What recourse do I have if I receive summons from LVNV Funding?

I just received a summons letter from Gurstel, Staloch & Chargo who are representing lvnv funding llc and I was looking for some advice. Judging by LVNV forums I'm starting to wonder if this is for real or not? I have heard of debt collectors sending out bogus court papers in attempt to get people to pay. Apparently, they want me to declare, under penalty of perjury, that I recieved this copy of the summons and complaint and I'm supposed to send it back within 20 days. If I fail to do so(according to the letter), judgment by default will taken against me for the relief of the demanded in the complaint. But the part that stands out is the fact I owed the original creditor(Providian)this debt at least 8 years ago and stopped making payments 7 years ago because these people wanted all the money up front which, by the way, is $1500. For all of 2004 I had never recieved a phone call or a letter from Providian or anyone else and this letter claims they want $1577.34 plus interest at the rate of 6% per annum from and after March 22, 2004. Any ideas???

What state did you open the credit card in?
Your last payment was indeed 7 years ago?

Also, you can check with your local court system to find out if a case has actually been filed against you.

I too got a letter from them, but it was a dismissal w/out prejudice. We never were ever served for the suit. Today we got another letter stating"

Despite numberous efforts to respolve this matter, it appears that you continue to ignore our attempts to resolve this amicably. Over the next 10 days a decision will be made as to which of the varios collection alternatives, including tpossible litigation, should be initiated to recover our client's funds. We would like to avoide this and would prefer to respolve this matter voluntarily. Therefore, please remit payment in full to our office with in 10 days from the date of this letter or contact our office to discuss our varying payment options. ...yadda, yadda.

We have never been served papers in person by the lawfirm, a private party or court, nor by certified letter.

This whole deal is over a debt to sears that we were disputing that they refused to respond to. Suggestions?

send them a DV letter and make them prove the debt.

Should I send one to the collection agency as well?

Absolutely, since they are the one trying to collect.

I will mail off a letter to LVNV as well. I don't have any paper work from them though to reference any account number. Also, should I fax the Law firm a copy of the letter sent in the mail or no?

Make sure you do not throw a limited C&D in to your DV to LVNV. They will consider it a full cease comm and never respond to your DV. If it is still w/in SOL and significant, your next correspondence will be a summons. On my DV's i do state the calls to my employer place my job in jeopardy and at the bottom of the letter in bold letters:

[center:ccfc8b8ee6]ALL CALLS TO MY HOME OR CELL ARE RECORDED[/center:ccfc8b8ee6]

It's with in the SOL. How it came about is that Sears didn't follow though on the no interest/no payments part and misapplied it. Because it was applied to the part of the account that did not need payment and not the part of the account which required payment (everything would have been paid in full as per the contract with the payment made), we demanded they correct the account. As there was no payments required on the rest of the amount, we didn't need to worry about those... they then sent it to collections and it's ended up at their fancy dancy lawyer's office who filed a suit and then had it dismissed w/out prejudice (we were never served, no copies of ANYTHING were sent to us other than the notice that the case was dismissed).

I received a civil action or complaint-suit on a contract, from the local deputy today. I have 30 days to reply. It is for $1400, I don't have enough money to pay rent, utilities and child support, car is in the shop! Yes, I work, a whole 1/2 goes to child support. So, now what do I do? Is there anything I can do? a garnishment would be terrible for my employer Walgreens to receive...
Thank you for your help.

I have also received a letter of summons stating I have three days to respond or by default judgement would be granted to them this is a debt through sears and asfar as I know has reached it's SOL,I also found on my credit report that they (LVNV) have changed the dates which the accout was opened and the last date of payment this company shows up on my credit report on 4 different pages for the same
account. What should I do?

Answer the summons...though I find it odd it only gives you 3 days......call the courthouse and make sure the summons is real, I would not put ANYTHING past LVNV. Deny everything. Make sure at discovery that you send one to them asking for everything, statements that show the account activity (these false payments and dates), agreement/contract, etc...you want them to prove the debt exists and that they are collecting what you actually owe.

Hold off mentioning SOL at this point, because if you invoke SOL and the case gets dismissed, then you will get a 1099 and have to pay taxes on it. So make sure they can even prove up the debt....if they do (longshot because they are horrible with having documentation) prove it up then they will have provided you with the SOL defense because the statements will reflect the true activity and you would easily point out the SOL.

But check first....this 3 day response BS has me very suspicious....also ask the court if the 3 day service is typical....