court summons for debt collection

QUESTION:
I had a summons left by someone from the court in my PMB box. I was told by the owners the person watched them put in in my PMB. The debt is for a PC my wife bought about 6 years ago. She handles the bills, and I thought it had been paid off. The summons states the last payment was 12/31/03. I never got the summons until Jan 2, 2008. The original balance was $935.35, but they added on interest which brings the total to $1,570.10. The summons is for a pre trial before a judge, but the plaintiff is going to talk by phone. Do I have any options? What should I expect? I guess if this fell under Statute of Limitations, the court wouldn't have issued the summons....right?

ANSWER: Your guess is dead wrong. Even if the debt were 100 years old the court would probably still issue a summons upon demand of the plaintiff. The defendant has to complain that the debt is beyond the statute of limitations and therefore the court can't grant relief to the plaintiff. If the defendant does not properly respond and defend the plaintiff will get his judgment and the defense can't be used once the judgment has been entered. So what state do you live in?


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QUESTION: I had just moved to Florida when this happened. My wife was still living in Ohio when she ordered the PC from Dell. She ordered it online. I hadn't been here too long, but I did have a FL drivers licence, a apartment, and a job.

I checked the FL statute of limitations law, and it looks like this would fall under the 4 year section. I was wrong about when the last payment was received. The date I stated in my original question was 12/31/03. That was the delinquency date, the last received payment was 11/15/03.

So should I show up, and argue that I truthfully had no idea this had happened, and that I feel this falls under the statute of limitation laws?

Thank You very much. I have to appear on 1/31/08.

ANSWER: No, you can't just show up and argue that you had no idea that the situation had happened and if it is out of stat you need to file a proper response with the court. Courts work on rules of procedure and sometimes rules of evidence so if you don't do things according to the rules they may totally ignore anything you say. They often do just that. They want you to hire a lawyer who will probably charge you a high price and do little or nothing for you. Most won't even take your case because you either don't have enough money to suit them or they don't know of any way to beat the case or both.
That's why I started creditwrench several years ago and we get more and more effective all the time.

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QUESTION: What are my options then? So far everything seems hopeless.
Answer: Why would you think it is hopeless? It appears that you may have an unbeatable defense if you learn how to present it properly. If you don't prepare your defense properly the plaintiff will prevail and the court will issue a judgment. So all you have to do is learn how to prepare a proper defense and you win. Why is that "hopeless"? Several years ago I had a
lawyer from Tulsa, Oklahoma file a case against me on a Providian credit card. The case was also out of stat for Oklahoma. I prepared my defense and presented it to the court and the lawyer couldn't get to Oklahoma City fast enough to dismiss the case. If I had known what I know now I would have then filed a federal case against the attorney for misrepresenting the legal status of the debt. I would also have filed my response demanding that it be dismissed with prejudice. I now have another collection agency attempting to collect the debt that was out of stat more than 5 years ago. I begged them to file a lawsuit several times and they have verbally admitted they won't do it because they know who I am and what I do. They know exactly what I will do to them if they even so much as pull an inquiry on my credit report. They call once in a while and we chat about my web sites or my answers here on allexperts or whatever but it is all very friendly. They know they can't collect a crying dime so they aren't going to take any chances with me. You can easily take advantage of what I have learned over the years. They have already violated federal law so after you win in local court you can also file a case against them in federal court. Then they can end up paying you instead of the other way around. You force them to take it off your credit reports when you get to the Rule 26(f) meeting and they want to settle rather than go to court. A major problem we have today and have had for tens of decades is that people are afraid to learn how to go to court and fight. They run for the bankruptcy courts and end up with far worse treatment than they would have if they had done the right thing and learned how to fight back. Or they simply ignore the situation hoping it will go away. In the meantime, these scavengers go to our courts where they use up our tax dollars to further their ends. If everybody would only learn how to fight back and do it the burden on our court system would be so great that the courts simply could not continue to accept every debt collection case that comes along. The standards required to file such cases would soon become much tighter and out of stat cases simply would never see the light of day. So don't think it is hopeless when all you have to do is visit my web site at http://www.creditwrench.com and make one simple phone call and you are on your way to winning. So what will you do? Lose because you thought it was hopeless?