Sued by Cavalry LLC in MA Small Claims Court

[MApear]

1. Who is the named plaintiff in the suit?

Cavalry Portfolio Services, LLC

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

Schreiber/Cohen, LLC

3. How much are you being sued for?

$2000

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

Citibank, N.A.

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

Received a notice of small claim trial in the mail.

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

Mail

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

Yes, for small claims.

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

I had received notices that Citi had sold the debt to Cavalry, and a notice from the law firm that it had been assigned to them.

9. What state and county do you live in?

Plymouth, MA

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

Late 2014

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

2012

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

6 years.

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

The small claims trial is scheduled for next week.

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?

I didn't send a written response. It's not required to respond to a small claim in MA; Just show up to the trial.

Their claim states:

Defendant had an account with Citibank, N.A. ("original creditor") with an original account number ending in ****. On **/**/15 the account was charged off by the original creditor. The last date of payment was **/**/2014 in the amount of $50.00. Plaintiff acquired the account and is the bona fide owner of the account. Demand for payment was made upon the Defendant on or about **/**/18 and Defendant failed to remit payment in full. The Defendant owes the Plaintiff the total amount of $2000.00.

WHEREFORE, Plaintiff demands judgement against the Defendant in the total amount of 2000.00, plus post judgement interest and court costs.

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

Nothing.

 

I realize that I didn't take actions that I could have earlier, though my understanding is that options are more limited with small claims(I think I wouldn't have been able to request arbitration, for example). Does anyone have advice on anything I can do, or evidence I should insist they show to prove their claim? Thanks for any advice, and for taking to time to look at my post.