Good luck!
This really sucks. Be sure to file your answer on time. When you go to to court, they have to prove you owe them money, so the ball is in their court. Make sure to ask for the documents in discorvery.
Also, I would file a complaint (right after you file an answer) to the NY State Bar against the firm.
I probably can’t help you in time to file an answer, but if you want to file a complaint against them, contact me and I’ll forward you the info for the NY Bar.
Just check my credit report and freaking Target shows up. I don’t have a card from them. I call them up and to my amaze, it wasn’t my name (one letter difference) but ssn and address all match. I think target is trying to f-me over….Oh yeah…Good luck with the case…I hope those people rot in hell for picking on ya like that.
Wow. That’s just awful. I hope that you manage to beat these guys! It sounds like you will, because I think what usually happens is that people DO just bend over and take it.
I have a friend who was recently contacted by a debt collection agency out of New York. They attempted severe scare tactics, telling him he was about to be arrested and sent to prison. Worse, they called and harassed his parents and got them scared too.
After a little sleuthing online I found that the company was much like the scumbags you’re dealing with. They have bad reputation for skirting (if not completely breaking) the law.
good luck with this, don’t let these scumbags win. I’ve tipped this to www.consumerist.com and hope that all this explodes in an internet hate-fest on these sleazy bastards.
Man, that sucks! Hopefully it’ll work out for you. Good luck
Hello Jennifer, I came across your site from I will teach you to be rich site and found you got an interesting site too. Well I am not going to say best of luck but I will prefer to say all the best. Cos you deserve it let that scammers know whom they messed up with.
You should definitely hook up with Consumerist.com over this! This is right in their sweet spot.
I’m really angry to read that you are the victim of some cruel and barely legal “law firm” that is trying to squeeze cash out of you. I’m glad to read that you are fighting this out and I hope that in your fight, you can actually get a couple of good punches in on those crooked “lawyers”. Kudos to you and stay positive.
just came across your site, cause i just signed up for igobanking.com and wanted a review of it. i have been using INGdirect for a while but their interest rate isn’t the highest anymore, so i figured i’d switch. but igobanking doesn’t look as easy to use as ingdirect. i’m still not convinced about going with INGdirect’s new checking account either. writing electronic checks? hmm. have any thoughts on that?
anyways, i’m sorry you’re going through this lawsuit bullshit. i hate lawyers. hope you get through this okay. stay positive!
What a bummer, I’ve had this kind of issues with my ISP that wouldn’t just give me my account details (for how long I’m contracted and such..) because THEY have registered me under a WRONG ID number. But it’s nothing comparing to your case i guess.
But if there is so much evidence on this company being a total scam you have good chances to win the case, no? maybe you should even counter them after you get the first case settled?
Allen.H
What is the statute of limitations on debts in your state? I know here it’s five years and then you cannot be sued.
I’d counter sue in small claims court. If they don’t show, you’ll win.
The scumbags are mass mailing small claims court lawsuits in anticipation that a certain percentage of people will not show. Notice that $5000 is the limit for small claims in New York.
Don’t forget to include all the court costs added when you counter sue.
If your campus does not have a law school, check to see other local campuses which have a law school. Normally, they’ll, all them wantabee prospective lawyers, provide free look over of a small claim’s court claim.
DO
NOT
TALK
TO
CREDITORS
ON
THE
PHONE!!
If you do nothing else, if you don’t go over to DebtorBoards.com and educate yourself, if you don’t take advantage of ANYTHING ELSE in the FDCPA, PLEASE, start insisting on written communication!
Their statement that they can’t find anything over the phone is almost useless. A written acknowledgment that they have nothing would. If they wrote back to a request for validation saying they had nothing and then sent you another demand for payment dated one day further out - that’s continued collection activity after failure to validate, effectively a $100 check.
THE PHONE IS YOUR ENEMY.
Centurion Bank attempted to sue me for a credit card debt they bought from another 3rd party collection firm. My lawyer sent a response to their complaint, which was filed in my local district court. I denied all clauses in their complaint, which my lawyer was instructed to indicate in the response. This put the ball in their court. Centurion would have to validate the debt since I denied all clauses in their complaint. The original creditor couldn’t validate the debt, which was sent certified mail. Centurion dismissed the case without prejudice.
Credit is not money! Congress defines money as a medium of exchange. Federal Reserve policy states that credit is the postponement of the payment of money. If you do the homework, you’ll find out that numerous court cases have repeatedly said that banks cannot loan its credit and that all loans of credit are ‘ultra vires’ (unlawful).
Why do you think a bank cannot validate a debt? Because the one who funds the so-called loan is the only one can validate the debt. You, the borrower, provide the asset for the credit card or bank loan. The credit card company is perpetrating fraud with the help of the “bought-out” congress. When a bank advertises it loans money, it is practicing false advertisement.
Stank firm people. Everyone should wear a shirt that says “Who funds the bank loan?” This would really shake up banks.
So, who was the “law firm” who filed this? Is the lawsuit over, so you can talk about it yet?
Though, I suspect I know who it is…
I believe I know the law firm. Either that, or one just like it with a NJ /NY address, has tried to contact me too to attempt to collect a debt I don’t owe, on an account I don’t have.
Hang in there.
There should be an automatic assignment of your costs and court cost to this kind of complaint, and the onus ought to be on them that they’ve served you with the details of the debt and have gone through reasonable steps before being able to do this.
One thing with annualcreditreport.com is to check one credit bureau every 4 months. Then, you can be consistent with checking your reports with enough frequency, for free, to see any weird patterns that pop up.
Thanks so much for the link to the real credit reporting place. I have been paying for this… I don’t get a credit score but I never have really cared about knowing that anyways. Pay cash…
also, so sorry to hear about your legal problems. Gotta hate firms/agencies like that. Keep us updated!
I came across your site while researching collection agencies. I believe someone is overcharging me and now is threatening to take me to a collection agency if I don’t pay up. It’s awful that there are such greedy, unethical weasels in the world, but I’m glad you’re turning your experience into something constructive. Thanks for sharing your story with us and warning us. All the best to you, and bad karma to the weasels of the world.