Responding to debt collection summons.....

 I'm trying to help out a friend that has been served a summons of debt collection by atty's for a debt collection agency & has no idea of what it was about. It isn't much (around $3k), but he doesn't want to have to pay an atty to straighten it out. According to stuff on the net, all you have to do is respond with a denial or something about statute of limitations & they'll most likely drop it. The summons doesn't say when it occurred or what CC co. it was, just that it was filed in his county.

 In writing a response letter, should one just deny it & leave it at that, or mention something about statute of limitations since they weren't able to provide any dates.......or both?
 

I think no response is the best course of action but could be wrong. Litigation for cc debt is borderline impossible. Summons to appear is a tactic they started using about 5 years ago.

 Thanks ricky.........but if you don't respond it gives these vultures the freedom to do what they want, ie sue, garnish, etc.

 I think I'll just tell him to form a response letter denying any knowledge of it. It doesn't list who the debt is from (visa, MC,etc) or when it happened, just a letter from atty's representing a collection agency giving some phony cc#.......xxxxxx with a few #'s at the end. The guy doesn't have a clue what it's about.

The vulture collection agencies hire a process serving Co and pay them a lump sum to hand those out like bulk mail to hundreds. There is no case file, there is no venue, there is no record w/a court clerk...... Sometimes they get live ones that do actually show up out of fear or respond in panic. Even then there's no plaintiff, just a  record of a person that's acknowledged a debt. Junk. My .02 for ya. Good luck buddy. Nice of you to help out a friend.

.........but if you don't respond it gives these vultures the freedom to do what they want, ie sue, garnish, etc.

They have no legal right to collect a debt in court. Assuming they did they'd have to win, live through ppd's, file to garnsish, file to levy.......

A dozen guys in a basement wearing headsets that bought a 3rd party debt rolling the dice is all it is.

Had a similar situation a few months back.  Didn't recognize anything they were trying to collect.  Asked them to verify the debt via the mail (As I'm legally allowed to do).  They said they'd rather just e-mail me proof, and if that didn't work they'd be more than happy to send me a summons.  I told them to feel free.  Guy was really pissed that I actually knew my rights.  Haven't heard from them since.

I have limited experience re. this, but is what I've found:  Worked in a business where we often had to go after individuals for $500 to a couple grand.  More often than not, we paid an attorney to send them a toughly worded letter and personally hounded them via phone (we were stern, but also told me we would work with them).  I'd say half the time we got our money and the other half blew us off.  We did go as far as scheduling a small claims court date in one instance and that was enough to get a person to pay.

Ahh, just read it again.  Sounds like a collection agency is involved. They really do talk tough and that is their tactic to get you to the table.  

This is very simple and you can do this yourself without an Attorney.

Send a Certified Letter Signature Required "General Denial Letter" (copy one from the internet).  Also, very important, include proper "Cease and Desist" language in your General Denial Letter.

These scumbags play a "numbers" game.  They send out thousands of bogus Demand Letters and hope a hundred people are stupid enough to reply with payment.

I imagine you should be able to check your credit report via credit karma or annualcreditreport.com to find out who the collectors are.

Could be a scam, but if it is truly a mistake, your friend should get it taken care of so it doesn't mess with his credit.

When I worked at the bank this dude came in and was shocked to find out a debt company had garnered his wages from his checking account for cosigning on his father's loan that was defaulted or defaulting.

So if your friend doesn't get that taken care of, he shouldn't be surprised if he has money missing one day.

From experiences with friends, I believe if you let it go uncollected for a long time, they'll negotiate the amount owed with you. I think my friends got something like a 40% discount if he paid right then.

The collectors pay pennies on the dollar for your debt from the cc companies, so if they get a decent amount back it's worth their time and they make money.

 Thanks for all the replies.

 I've done some homework on this. Yes, it is a #'s game.......these companies buy up old, written-off debt from CC companies for pennies on the dollar, tack on a bunch of their own fees & interest, retain local atty's all around the country to file court orders ("complaints") on their behalf & hope that the defendants don't respond within 20 days. If they don't, then the debt collection company has free reign to garnish wages & whatnot. They're just betting on a "no response" from the defendant.
 I had my friend write up a response to send to the atty's & to the district court stating that he wants validation of the debt, since the "complaint" lists no CC # nor the original creditor. They have the burden of producing proof of the original debt. If they can't then they have no case. Even if they can, the statute of limitations for CC debt (3 years here) has likely run out. Either way, it's a 50-50 chance they'll want to pay local atty's to hunt down proof of old debt.
 My friend is a kid that has struggled through the downturn like so many others & has had to move around a lot. He's not even sure where this came from but thinks it may be a store CC that only had a few hundred $$ balance & now seems to have ballooned to a few thousand, a good deal of which I'm sure has to be fees tacked on by the DC company. He's just getting back on his feet when this hit.

Might not hurt to have him go on to the County Clerk and Recorder site and make sure that no Judgments were filed against him.

People like to cite the statute of limitations, but a Judgment can be revived within that three years, making it another three years. They can just keep doing towards the end of the Judgment if they so choose. Just depends on what course of action the creditor took in the first place.

Under 3k? Nobody would hire a lawyer to chance somebody for under 3k, it would go to small claims court.

 Greedy B

 I would imagine that were there already a judgment against him regarding this debt then this complaint wouldn't have been filed.

Interesting thread.  It seems like the only situations addressed are it's bogus or you owe it but don't want to pay/statute of limitations.

I had an experience where I knew what they were trying to collect for, I just disputed I was responsible for it.  I had dated a girl who was the apt. complex manager where I was staying.  Thinks went sour between us and when I moved out they (she) replaced the carpet instead of cleaning it and wanted me to pay for the new carpet, I believe out of spite.

They filed it with collections and I was hounded about it for awhile, but I told them I knew they were lying and it didn't need to be replaced.  Years later when I was applying for a mortgage the loan officer asked me about it on my credit report which surprised me.  Apparently they got it put on my credit report in small claims.  He said it didn't matter though it wasn't a big enough deal to affect anything. 

fk em