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Being sued by a debt collection lawyer in ca


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Who is the named plaintiff in the suit?

TD Bank

2. What is the name of the law firm handling the suit? (should be listed at the top of the complaint.)

Sea Eye Arr Law Officers

3. How much are you being sued for?

1k

4. Who is the original creditor? (if not the Plaintiff)

Tea Dee Banc

5. How do you know you are being sued? (You were served, right?)

Served a summons

6. How were you served? (Mail, In person, Notice on door)

They dropped it off with my 11 yr old son

7. Was the service legal as required by your state?

I don't think so

Process Service Requirements by State - Summons Complaint

8. What was your correspondence (if any) with the people suing you before you think you were being sued?

I called them once and they said they would call me back and never did. (I never did speak to the case manager at all, just the girl who answered and or me on hold)

9. What state and county do you live in?

CA, LA

10. When is the last time you paid on this account? (looking to establish if you are outside of the statute of limitations)

Unknown

11. When did you open the account (looking to establish what card agreement may be applicable)?

Unknown

12. What is the SOL on the debt? To find out:

4 yrs 

Statute of Limitations on Debts

13. What is the status of your case? Suit served? Motions filed? You can find this by a) calling the court or B) looking it up online (many states have this information posted - when you find the online court site, search by case number or your name). 

Suit served. Have not yet answered. 

14. Have you disputed the debt with the credit bureaus (both the original creditor and the collection agency?)

No

15. Did you request debt validation before the suit was filed? Note: if you haven't sent a debt validation request before being sued, it likely won't help create FDCPA violations, but disputing after being sued could be useful to show the court that you dispute the debt ('account stated' vs. 'breach of contract').

No

16. How long do you have to respond to the suit? (This should be in your paperwork). If you don't respond to the lawsuit notice you will lose automatically. In 99% of the cases, they will require you to answer the summons, and each point they are claiming. We need to know what the "charges" are. Please post what they are claiming. Did you receive an interrogatory (questionnaire) regarding the lawsuit?

40 days

 

 

17. What evidence did they send with the summons? An affidavit? Statements from the OC? Contract? List anything else they attached as exhibits.

Just the basic claims that I owe them $$. No real evidence as far as I can tell. 

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Also, I called the court today to see how they (the law firm)were saying that they served me(so that i could know for sure if i had 30 days or 40 days to respond due to them serving my 11 year old son when i wasn't home), and they informed me that the law firm have not yet stated to the court that they have served me (I guess a "Proof of Service"?) and is been like 28 days!

What happens if they fail to provide that info to the court? Will the case be dropped?

Thanks in advance for your response. 

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Welcome to the board Justjdog.

Dropping the summons with an 11 yr old is not proper service. It can only be left with an adult at your residence or place of business (CCP 415.20). Perhaps this why they haven't filed a proof of service? I'm not sure what the CA code says about filing a proof of service (prior to taking other steps like filing for default judgment). It might be in the code section I linked if you want to take a look.

CA law, in collection cases, give plaintiffs a long time (longer than other types of lawsuits) to find and serve a defendant. I wouldn't expect the case to be dropped over this. Obviously they know where you live; they will either 1) file a POS based on giving it to the 11 yr old (they would have to lie and say it was an adult), or 2) will attempt to serve again. Either way, you know what's on the horizon and can start preparing.

A general denial will deny the allegations in their entirety. You don't have to write in that you have no recollection of the account - you will be able to do that in discovery.

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Thx so much for the response RyanEx and thx for the warm welcome!? 

So I don't have to write anything at all on the general denial other than filing out the general info? Wow, that saves a lot of time and trouble(and worry... that you're responding incorrectly).

So, if they don't send the court a proof of service after the 40 days is up, should I take any action at all or just wait for then to try and serve me correctly?

Thx again RyanEX for your help,  I really appreciate it!

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just a heads up. since the summons was left with 11 year old son (as inappropriate as it was) you should be receiving a copy of the summons on the mail. i assume process server will claim to have served you by substituted service; ccp 415.20 (http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CCP&sectionNum=415.20) states that a copy of the summons and the complaint should be mailed to that address via USPS.  

i would recommend you check the online court docket daily to see if anything pops up. 

