Actions Dismissed without Predjudice, then collection resumes. Advice Please. :)

[jschneider373]

Hello. I had a collection agency/law firm contact me about a debt they said I owed. I asked what it was and to send me proof that I owed it. Instead of answering my request, they said that there had already been a summons served. I said I'd never received a summons. They told me they'd send a copy, and they sent me a copy of a very old summons.

I looked up the case on the Los Angeles Superior Court website. To my surprise the case showed "dismissal without prejudice filed for the entire action as to all defendant(s) and all causes of action(s) as of 2/24/2012". Then I received a demand for payment boilerplate letter also dated 2/24/2012.

Unfortunately my wife didn't give me the letter until today, and the 30 days have elapsed since the date of the letter (by two days). My question is how to handle this. Should I request validation as if this is an initial contact letter? Should I reference the dismissed lawsuit? Should I ignore it and wait for a summons and respond to that if it comes?

Why would they dismiss their action, then continue collections?

I haven't been able to find a similar situation to reference online, so I'm asking for help. Thank you!

[debtorshusband]

Hard to say why the old suit was dismissed. Possibly because they were unable to serve you. If the paperwork doesn't say, I'm not sure how you can find out. So forget about it. It's ancient history.

I'm sure that the letter they sent has the required text from the FDCPA, that says if you dispute "within thirty days after receipt of the notice." Sounds like you received the notice today. So you have 30 days to respond. At at the very worst, you have 30 days from when you (or your wife) received the mail, not the date on the letter. They may not have mailed the letter until several days or a week after it's dated (check the postmark), then there's the time for the post office to deliver...

So, send a DV letter, under the presumption you're within the 30 day period. I wouldn't bother mentioning the old dismissed suit. Nor would I wait for a new summons. Deal with the issue as it stands at the moment.

If they try to claim you're too late, stand your ground. What if you'd been out of the country for a month, and just returned to find this letter waiting in your mail? Besides, the only thing that missing the 30 day window costs you is they can continue to call and send letters. If you find these annoying enough, threaten to order them to Cease Communication unless they respect your DV letter and suspend collections until they send validation. Don't ever let them push you around.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Send a DV letter and see what happens, and take it from there.

Good luck.

DH

[Coltfan1972]

Unfortunately my wife didn't give me the letter until today, and the 30 days have elapsed since the date of the letter (by two days).

Easy solution there. The law says you have 30 days to dispute and request validation from the date you receive the letter. You just said your wife just gave it to you. You just received it, correct?

Simply send a DV letter (if you want, I'm not saying to DV or not), and put this letter is in reference to your letter dated January 10, 2012 (made up dates) and received by me on February 7, 2012. Then do your standard DV request. You've just now got your DV request in under the wire.

Now if you were talking `10 months, then no, but two days, even two weeks, easy fix. Again, not saying to DV or not. Looks like they will probably just sue you and DV might speed it up. All personal risk tolerance from this point as far as strategy goes.

Why would they dismiss their action, then continue collections?

Sounds like they simply could not get you legally served so they dismissed. I'm sure they are gearing up for another suit since they found you.

Also there are different burdens of proof between court and credit reporting.

[jschneider373]

I think you may be right; that the action may have been dismissed because they couldn't serve me properly.

I will respond as you suggested -- that makes complete sense to me and sounds like the only logical path to follow.

Thank you very much for the reply and the advice.

(Next I have to find out what to do when they respond to the DV letter with insufficient proof, like another agency did with a one page copy of a statement, along with a copy of the back of the statement showing their terms. Because, that's probably how they'll respond. But now that I've found this forum I'm sure the answer is here and I just need to do some research.)