At my wits end over Medical Judgement

[joeyoey]

This is a long story but I'll try to keep it as short as possible.  I realized back in December that there was a Judgement (from May 2010) from an old docor bill (I assumed) on my reports - it was for $1,011 & it was only reporting to Equifax & TransUnion.  I went ahead in January & disputed it (b/c at the time I honestly didn't remember it).

TransUnion came back & deleted it (yay!).  Equifax came back & said it was verified (boo!).

So, last week I decided to try & get to the bottom of this and I called the collection agency for the hospital.  Turns out this was for an old trip to the ER in 2006.  At this point I realized it was mine & asked how I could clear it up.  She offered to settle for $500.  I gave her my cc number & asked about having it removed.  She was insistent they would mark is PIF but couldn't do that.  I figured at least the judgement is paid and I'll wait & send them a good letter in a few weeks.

Over the weekend I got to thinking and if I'm correct, a summons has to be delivered in person for a judgement, correct?  I NEVER received anything like this (I'm pretty sure I would remember a trip from the sheriff).  I'm not denying I owe the bill (I even paid the thing 8 years after the fact), but nobosy ever sent me any paperwork & they certainly never served me anything.

So, today I call the clerk of court to try & see "where" they served me this and she confirms I was "served in person", yet she doesn't know where...there are no records.  To make things more interesting, the paperwork was served to me on 3/14/2008 (the judgement on my CR says 5/1/2010).  I ended up having to call back a 2nd time with another question and the second person tells me I was served on 4/3/2008 (again, the judgement was in May 2010).  The reason I called back was if they served me with papers in 2008, shouldn't the judgement have been entered in 2008 (& coming off of my report NEXT year) instead of being entered in 2010 and coming off my report in another 3 years???  Also, these three dates (2006, 2008 & 2010) I was living at different addresses and I believe the CA had my old address the whole time.  In 2010 I was 6 counties away.

So, at this point I figure I would try calling the collection agency back to see what is going on.  According to her there IS no judgement.  Not only that, she says according to her records they never even reported it to the credit bureau(s)?!  When I was insistent that it was, she wanted me to fax her a copy of my report.

What do I do?  If I send this, it's just going to show her that it's on my report & they might add it to the other two?  Also, it seems like there's enough discrepencies that this could be disputed.  I mean, if there's ever been enough proof for something to be disputed, it's this mess.  The right hand truly doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

Sorry for the long message....& thanks (again) for any insight.

Joey

[guiness56]

Your state laws determine how a summons can be delivered.  It varies by state.

The judgment should tell you who the other party was.  Was it the hospital or a CA?

It could also be the hospital filed the judgment and after it was awarded, sold it to a CA for collections.  It happens all the time.

If you can, I would get copies of everything the courts have on file for the judgment.  It doesn't seem correct for them to say it was served in person but have no record of it.  All documents should become permanent records and part of the file.

If the judgment is paid the easist thing may be to just have it vacated.  Look into your state laws about vacating a paid judgment.  Some will some won't.  If they do not, send a GW letter to the courts asking for it to be removed/vacated.

The CA was correct.  They cannot have it removed, only a judge can do that.