I recieved a summons to court a couple of days ago. Midland is suing me for a little over 800$. They say I opened a acount with "Associates" and said I promised to make monthly payments as specified in the "charge agreement". They have a "exhibit" wich stated a old credit card I had but can't remember from who and they don't state who it was with. They only use the term "Associates". They go on to list my owed balance was 800$ on 4/30/01. I live in Illinois and the SOL is 5 years for "open acounts" and 10 years for "written contracts". I've been getting conflicting reports of what a credit card debt is. I've read from this website (sorry they won't let me past a lilink, webite sites the truth in lending aact saying ALL credit cards are open accounts) and many others that all credit cards are open accounts. While this website (illinois legal aide)
states that most bank credit cards are written contracts. I spoke very briefly to a over worked lawyer for non profit law firm that also said that credit cards are written contracts. So I'm a little confused. If it's a open account it's past the SOL but if it's written it's 10 years in my state.
This was my first CC and was only 18 or 19 at the time. I've lived with the black mark but relized that in a year or two the black marks I had on my credit report would be gone (it's been almost 7 years) so I just didn't deal with these scumbag deabt collectors. Now I guess I need to. I got my free credit report from one of the CB. Midland reported I owe them a little over 1000$. Date reported is 5/2007 and under type of account it reads
Open. Date opened is N/A and just about everything else is as well. Except for the "High credit"
So are they trying to re-age this? What should I do? In the summons it doesn't mention if it is small claims court or not. How can I show the court this is a open account and is past the SOL? They state my final statement was on 4/30/01 and the amount. Should I file a motion for dicovery and ask for my past statements and what else? Should I do a DV even though it hasn't been 7 years and my court date is about 30 days away? How do I show that the Truth-in-Lending Act covers this credit card as a open account and not as a written contract. Can I use a credit report as evidence that it's a "open" account? Any type of help would be great. I'd like to be prepared for my court date in a month or so.