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I've been a LONG time lurker here. I'm currently being sued by Midland Funding for a credit card account I have no recollection of ever having. I've been sued before by another Junk Debt buyer and used this site to successfully defend myself. The last one was with Portfolio Associates about 2 years ago. Midland Funding seems a lot more tenacious despite the fact that the amount is almost a third of what Portfolio was suing for. Here is the rundown: 1. Who is the named plaintiff in the suit? Midland Funding LLC doing business in Ohio as Midland Funding DE LLC. 2. What is the name of the law firm handling the suit? Seems like Midland's Ohio based in house attorneys - not really clear. 3. How much are you being sued for? ~800 dollars 4. Who is the original creditor? Target National Bank 5-7. Service was proper 8. What was your correspondence (if any) with the people suing you before you think you were being sued? I don't remember seeing anything. 9. What state and county do you live in? Ohio Lucas 10. When is the last time you paid on this account? I don't recall having this account. Their nebulous "data sheet" shows around Aug 2008. 11. What is the SOL on the debt? 15 years if Ohio, Haven't seen a credit agreement to know which state applies 12. What is the status of your case? Summons issued, answered, discovery completed, 3 pre-trial conferences, Midland requested a leave to seek summary judgement a week before the 1st trial date of Jan 27'th, their request was denied. New trial date of Feb 21st. 13. Have you disputed the debt with the credit bureaus? No 14. Did you request debt validation before the suit was filed? No, my first communication was the lawsuit, I then sent them a validation letter. 15. How long do you have to respond to the suit? I have 3 more days to respond to their request to leave to seek summary judgment, a letter from the court came today stating that their request was denied. So basically I have until the 21'st to prepare for trial. 16. What evidence did they send with the summons? A single credit card statement. To cut to the chase. My question is: Should I do nothing at this point as far as responding to their request to leave for summary judgment, which also included a copy of their request for summary judgment, and just wait for the trial to submit my objections, motions to strike, and affidavit in support of my not ever having this credit card. Or should I respond to their motions as if I never received the notice from the court that they were denied - and lay out my entire case for the judge prior to the trial. The deadline for my response to their motions (which were denied) would be this Monday the 3rd of Feb. If you want to read further - here's the case in more detail: Back around March of 2013 I received their complaint. It was the first time I had ever heard of Midland funding. Since I have gone through this before, I kind of knew what to do. So I responded to the complaint with pretty much across the board denials and the positive defense of "Lack of Standing". I then received a letter from the account department of Midland Funding stating that "We have been informed by our legal department that you are the subject of a lawsuit".... "We can help work with you - call us".. I sent them a letter demanding a validation. We had a pretrial conference in June. None of the lawyers listed in the complaint showed up, they hired a local attorney to show up (who is a pretty nice guy to work with). I told him that I did not recall having this account and as far as I was concerned they had not proven anything with their single isolated credit card statement. He agreed and we went before the judge to tell them that at that time we couldn't work it out. Judge set a date for completion of discovery, explained my rights and trial process, and then set a date for another pretrial conference. They sent me their discovery toward the end of the allowed time period, I sent my discovery pretty much right away. I Did not receive a response from them concerning my discovery in the allowed time. Went to the 2nd pretrial conference in August. Pretty much identical to the first one, except the judge granted the plaintiff one more week to respond to my discovery, and granted me to the middle of October to respond to their discovery answers. The judge then set an end date for all discovery, and an end date for any motions for summary judgment (the middle of November), and then set ANOTHER pretrial conference. (To put this into perspective.. the lawsuit is for less than 800 dollars, each pretrial conference they hire the same local attorney to attend - going on 3 times now). I received, over the next 2 weeks, in about 3 different packets their responses to my discovery - to all my requests for admissions - they denied or objected, to all my interrogatories they objected on grounds of too vague, too burdensome, or "trade secrets". To my request for documentation, they objected to on grounds of too vague. (if you need me to rehash all that in detail, let me know). What I was trying to do with my discovery was get them to admit to FDCPA violations. More so to scare them off, but to also give me ammunition for my own suit if I lost this suit. They didn't really take the bait and denied everything. But they also offered no documentation that I was requesting that would prove that they tried to contact me prior to the suit. One of the things that really bothered me - regardless of the merits of this particular case - is how these junk debt buyers are using the court system as an extension of their business model... so I feel like kind of a crusader. I even expressed that sentiment to the hired attorney during one of our pretrial conferences. OK, back to the case. So after discovery was completed nothing really happened. We had a pretrial conference in December, but I could not attend because I was held over at work that day (I work nights as an RN) So I missed the next event. My foil - the hired local attorney did attend. And the notice I received from the court stated that the trial would go ahead on Jan 27th regardless of whether any party attends or not. So about a week before trial on Jan 16th I received from the Midland attorney's their request to leave to request summary judgment - and attached their actual request for summary judgment - basically they rehashed their complaint and stated that it was now up to me to prove my case more or less. Since this was just a week before the trial I typed up my objection to the leave - which stated that the court set a firm date for dispositive motions and also Ohio court rules (Civ.R.56) requires this type of motion to be at least 14 days prior to a hearing / trial. I also typed up my motions to strike their evidence. They have basically 2 groups of "evidence"... which gets kind of complicated - so let me explain. Exhibit A is just a copy of a single credit card statement from target to me at my old address back in 2008 and an unreadable copy of a credit agreement (the type is so small you can't read it with a microscope) But you can make out that there is no signature or identifying information on this illegible copy of an agreement. Exhibit B consists of 1.) a copy of an "Asset Sale Agreement Attachment 2 - Bill of Sale" that doesn't contain anything about me... just that Target "sold / assigned all personal property compromising the Accounts listed in the final electronic data file named REDACTED dated such and such as provided in the Forward Flow Asset Sale Agreement dated such and such". Then they have a paragraph that warrants this as "Sellers Business records... then something is redacted. then there's a statement that says the agreement is executed without recourse or representations or warranties etc... Basically saying that Target will not warrant the data they sold. Exhibit B continues: 2.) A data sheet - that looks like an excel spreadsheet that has my name, the account number redacted, my old address, then a bunch of gobbly gook that has no explanation. Interestingly enough - one of the data fields I think is the Charge off amount (RMSDTCHGDT) This amount is different from the amount on the statement they provided and the amount they are suing for. 3.) The Affidavit of a legal specialist that has access to pertinent account records for Midland Credit Management - she says she has personal knowledge and is familiar and trained by MCM to know their business records and can attest that Midland's records show "The Defendant(s)" owe x amount of dollars to midland. Then this affidavit is notarized by someone in the same county in Minnesota. The interesting part of this affidavit is that it was submitted as evidence with their request for summary judgment (so it wasn't sent to me during discovery - a completely different affidavit FROM TARGET was sent during discovery. The one from Target has no identifying information that can tie it to me... just like the bill of sale. but this affidavit from Midland specifically identifies my account and the amount, but not me by name - the target account number is redacted except for the last 4 digits. So to go on.. (yawn.... LOL... ) After receiving this packet with their request to leave, and their request for summary judgment around Jan 16 - I was kind of blindsided because I was just expecting to go to trial and make oral arguments / attack their "evidence". So I panicked... and of course came to this forum to see what I could do about it. Interestingly enough all the action that I decided to take came from reading my Ohio court rules, and not anything specific I could find in the forums - other than a great example of someone attacking the Bill of sale and the affidavit. But here are my objections and my motions to strike - which I have yet to submit... see my original question at the top of this lengthy diatribe. I'll make another post to paste what I have typed up... stay tuned: