What do I do with this summons?
Date: Mon, 10/08/2007 - 09:54
I am not interested in playing games. My finances are a mess and my husband and I want to get this all cleaned up. We have work to do but it needs to be done. I know this debt is ours. The amount does not appear to be inflated but it also says something about the interest rate and fees will be added. UGH. The plaintiff is the creditor. Again...no court date. I had a payment arrangement with this card before...about a year or so ago. They deducted $150 per month from my account interest free for a year. They didn't seem to want to make more arrangement with us at that time. We were not and are not in a position to pay this off. We will barely be able to pay the payments. However, when we had the payment plan there were no problems. Though it never seemed that these payments were deducted from the balance. Isn't that weird? I told my husband and he is just so overwhelmed he went on shut down mode. So, I never got an answer. The card is in his name so I could not get information. The payments were directly from our checking account so I do have proof of it.
Ok..the point is...what do I do now. I want to do the responsible thing. I don't want to go to court. I just want a fair payment plan. I am tired fo this debt haunting us. I don't want to get a real summons in the mail. lol. However, this summons, though no court date, is from the court in my city. It is totally real...just no date.
I feel I am at rock bottem and need someone to direct my next steps. One more question...should I contact my other creditors and ask for payment arrangements? Most of the other cards are in collections. Just not sure where to begin cleaning this mess. I feel like my back yard is so full of do do I don't have a pooper scooper big enough.
Thanks for all the responses. I appreciate you taking the time to offer advice.
Sounds like the debt collector/attorney is acting on behalf of t
Sounds like the debt collector/attorney is acting on behalf of the creditor to collect the debt and they have filed a complaint for judgment against your husband. If he does not file an answer to the complaint with your local court, a default judgment will most likely be granted, and he runs the risk of having his wages garnished, and this judgment will appear on his credit report indefinitely until it is satisfied.
I am going through this process now, and it sounds like the collector/attorney who is suing him is tacking on court fees, attorney fees and interest (interest in the event that he cannot satisfy the debt all at once and needs to make payments).
Do not ignore this, whatever you do. Your husband definitely doesn't want a default judgment. I didn't feel confident enough to file an answer and then deal with the discovery request and interrogatories that followed, but could not afford an attorney either, so I used a legal advice firm who charges a super reduced rate and uses an attorney in the state the client resides, so they will know local laws and can draw up the documents accordingly.
This would be a good option if you are not sure what you are supposed to do.
Just because your husband received a summons does not mean that a court date will get set. The judge/Plaintiff is waiting to see how your husband responds, if at all.
When the collector/attorney filed a request for summary judgment against me after I answered everything that was filed against me, I requested a court date, so your husband could do that down the road if he wants to try and work something out. If you and your husband have funds available to try and settle the debt, you could contact the attorney/collector and try to settle and ask them to vacate the judgment.
If you want the details of the legal advice firm that I used, PM me and I'll give your their website. The small fee they charged was 100% worth it.
Do call the clerk's office and make sure this summons is for rea
Do call the clerk's office and make sure this summons is for real. If it is, make sure to answer it in a timely manner.
