debt collector suit or judgement?

Question

What do they need before taking you to court? i assume they must serve you? they do not have my street address, just a post office. they also have my work, how does that affect anything?

I am in GA, i last paid credit card in 2002. the original charge off is not on my credit report. account is with 3rd party collector. GA sol is 4yrs so they should not be able to sue me for this, right? things went belly up in 2001 that's how this whole mess started - marital separation..... i am now trying to recover. can i send them a cease & desist even though idid not identify myself at work. i am willing to give them my phone # & mail box if that will stop their calls at the job. bad idea or?

Answer 1

The first posters answer is incorrect.
Yes they will take you personally to court, thats how it is supposed to be. They must serve you and give you the opportunity to defend your side of the case.
They must follow your states rules of service when they serve you.
They can find where you live to serve you by using things like skip tracing, etc.

They may try to "sewer serve" you by not trying to find your current address and serving you at your last known address.
By doing that, it gives them an easy default judgment. (they sure know where the person actually lives when they try to collect the judgment)

For a good example of possible sewer service read Baby K's answer.
Baby K was in contact with the collector so the collector must have known where she lived and obviously knew where she worked. But, by the way her answer reads, she was never served. Instead of rolling over, she should have gotten the court records and read over the service papers that would have proved she was not properly served. Then she should have filed a motion to vacate the judgment for lack of proper service. Instead, like many uninformed consumers, she just thought she had no choice but to pay the illegal judgment.

If you think you may be sued, you need to do your homework and learn your states laws and the FTC laws.
Look up your states debtor/creditor laws, collecting statute of limitations (SOL), rules of service, see if your state has their own version of an FDCPA (many states do) and if you are sued you need to learn your states rules of civil procedure.
If you are dealing with an original creditor, many states version of the FDCPA are written to include both the original creditor and collector.
If you are dealing with a collector, you should also read the FDCPA and learn what constitutes violations

You should also order your credit reports and look them over for any violations if the account is being reported. If you dispute the violations and the collector/creditor verifies the violations without correcting them, you have the option (after creating a papertrail) of suing them, or if they sue you, filing counterclaims against them for not only FCRA violations but also any and all state or FTC violations they have committed.

I would never suggest sending a "full" cease & desist (C&D) to a collector if the account is still within the collecting SOL.
By doing that, you would be stopping the collector from ever trying to collect on the debt without going to court. The collectors options would be down to either selling the account or suing.
If the account is past the collecting SOL, then a full C&D could be sent as long as it is included in or with a SOL letter.

You might click on my profile and do some reading in the FTC links I've provided. Also do some reading in the last link I have listed to a free credit discussion board. You will be able to find links to your states statutes along with a great deal of other information.

Answer 2

If it not the original creditor, i.e. a third party collector. You simply write them a letter and tell them you want no contact with anyone from his company to yourself, family, other 3rd parties and your job.

They have to serve you with papers to take you to court. It is extremely rare that a 3rd party collector will sue. If your going to get sued, then it will be by the original creditor.

Keep in mind too, if they call you after the letter has been received or threaten legal action that they never intend to take, the have broken Federal Law. There is something called the FDCPA. Stands for Fair Debt Collections Practices Act.

If they start to threaten you, tell them you will be contact the FTC to report them for a FDCPA violation.

Answer 3

judgment is when they have made a decision. thy won't take you personally to court, most likely. they the creditors will take your case and evidence of trying to collect from you and weather you have paid or not. what they can do is garnish your wages, and this is what will most likely happen if they are making a claim against you. The end result is the judgment. It doesn't matter if they don't have your phone #, clearly they have something cause you know about all of this. If they have your social and your work, that's all they need. You might want to think about setting up a payment plan before they garnish your wages, which is where they automatically take a set amount out of your work check or any type of income you recieve.

Answer 4

they don't actually take you to court. I recently had a collection agency call me at work repeatedly. They threatened to go to arbitration and the following day they called and said they had a judgement against me. Since I live in California, they had the ability to take as much as 25% of my wages. I had no choice but to arrange payment options with them. You should do the same.

Answer 5

All they need is to file the court papers and if you don't show or contest it, they will get a judgment against you and can garnish your income.

But it all depends on how much you owe and how long it has been.

Here is a free link for more info.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/crdright.shtm
Credit and your consumer rights.

Answer 6

I'm with Echo.
The court MUST give you proper notice and serve you with a summons. If you were not given proper notice, you can have the judgment thrown out.