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@bass_playr wrote:Just my personal curiosity, but I would be surprised if they had a legitimate chain of title showing that they were duly authorized to collect on that debt. These debt collectors usually walk into court with, at most, a generic bill of sale that does not list out any specific accounts, and they expect you to take their word for it that they have the proper legal right to collect. The courts, too, will usually not question anything there unless you do.
Personally, I've seen where PRA sued someone, and brought a generic bill of sale for a "certain portfolio of accounts". Then, they had a separate page, with no header on it, no anything, aside from some basic account info for the defendant's account. It was completely separate and something you could have typed up that morning before walking in the courthouse. That one thing right there is what lost PRA's case for them. The defendant challenged their claim of having standing. The court agreed that a "certain portfolio of accounts" does not in any way mean that this one specific account was included within it. Also, the court agreed with the defendant's objection to their typewritten separate page, and said the same thing I did---that anyone can type up a simple list of purported account information. Defendant won on motion to dismiss for lack of standing and that was about 4 years ago....they never refiled.
Unless they have really tightened things up over there, if they brought suitable proof of standing in your case, I would be shocked. And I suspect that they wanted to draw out the settlement to 27 months for two reasons---one, they get more money because that's extra interest. And two, if they can trip you up or youend up defaulting on your own, they get an automatic judgment--and you lose. You would think that they would want their money sooner, but they actually go the opposite way--more money is better even if they have to wait for it. At least, in a case like yours it is, where you are employed and they can always just garnish wages again to get their $$$. Glad you were able to work it out to your satisfaction.
While im ikesure there are cases like what you described, as stated above, in both cases, 15 years apart, they were well prepared with copies of multiple statements among other paperwork showing everything including totals in detail.
No, I get that, but statements alone are not enough. Statements only show that there was an account with your name on it. They don't show that PRA had any authority over that specific account. Statements came from the original creditor. They do not prove anything else.
For information, whenever I've had to deal with a debt collector, there were three pieces of information that I would always push for:
1--prove that the account actually exists and that I'm responsible for any balance owed.
2--prove the amount you claim is owed.
3--prove that you have the legal authority to collect on it, either by ownership or by assignment.
Without those three things, I refuse to pay any debt collector anything. It's not that I advocate skipping out on debts that you know are yours. It's that i've been personally contacted by two debt collectors--Midland and PRA being the two--who tried to intimidate me into paying debts...as it turned out, neither of those debts was even legitimate. PRA tried to get me to pay a very old bill for an address that I lived at, at one time....and they had statements too...but the statements were not for the period of time that I lived there. I was able to shut them both down because I demanded proof that they had any business even trying to collect these debts. They did not have any.
I am going through this right now. Got served a week ago for an old debt. Not sure how old but at least 3 years. I have contacted an attorney and hoping for the best.
Are you allowed to pay the balance off sooner, like in 6 months?
@Anonymous I just asked them that the other day and their attorney said yes so I'm going to start sending larger payments.