Being sued by your original creditor can be extremely intimidating. As they are usually a big national or even international company, you assume they will be able to wipe the floor with you in court. However, this may not be the case; they may not have the necessary documentation to prove the debt.

Capital One sued me in Indiana and didn’t attach anything but an affidavit that didn’t even have an account number listed on it. Yet they maintain that this is my account. I wasn’t going to let them get away so easily.

I figured I had nothing to lose and filed for a motion to dismiss the case for failure to comply with my court rule (not attaching the contract).

Again, I knew I wasn’t likely to get that but I was basically toying with them to see what they had on me. The case was dismissed without prejudice until I received, within 30 days, an amended complaint. Now every single credit card statement was attached to the newly amended complaint along with an affidavit from someone who works for Capital One.

I really believed that I didn’t have a hope. In spite of that, I didn’t give up and filed a motion to strike the affidavit because it didn’t even list my account number on it. It also had an address from when I lived in Illinois so I claimed statute of limitations among other things.

Well, the judge set this for hearing. On the day, Capital One’s lawyer showed up and pulled me into a room and basically told me that I needed to settle because I was going to lose at the hearing. I refused and told them that what they did was wrong; their affidavit was incorrect, and I also wanted to see what the judge had to say. He kept telling me I was wrong and that I needed to settle this before the hearing but I was firm and told him I didn’t have to do anything.

The judge said that they filed their amended pleading incorrectly and needed to re-file it the right way and then he would rule on my motion to dismiss and motion to strike.

I waited the 30 days they were given and guess what? No amended pleading was submitted by them so the judge granted my motion to dismiss and motion to strike the affidavit and I won the case.

The moral of the story is that if you have time on your hands, why not see what they have on you? Not every lawyer does everything correctly. The word out there on the Internet is that Capital One has their stuff together when it comes down to a lawsuit. Not in this case.

If they had every single credit card statement and an affidavit, why didn’t they just correct their complaint? They were looking for an easy settlement. They knew I was going to fight them until the end and well, they just gave up and moved onto the next easy default judgment because they couldn’t get it from me.

It’s true that when I was sued, I thought I was in big trouble but I wanted to see what they really had on me and how far I could take it before settling. It worked out even better than I could have hoped.

How I beat Capital One in court

Additional Information

• Mark

  “Capital One is sueing me for past credit charges. They have sent me “request for admissions to defendent paperwork plus copies of past billing statements. Is there any loopholes to get out of this? Their late fees and interest rates were ridiculous and told them I had been out of work for two yrs. Lost everything! PLEASE HELP anyone! Mark in Seattle”




• HelpMeAgainstCapitalOne

  “Thank you so much for this service!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  I am a late 30’s entrepreneur that has owned 3 businesses in the last 10 years. Coming from nothing to begin with, over the years I had been forced to use credit cards to keep by business running into the next month. For 10 years I was able to do so, never late on payments, never in default. Then one day, my interest rates went through the roof and it almost put me out of business. The credit card companies reason was not that I was late or in default, but that I was using too much of my available credit, even though my fico was 700. At this point my only option was to default on payments and try and settle once cash flow improved. That was 18 months ago, June 2008, and the economy has made cash flow improvements nonexistent. So, settling the debts is not an option. I then found http://www.howtoanswerasummons.com and can I say this is the most valuable resource out there.

  I do have a couple of questions that I have not found details on.

  1) After being served, I answered the summons, submitted discovery, a motion to strike the affidavit of debt, and sworn denial. I did not hear anything from the court and then I got a “Notice of Mediation” from the collection attorneys. I called the plaintiff and said the date would not work and that I understood, that we had to choose a mediator jointly(mediation is required by local court). Since the plaintiff did not answer the discovery and my follow up letters requesting timely discover, I sent plaintiff and the court a “motion to compel discovery” and “motion to deem admitted”. Since this time 2 weeks ago, I have not seen anything from the court or plaintiff. What is the next step? File a Motion to Dismiss?

