Just wanted to update this since it's been a while, I actually have court in the morning about this case, and I know a lot more now than I did when I initially posted. First of all, I was wrong about this being the debt I had received the letter about a while back. Dug that out of my filing cabinet, it was a completely different deal having to do with a medical debt.
This lawsuit i'm not even sure is actually mine. To be clear, it might be. I had several charge-offs a few years ago as a result of going in to debt foolishly to try to take care of a former fiancé's child with a rare genetic disorder. Traveling around to different doctors, paying for food and gas, that sort of thing. The thing is that some of my credit cards were sold from one company to another more than once and I changed residences three times at one point within six months. Settled with some folks I owed were willing to work with me, but didn't know anything about this one until I was served with papers on 13 January. Couple that with the fact that I had an identity theft situation a couple of years back, and so I'm basically refusing to pay this until they validate it to my satisfaction, while also showing that my only income is SSDI disability that is ungarnishable and arguing that – if I do pay, assuming they can validate – it will have to be in small monthly increments over a longer amount of time.
I'm also counter suing for the $1000 penalty for them violating my rights under the FDCPA by not sending me a Dunning notice. I don't care about the $$$, but I want a bargaining chip to use at settlement, and they did violate the law.
A question for anybody who has been to court over something like this: what can I expect in the initial court appearance in magistrate court tomorrow morning? Is this just going to be a status hearing or do I need to be ready to argue my case or what?
