Palisades Acquisition vs. Me: Need advice badly

[WorriedInKC]

Hi all.

I just received a "Petition On Account". The petition is only two pages long. It simply states that I owe $1625 to "Plaintiff's Predecessor" and ends with "Wherefore, Plaintiff prays judgment against Defendant in the sum of $1625.95"...

1. I am being sued by Palisades Acquisition (assignee of Hawker Financial, assignee of Arrow Financial, assignee of Titan Recovery Group, assignee of Citibank)

2. I am being sued for $1625.

3. Citibank is the original creditor.

4. I was just served by some scrubby looking guy who broke into my building earlier this evening.

5. I have not had ANY correspondence with this creditor/collection agency. This Citibank card was the first credit card I ever had, I opened it 15 years ago.

6. I have moved to Missouri, just in the last few months. I have not setup any utilities or applied for any credit since moving in with my girlfriend. I am not sure how they discovered me at this new address.

7. I have not had any payments on this account since 2002 at the latest. Kansas SOL is 3 years, Missouri's is 5.

8. I have been ordered to appear in court on June 5 of this year.

9. No, I have not disputed this debt because...here is the surprise...it does not show up on any of the 3 credit bureaus. I have recently (in the last few months) began to pay off old debts. Anything that has shown up on my credit report, I have been paying off. This is a debt I would have paid on had I known I owed money on it. There is no record of Citibank, Hawker Financial, Arrow Financial, or Titan Recovery anywhere on any of my credit reports. I did have a separate Citibank account for a British Petroleum gas card but that was paid off long ago. Otherwise, "Citibank" appears nowhere on my credit report.

10. I did not request debt validation for the reasons explained above.

11. I did not receive any questionnaire or form to send an Answer.

12. Evidence supplied are a Bill of Sale of the debt. This Bill of Sale is between Hawker Financial (seller) to Palisades Acquisition (buyer). There is no mention of Citibank or any of the other prior assignees. Also included is a generic-looking bill from Hawker Financial that has minimal information. It has a statement date of 12/20/06, shows the account number, and also the balance amount. There is no itemization of fees. There is also an Affidavit from the Senior Vice President of Hawker Financial that states her role in overseeing accounts and that she verifies I owe Hawker Financial $1625.95.

13. I do not know what the Statute of Limitations is on this debt because I cannot find any trace of this debt in any of the credit bureaus. To my best recollection, the last payment or communication (hence, the last activity...right?) with this creditor would have been in the first half of 2002 at the very latest.

What is my best course of action? I would like to use SOL as my defense but I do not know when the last activity occurred on the account. I have spent the last two hours scouring my credit reports I pulled today and I do not see any mention of this account number (or even parts of it).

What constitutes my legal residence? I do not have any bills sent here. My car insurance, car loan, and student loans all reflect my prior address, which is in Kansas. My driver's license is a Kansas license. If I needed to exercise SOL for my defense, should I build up the case I am a Kansas resident or am I already dead since I accepted delivery of the papers at the address listed on the summons?

I can provide more information if necessary...I'll even scan in all the documents and post the images here if that helps.

Thank you SO much in advance.

[cjtx]

Contact the OC to get the DOLA and original amount. Palisades may be trying to collect on your paid out gas account!

It sounds like all the evidence they showed is hearsay since it doesn't come from the OC plus it doesn't sound like they showed a complete chain of title from the OC through all those JDBs.

The SOL that applies is the one from your current residence. Do not lie in court about where you live.

[WorriedInKC]

Contact the OC to get the DOLA and original amount. Palisades may be trying to collect on your paid out gas account!

It sounds like all the evidence they showed is hearsay since it doesn't come from the OC plus it doesn't sound like they showed a complete chain of title from the OC through all those JDBs.

The SOL that applies is the one from your current residence. Do not lie in court about where you live.

Will Citibank give me the DOLA and original amount or will they tell me to just talk to the collection agency?

I have no intention of lying, I haven't established residency yet, I was just curious how that would play out.

Thank you for your help, Ctjx.

[cjtx]

They will give you the name and number of the first JDB they assigned it to plus the amount owed and DOLA.

[WorriedInKC]

They will give you the name and number of the first JDB they assigned it to plus the amount owed and DOLA.

I'm sorry, I am trying to figure out what a JDB is....

[cjtx]

JDB = junk debt buyer

[WorriedInKC]

JDB = junk debt buyer

Ahh. Thank you.

I am speaking with a Citibank credit card person right now. They do not have any history of that account number. I will talk to their collections people tomorrow to see if they have any further information.

[nascar]

Once you can prove how old this is, you'll have a solid affirmative defense.

In the meantime, why don't you do the following;

Contact the Missouri State Bar and file a complaint against the attorney who is handling this lawsuit. Go here and read up on the rules of professional conduct first.

http://www.mobar.org/371ad07f-9229-4a16-a432-45e16cbcd20c.aspx

It takes a bad attorney to file a bad lawsuit.

