Any insight on Portfolio Recovery - filing with no action
Date: Fri, 01/07/2011 - 14:44
Well did I have a surprise upon doing a check of state/county records online. I found that I have another lawsuit filed against me in the same court for another credit card they allege I owe for. At first I was scared as hell, the people filing the suit against me is the infamous Porfolio Recovery Associates and I have read about some of their underhanded tactics. Unlike the other suit filed against me, this lawsuit was never served to me (found out today that they did send a sheriff out to serve the suit, at an address I haven't lived at for 10 years!!!!) and I was terrified that they had possibly gotten a default judgement. I have read that if they fail to locate the defendant via service that the court actually goes ahead with the lawsuit and then the default judgement can be had, even though it usually can be vacated due to improper service once collections on the judgement (garnishments,etc) begin.
So I call up the court today and I first ask for the status of other cases filed by Portfolio, cases that surrounded mine on my online search. I was concerned that if I asked for my case first this could hurt my ability later to claim I didn't know about the suit, which is true, I didn't know until yesterday. Anyway I asked about 3 cases and all three had no record of anything happening, no action taken, since the anwser by the defendant. So then I crossed my fingers and asked for the status on my case number. I was informed that it was just sitting there and that service had been attempted and it failed. Evidently in my state/county (KY) the defendant must be served or the case cannot proceed, I am not sure if that is accurate but that is what the court clerk said.
This suit was filed back in Febuary of 2010. I asked and recieved copies of one of the other defendant anwser and his anwser was filed in March of 2010. The lawyer for Portfolio is listed as being in Norfolk VA.
Anyway, it appears that Portfolio has on file about 60 lawsuits in my county alone and of the 6 or7 I asked the status of, they had no action taken by Portfolio. A couple others were not successfully served, a few others anwsered, and one, that was filed in Dec of 2010 had been served but no anwser, they may have a default prospect there and from what I understand that can all be had by phone, they don't even have to come to court.
So what is the take of some of you folks in the know relative to these scum junk debt buyers. It seems to me that these people truly have no interest in pursuing these cases if the defendant simply files an anwser. It cost them almost $200 to file the suit against me and I assume the others as well.
All my file had was a generic sheet of paper with alleged balances and an account number, and some written text about how they have a right to collect this debt, yadda, yadda, typical junk debt collector crap.. This was labeled as excibit A. Wait till you get a load of what they filed with excibit B. Actually this was more than the other junk debt buyer suing me presented in their complaint.
My file and the fellow whose response I got copies of out of his file were pretty much the same except he was being sued for about 2k more than me, they were wanting about 5.5k from him. There was one other thing in my file that wasn't in his. It was marked EX B and it was a couple pages that I skimed through about the termination of the NAF Arbitration Forum. I have read about the way arbitration was once a big weapon for the junk debt people but now it is been castrated..lol.
Any insight on this would be appreciated. For your information, this account they claim I owe was once held by the dead and unlamented Mann Bracken and they had actually sent me a letter a while back, I will post when this was when I locate the letter, I have it saved somewhere, saying that they were intending to arbitrate. But the account also had Porfolio on there, Mann Bracken and Portfolio were double teaming me I think. I might have lucked out on the arbitration thing, it might have been abolished before they took me through it, and then Mann Bracken went belly up.
Are these scum suckers actually able to recoup their losses from suits that don't go in their favor as a default. It just blows my mind that they just have evidently up and basically forgot that they ever filed these lawsuits that are just sitting on file with the court.
I am planning on anwsering the suit, even though nothing has happened since they filed it and failed to serve me, almost a year has passed. I am basically just going through with the template provided by the fellow's lawyer whose file I reviewed today and whose case has not went forward since. I suppose I could just let it sit there and not anwser it and it be the same result, however I did make copies and with the reciept I got back it did have the file number. Yet the court worker was careful to tell me not to open the envelope that had been returned by the sheriiff as that was the proof that I have not been served. I still don't think that proper service has been made to me. Do you all suppose I should mention somewhere in the anwser that they served it upon the wrong address or otherwise explain why my response is so far after it was filed. If how I found out about it comes up I will not tell them it was while searching another case, don't suppose that would look good, I will probably say I saw it on my credit report, or just not mention it. I will probably just mention that the address they served the suit on was an address I had not lived at for 10 years.
I should still anwser this right?? I mean it is obvious to me that these people are almost a joke in their conduct. Shouldn't the court bring the issue up with them and tell them to stop filing lawsuits unless they are going to actually pursue them to court, they are obviously gaming the system looking for easy defaults. Bizarre, they have almost 60 cases on file in just my county, none of which appear to be going anywhere after an anwser and/or lack of service.
