topic Re: Sued for a debt that’s been paid in full. in Rebuilding Your Credit

Sued for a debt that’s been paid in full.

Texas5boys — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:47:07 GMT

Need some advice, or moral support I guess lol. About a year ago, I signed up for a Debt Management plan, and included my Target card. Target agreed to the plan, all payments were made on time, and about a month ago, I was able to pay the debt in full.
a few months into the plan, I noticed Target was charging me late fees, and marking my payments as late. I contacted the debt management company, who contacted Target, and they said they had made an error and immediately refunded late fees, and brought my account up to date.

fast forward to a couple weeks ago. I am served with a lawsuit from Target for non payment of this now paid off debt by Rausch & Sturm. Clearly they never pulled this back from collections. Also this was first contact from R&S, never received a collection letter from them before this.
Obviously I responded to this through the courts, providing the print out of all payments and the final payment paying it in full. I received a letter from Target after that, saying they acknowledged their error and corrected the late payments ect ect.

i received a letter from the court today with a court date. 🙄 I cannot get a hold of anyone at Rausch & Sturm. I forwarded them my response to the court by email, and now the letter from Target.

So what are the chances of getting Rausch & Sturm to dismiss the case? Court is in a couple months, and obviously I'll show up if it isn't dismissed before that, but what a pain. Anything else I can do?

Re: Sued for a debt that’s been paid in full.

FicoMike0 — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 17:53:01 GMT

Do r&s claim to represent target?

Re: Sued for a debt that’s been paid in full.

pizzadude — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 18:57:30 GMT

Definitely show up to court unless you have confirmation from them that the case is dismissed.

You could also try sending a certified snail mail letter to the law firm with your documentation regarding having already paid.

Re: Sued for a debt that’s been paid in full.

RobertS2 — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 23:12:49 GMT

It's probably just bureaucracic inertia. Hopefully you can get in touch with a person before then, but if it comes to it, explaining this to the judge should be enough.

Re: Sued for a debt that’s been paid in full.

FicoMike0 — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 23:56:58 GMT

How bigga boy is this Rausch & Sturm?

Maybe you can counter sue for abuse of process or something.

Re: Sued for a debt that’s been paid in full.

AndrewF — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 22:22:18 GMT

@pizzadude wrote:
Definitely show up to court unless you have confirmation from them that the case is dismissed.

You could also try sending a certified snail mail letter to the law firm with your documentation regarding having already paid.

Agree completely. Debt mills sue people like a blunderbuss.

They being in thousands of lawsuits at a time and are often not prepared for anyone to respond because most people respond to bad news by pretending it's not happening, but it is.

And so if you don't show up, the judge will likely rubber stamp whatever they say about you and enter a default judgement and then they can go take it from you again even though you already paid.

Come to court with proof you paid this account.

Re: Sued for a debt that’s been paid in full.

FicoMike0 — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 22:42:32 GMT

Also bring to court proof they knew you paid it.

Re: Sued for a debt that’s been paid in full.

MichaelMyer — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 09:45:16 GMT

You need your own lawyer. This is an adversarial process. The lawyer for the plaintiff isn't interested in helping you. Their job is to get money from you.

I was sued by a debt collector last year and won because my lawyer was able to show the plaintiff didn't have the authority to collect in the first place. Only cost me $700. 🙂

Re: Sued for a debt that’s been paid in full.

creditshmedit — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:27:30 GMT

hey! that is pretty amazing. Congrats on that.. do you mind sharing how they did that? what did they claim to prove the plaintiff did not have authority to collect the debt? Would really appreciate any info to research that approach a bit more... thank you in advance!

Re: Sued for a debt that’s been paid in full.

Thomas_Thumb — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 14:23:58 GMT

You have documentation. Show up in court if not dropped/dismissed. As mentioned above send a letter by registered mail with signed delivery receipt required.

Hiring a lawyer at this time seems excessive. First step is no send documentation by certified mail.