[Recovering Attorney]

Get teh rest of your head out of the sand. If it is your debt, answer the complaint. Use the SOL as a defense. There are some delicate legal arguments to be made but don't wreck your chances by being mealy mouthed. Don't say I am not sure this is mine or I am not sure when the last payment was made or yeah I am now living in Mo but my car insurance is in KS. You are on teh right track, be confident. But don't spin your wheels hoping to find a silver bullet on the internet. If you have some questions, talk to a good Mo lawyer and get some solid advice.

[IHateCAs]

That's a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG chain of title there. Four assignees with lots of room for screwups. They only provided one assignment. They must show a clear assignment from Citi to themselves.

[WorriedInKC]

I just got off the phone with Citibank's internal collections.

The gal there said the debt was sold to a company called "Cavalier" something or other (I was on the phone in my car, I will call back to get clearer information). These Cavalier people are not listed anywhere on my list of Plaintiffs.

SOL will not work. I apparently bounced a check to make a payment on this account to the collection agency sometime in 2004. Even if the check bounced, I am certain this counts as activity.

I have forwarded the papers to my stepfather who is an attorney. I do not want him to have to research/work this for me as I know he will refuse compensation.

Should I call the Plaintiff and ask them if they are willing to settle out of court? Or should I start fighting back with a Motion for Discovery?

One other thing I noticed, the Bill of Sale of debt sold from Hawker Financial to Palisades Acquisition only bears the signature of the seller and not the buyer. Does this matter?

[cjtx]

They still have to prove you made that payment, and they probably don't have any records. Besides, as IHateCAs pointed out, they need to show a clear chain of title from citi to you, and if they miss even one assignment, you can get it dismissed.

The burden of proof is on them, so you still raise SOL as one of your affirmative defenses and hearsay if there is no clear transfer of title..

[IHateCAs]

Ok, let's forget this Kansas nonsense. You reside in Missouri correct? Okay.

SOL may be 10 years, but I haven't given the statutes a thorough reading. You still should raise it as a defense.

Your main hitters here are rules of evidence and assignment. They have not proven an assignment from Citibank >>> other people >>> themselves. Likely, all they have is the assignment from Hawker to themselves. Since Hawker did not originate the account, assignment fails.

They cannot introduce another business's records without testimony from that business.

I highly doubt they will be able to prove a valid assignment, but you never know.

Have fun.

[bigjohnstud4200]

Not that this makes a difference since SOL seems to be 10 years in MO, but I don't believe a bounced check can restart the SOL if the amount you made it for was not enough to bring the account into current status. If your bounced check would not have brought the account current, then you DOFD has not changed. Some states are different though.

[WorriedInKC]

One of the reasons I was hesitant to ask my stepfather (attorney licensed in MO) for help is that he typically just takes command of everything, sometimes without asking.

Apparently he spoke with the Plaintiff yesterday. He is in the process of negotiating a lump sum payout that is less than the amount they are going for. I do not know what would be a "good" settlement.

A disappointing change of course. I was hoping he would take a tougher stance as I agree with you all that there is not much chance that the current assignee has all the paperwork. This account has been bought/sold 5 times. $1600 is child's play money to my attorney, though, and he is of the mind it is better to just pay than to possibly get stuck paying more via court costs/attorney fees.

[IHateCAs]

Tell your step dad to step off. You didn't retain him, just asked for advice. Tell him what you want to do, and if he doesn't want to, find a lawyer who will.

[merkurfan]

I would not pay um a dime. You can beat it in court. Attack the chain, it's broken. Also, what about the guy that broke in to your building. Can that be considered properly being served? I know when I was a repo agent if I did ANYTHING to gain entry, and got called on it, I'd get a trespass or worse. I was once accused of breaking and entering a garage to repo a car. Good thing I always had a cam-corder rolling. When things got to court I just rolled tape of me pulling up with the tow truck to a open garage door. Then walking in to the garage and pulling the car out and driving away. This coupled with my calls to police to report intent to repo (just so they know what is going on) and repo completed (when they call it in stolen tell them to call the bank) got me off the hook.

They even tried civil court and sued for 5000 dollars for "damage to the door"... I won my counter suit for a undisclosed amount of money. they lost. I should sell that paper to a JDB, 5-10 cents on the dollar would buy me a good meal.

[IHateCAs]

Update?

[WorriedInKC]

Update?

My attorney has negotiated to settle this out of court for a lower dollar amount. I would have preferred to have fought this, but he thinks they could summon the documentation to back their claim that this debt is owned by them. Maybe not on our first court date, but by a later court date. Then the attorney's fees would balloon...then I could potentially get nailed for more money.

But, I suppose, the bottom line is that I do owe this money and I feel somewhat obligated to pay it. We are still negotiating the settlement, but as we speak we are $600 less and pushing for even more.

[cjtx]

You do realize if they forgive more than $600, they will report the excess to IRS and you have to pay income tax on the amount "forgiven".

[WorriedInKC]

You do realize if they forgive more than $600, they will report the excess to IRS and you have to pay income tax on the amount "forgiven".

I did not know that. Thank you!

[direred]

Well, you won't have to pay taxes on that amount if you're insolvent in the year that otherwise-taxable event occurs.