Our Collection Agency sold our account and didn't credit us the $1220 we'd paid.

First off what state are you in? If Dominion is not an attorney in your state, they cannot act as an attorney and they can't threaten to take legal action.


Mann Bracken went bankrupt and they have been causing a lot of problems for people. There are a lot of lawsuits filed by them and other collectors are trying to take over for them and any accounts they held they are trying to sell off....I think it is actually illegal for them to sell the accounts since they filed for bankruptcy.

I HIGHLY reccomend going to budhibbs.com and on the home page, a little ways down on the left, you will see Bud Hibbs E-Mail Address......send him an E-Mail with what is going on and I am sure he might be able to help..

Lastly, you said you got a letter from Dominion in January, I take it you did not send a debt validation letter,,,,since you didn't they can file a lawsuit after 30 days of that letter. The problem is if they said they will sue and don't, that is against the FDCPA and you can sue them.

Was your payment arrangement in writing? Unless you have it in writing they can claim pretty much anything they want. You would need to at least get copies of all payments made on this account to send to Dominion to prove these payments.

It is true that you are out of the 30 day window for DV...BUT it can't hurt to try anyhow..especially how you were treated thusfar on this account. You could send Dominion a letter demanding that they prove you owe this money and that they are legally able to charge this interested they mentioned. You can also mention the payments made on the account to date (include the copies of payments with private info removed). You can even mention that you realize you are out of the 30 day window, but you will not pay once cent on this debt until they prove they are legally collecting upon it and that should they wish to pursue legal action, then by all means do so, that you will then demand all this information in Discovery and the judge will end up setting up a payment plan anyhow.

Just remember that even if they do sue, you can explain to the judge the history of this account and that you were making on time payments as per an agreement..then these people come at you out of the blue..of course you would want to make sure they are legally collecting! You could also point out that you were not avoiding the debt, but in fact asked for the documentation and said you would be happy to make arrangements once you got this stuff.....why would they NOT want to send this info unless they did not have it.

WOW.....talk about a debt collector screwing people.....

Alright, first things first. There is no legal way that they could have "a court date scheduled" right now. There is only one way for them to have a court date scheduled--and thats to file a complaint and sue you. And, if they did that, they would have had to have you served with a summons. And even if they had filed a suit, it is not going to happen this quickly that they would already have a court date set. They file the complaint, they are given a certain amount of time to have you served, and then you are given an amount of time in which to file your answer. Court dates do not get scheduled until someone gets the ball rolling. And since you havent been served a summons, I would go checking with the court clerk's office in the county you live in. Here's the deal--pokertramp is partially correct in that its against the FDCPA to threaten something and then not do it. But here's the difference--they didnt threaten to sue you, they said "they have scheduled a court case for us May 24", which means they are claiming that THEY ALREADY FILED SUIT. Check to see if they did, and if you dont find anything, SUE THEM for this 1.

Next, dont let the misconception fool you, they dont need to be an attorney to take legal action against you. They would retain an attorney to handle the process, but ANYONE can decide to sue someone, and then hire an attorney to handle the legal mumbo-jumbo. I dont care what anyone says on this one, we see this time and again, but the truth is this--NO LAWYER makes the decision to sue for their client in these debt collector cases. The lawyer is bound by code of ethics to DO WHAT THEIR CLIENT TELLS THEM TO DO. And that client is the debt collector. Think about it--you, as a typical citizen, can file a lawsuit yourself against an individual or a company in civil court....without an attorney....so why do people keep saying that the debt collector couldnt do the same thing???

The best thing you can do right now is to gather up all your bank records, as well as anything in writing that you received from Mann Bracken on this account. You will need those records as proof. From there, you need to speak to an attorney that can tell you about bankruptcy situations.....pokertramp may be on to something about them maybe not being able to sell the account once in bankruptcy.

I just wanted to correct one thing skydivr7673,

I am not sure how many other states are this way but in Massachusetts, a president of a corporation cannot sue in small claims court unless that person is an attorney.....Most debt collectors are corporations and none are attorneys in Massachusetts...As far as a civil docket, which is claims $2,000 and up, I am not sure, but I don't think anyone can sue unless they are an attorney but I will have to look into it.


So yes, you are correct for the most part, I just figured I would throw the Small Claims part out there.