Jefferson Capital

[bravesfan]

I was served by Jefferson Capital today via a County Police Officer. I don't see anything regarding a court date and he simply read a statement from the paper. I don't know how to proceed from here or if I have any options. It is from 2022 and roughly around $2500 of which I don't have. I know some of these JDB purchase old/bad debt.

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Flyingifr]

What State do you live in, and when was the last payment made on that debt would be the first two questions I would ask.

[bravesfan]

GA. It would be around 2023 when the last payment was made.

[Flyingifr]

19 hours ago, bravesfan said:

GA. It would be around 2023 when the last payment was made.

The SOL in GA is 4 years, so you still have another year-plus to go, so SOL will not be a defense. 

 

HOWEVER, you can make it more costly to sue you than they are willing to invest. File an Answer denying  every allegation. Then start Discovery demanding proof of every penny claimed. Since you are dealing with a Junk Debt Buyer they probably will not have it, nor will they be able to get it from the Original Creditor (OC). They might raise the defense there of "Account Stated" meaning that since you did not dispute the claim until you were sued, the fact that the OC sent you bills and you did not object to them proves the validity of the debt.

 

You would object to that because whether you disputed the debt with the OC  or not is not a fact that the JDB's attorney or anyone at the JDB would have first hand knowledge of, only an officer at the OC would, and assuming something does not make it a fact. 

 

The next problem the JDB will have involves a concept called "standing", or having a right to sue you as a holder in Due Course as the creditor. To have "standing" they will have to provide what is called a "chain of custody" which works like this:

 

OC sells the debt to JDB "A". The Bill of Sale has to specify exactly what debts are being sold, not just say "a pile of accounts" or "see attached" where nothing was attached. The normal way this is done is a spreadsheet which lists the OC's debtors names, addresses, account numbers with the OC and amounts owed, but gives no other details. They have to specifically be able to point to your account on that spreadsheet, and the spreadsheet file they give you must be an original document verified by an officer of the OC with a wet signature and dated concurrent to the date of the sale of the accounts. Otherwise, what is to stop the JDB from simply taking a spreadsheet in its digital state and simply adding your information to it? Only an officer of the OC can testify as to the accuracy of the account list the JDB produces in Court. Sound complicated? It is.

 

Now, past due accounts are often sold from JDB "A" to JDB "B" and then to JDB "C" and each of these transfers must follow the same Chain of Custody rules as I outlined above, and its veracity has to be attested to by an officer of each JDB.

 

When my consumer credit website was active we called this "Burying the Plaintiff in Discovery".