Seems like they have alot of money to burn. I will try to add any other details I can provide to those interested. I was quite interested in what some of you might think of them actually filing paperwork with the court about the arbitration thing.
So I call up the court today and I first ask for the status of other cases filed by Portfolio, cases that surrounded mine on my online search. I was concerned that if I asked for my case first this could hurt my ability later to claim I didn't know about the suit, which is true, I didn't know until yesterday. Anyway I asked about 3 cases and all three had no record of anything happening, no action taken, since the anwser by the defendant. So then I crossed my fingers and asked for the status on my case number. I was informed that it was just sitting there and that service had been attempted and it failed. Evidently in my state/county (KY) the defendant must be served or the case cannot proceed, I am not sure if that is accurate but that is what the court clerk said.
This suit was filed back in Febuary of 2010. I asked and recieved copies of one of the other defendant anwser and his anwser was filed in March of 2010. The lawyer for Portfolio is listed as being in Norfolk VA.
Anyway, it appears that Portfolio has on file about 60 lawsuits in my county alone and of the 6 or7 I asked the status of, they had no action taken by Portfolio. A couple others were not successfully served, a few others anwsered, and one, that was filed in Dec of 2010 had been served but no anwser, they may have a default prospect there and from what I understand that can all be had by phone, they don't even have to come to court.
So what is the take of some of you folks in the know relative to these scum junk debt buyers. It seems to me that these people truly have no interest in pursuing these cases if the defendant simply files an anwser. It cost them almost $200 to file the suit against me and I assume the others as well.
All my file had was a generic sheet of paper with alleged balances and an account number, and some written text about how they have a right to collect this debt, yadda, yadda, typical junk debt collector crap.. This was labeled as excibit A. Wait till you get a load of what they filed with excibit B. Actually this was more than the other junk debt buyer suing me presented in their complaint.
My file and the fellow whose response I got copies of out of his file were pretty much the same except he was being sued for about 2k more than me, they were wanting about 5.5k from him. There was one other thing in my file that wasn't in his. It was marked EX B and it was a couple pages that I skimed through about the termination of the NAF Arbitration Forum. I have read about the way arbitration was once a big weapon for the junk debt people but now it is been castrated..lol.
Any insight on this would be appreciated. For your information, this account they claim I owe was once held by the dead and unlamented Mann Bracken and they had actually sent me a letter a while back, I will post when this was when I locate the letter, I have it saved somewhere, saying that they were intending to arbitrate. But the account also had Porfolio on there, Mann Bracken and Portfolio were double teaming me I think. I might have lucked out on the arbitration thing, it might have been abolished before they took me through it, and then Mann Bracken went belly up.
Are these scum suckers actually able to recoup their losses from suits that don't go in their favor as a default. It just blows my mind that they just have evidently up and basically forgot that they ever filed these lawsuits that are just sitting on file with the court.
I am planning on anwsering the suit, even though nothing has happened since they filed it and failed to serve me, almost a year has passed. I am basically just going through with the template provided by the fellow's lawyer whose file I reviewed today and whose case has not went forward since. I suppose I could just let it sit there and not anwser it and it be the same result, however I did make copies and with the reciept I got back it did have the file number. Yet the court worker was careful to tell me not to open the envelope that had been returned by the sheriiff as that was the proof that I have not been served. I still don't think that proper service has been made to me. Do you all suppose I should mention somewhere in the anwser that they served it upon the wrong address or otherwise explain why my response is so far after it was filed. If how I found out about it comes up I will not tell them it was while searching another case, don't suppose that would look good, I will probably say I saw it on my credit report, or just not mention it. I will probably just mention that the address they served the suit on was an address I had not lived at for 10 years.
I should still anwser this right?? I mean it is obvious to me that these people are almost a joke in their conduct. Shouldn't the court bring the issue up with them and tell them to stop filing lawsuits unless they are going to actually pursue them to court, they are obviously gaming the system looking for easy defaults. Bizarre, they have almost 60 cases on file in just my county, none of which appear to be going anywhere after an anwser and/or lack of service.
Seems like they have alot of money to burn. I will try to add any other details I can provide to those interested. I was quite interested in what some of you might think of them actually filing paperwork with the court about the arbitration thing.
I feel that you should get legal help. Contact an experienced la
I feel that you should get legal help. Contact an experienced lawyer. He can help you in handling the issue efficiently. Yes, you should mention in your answer that the summons was sent to the wrong address.
