stipulation

Read It! Same thing happend to me a few months ago. After I agreed to settlement of the account in full with CA and I made them send me a letter stating that the account was settled in full. With that letter they also sent me a stipulation upon default document to sign and return. Long story short...I signed it and returned it to them, as they said they they needed it to file with the court so that they can dissmiss the case with the court. They even told me that I didn't need to show up in court for the appearance date that they were going to take care of it. They didn't. Turns out the stipulation that I signed and returned, voided all prior agreements made with them regarding settlement for the debt. They use very tricky words. So even though they got thier money... Default Judgement for the plaintiff for full amount of claim.

So my advice is be careful and read stipulation carefully. Make sure the case gets dismissed with the court or better yet show up on the court date anyways to make sure.

There is no court date yet, i got a summons which said i had 30 days to answer so i called the lawyer and they set up payments, said i have to sign a stipulation and first payment is due February to send them a check