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Well sadinca, what I didn't mention concerning the service of the summons was that my mother just happened to be there at the time (she's rarely there if I'm not home myself) of service but the server handed it to my son and not to her though he did ask my mom for her name.  She, for whatever reason, gave him a false name (not sure if that helps or hurts my case). Not sure why he didn't just hand it to her in the first place.

So that's why I didn't mention it earlier-- just too lazy to have to go over all the gory details. ?

 

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1 hour ago, Justjdog said:

I didn't mention concerning the service of the summons was that my mother just happened to be there at the time

The information you get is only as good as you give.  Leaving key information out gets you bad advice and the wrong answers.

Your mother, a legal age adult, standing next to your son when the papers were served means the service was legal.  The court is not going to toss it on a technicality of the minor being the closest person to the door and a legal adult standing right there with direct knowledge that a summons was being served.  Your mother had every opportunity to tell your son to step back and accept service.  She didn't.  

1 hour ago, Justjdog said:

She, for whatever reason, gave him a false name (not sure if that helps or hurts my case)

It sure doesn't help.  What a stupid and unnecessary thing to do.

Start preparing a defense.  The service was legal in my opinion.

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fighting for the dismissal of a case due to sewer service is difficult, and in most cases they can simply serve you once again. In this case, assuming the service was legal, in your case i would start preparing an answer to the complaint, and researching Bill of Particulars. 

you should be receiving a copy of the summons in the mail. you will have 40 days to file your answer from the day it is placed in the mail. however, keep checking the court online docket, just in case process server claim to serve the copy in the mail, but somehow, conveniently for them, you dont receive them. 

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Yeah, I kinda figured it was a proper service, that's why I really didn't bother getting into it so much. I even argued with my wife a few times trying to explain that my mom being there next to my boy was probably enough to make it a legal service of summons.

I guess the only reason I hung onto the possibility of it being an improper summons was my wife's insistence that it wasn't-- she was adamant so it got me to thinking that I was just being thick- headed... as usual, Haha!?

Well, thanks for clearing that up for me Clydesmom! I can definitely move on from that scenario and concentrate on my answer now.

Btw, does it matter much if I send a demand for BOP before or after my answer?

Thx again for all your help everyone!?

 

 

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Well, I'm assuming a junk debt buyer is different from a law firm: the law firm is representing the original debt owner, I think, and a junk debt buyer is not representing the original debt owner but representing only itself.

I am very new to all this so I understand that I could be way off but this is how I understand it so far... am I wrong??

 

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I believe you meant to say Original Creditor? 

JDBs have a higher bar when it comes to the authentication of business records because they must produce a witness from the OC in order to authenticate them. arguably, the bar is lower for OC to authenticate the records because they can produce a qualified custodian. 

Capital One as aggressive as they are in filing debt collection cases,  they have dropped suits close to 20k. who know if TDB would pursue the debt all the way to trial and produce a witness for $1k. 

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35 minutes ago, Justjdog said:

Well, I'm assuming a junk debt buyer is different from a law firm: the law firm is representing the original debt owner, I think, and a junk debt buyer is not representing the original debt owner but representing only itself.

I am very new to all this so I understand that I could be way off but this is how I understand it so far... am I wrong??

 

A debt buyer does not represent anyone and does not sue for the original creditor.  It sues for itself.  However, even a debt buyer suing for itself would be represented by a lawyer. 

A law firm represents it’s client whether that client is an original creditor or a debt buyer.   You’re being sued by the party listed as the plaintiff and the law firm is representing that plaintiff. 

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4 minutes ago, Justjdog said:

Well, I'm assuming a junk debt buyer is different from a law firm: the law firm is representing the original debt owner, I think, and a junk debt buyer is not representing the original debt owner but representing only itself.

I am very new to all this so I understand that I could be way off but this is how I understand it so far... am I wrong??

 

JDBs also get representation from law firms. for example, Calvary is JDB and is often represented by Winn Law in California. 

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