  2) If I’m able to get the case dismissed, can I submit the court’s dismissal to the credit reporting agencies(Experian) to have the item removed from my credit report? Will they remove the original creditor as well as any reporting from the collection agency/attorneys?

  3) Is it possible or even a good idea to ask the court to award court costs to the defendant if I win? Or is this just a waste of time, or worse yet, is this picking a fight with the collector?

  Thanks again for this valuable information. I will post again soon as things progress.
  Cullen”




• CC

  “I received a summons from a junk debt buyer collection agency three years ago. I also filed a response and request for discovery. Neither Cap One or the collection agency ever supplied the requested documents. I was eventually assigned an arbitration date. I showed up and the attorney/mediator told me Cap One’s attorneys dismissed the case. I sent the dismissal without prejudice document (I had to go to the court to obtain a copy as Cap One never provided this to me either) to all three credit agencies to request the item be removed from my credit reports. None complied – all stated they investigated the debt and Cap One verified it. Yet I never received anything from Cap One or the collection agency when I disputed the debt. Any suggestions on what I should do now?”




• Alicia

  “The same thing happened to me. I responded to all the papers that they sent and made motions to compel discovery, they never sent the statements to me, so i went into arbitration and won. Advise, Don’t let them win by ignoring the matter, fight them till the end!”




• Gina

  “Do you know how to proceed, when a judgment has been filed against you about 15 years old to date, and as been granted to the new buyer by default. I never knew I had these judgements, until I received notice they wanted title of my car submitted to motor vechicles.

  I have 2 judgements I found filed with the court, is there anyway to proceed now, to challenge them, not sure where to begin.
  
  thank you”




• Steven

  “Hi,
  I ran across this website today, and i had a question.. i live in Missouri and if i have been served, and contacted the Junk debt buyer (originally a capitoal one card) before i even got served and setup a payment plan and signed thier stupid little paper admitting that im the person that they are trying to sue, and have started making monthly payments on some OUTRAGEOUS amount that is MUCH higher then my capital one credit card was for. Would i still be able to use this product? would i be served again if i stopped paying them, and then go through this process or would they be able to go ahead and try to freeze my bank account and garnish my wages? they also have stuck a judgement on my credit even though i make monthly payments to them. i would LOVE to stop paying for this crap. please let me know asap. thank you!”




• Eddie

  “I was being sued by capitol one for over 3,000 dollars I answered the complaint, filed for discovery asking for wittness names,asked for original receipts with my signature to prove I borrowed the money.They gave me no receipts claiming they did not have any, that the stores I bought the goods from from had them and they did not belong to Capitol one.The so called contract was dated 2005 while the 0ne minute acceptance certifacte was dated 1999.In no way did I sign something in 1999 dated 2005.Capitol one Laywers ended up filing for a dismissal.They have one year to sue me again we will have to wait and see.”

  
  

  Admin

  “Yes, this is what happened to me as well. The card was opened in 2002 and defaulted in 2003 yet they attached a 2005 agreement which was an agreement 3 years later and that did not apply to me. I filed my Motion to Strike Credit Card Agreement which was granted. Meanwhile, the lawyer before the court hearing brought me in a room and stated: “A Credit Card Agreement is a Credit Card Agreement you will lose, this makes no sense. All of our Credit Card Agreements are the same.” I told him to let the judge decide that one. You see, they try to intimidate you and scare you where I was just like, look I’m already here at the courthouse and my hearing is scheduled in a few minutes I want the judge to tell me that a credit card agreement is a credit card agreement not some idiot attorney looking for a commission.
  
  Why do they get a year to re-file? That’s seems long.”




• Thomas mowatt

  “Hey there this site is great, today I went to court dressed up, little tried from staying up all night reading your posts and just bye following your post I was able to get my case dismissed from court by the attorney for capital one saved myself $ 1,998,56 just bye reading your post, and your were 1000% right my court call was not till 1:30pm but I got there early and watched just like you said case by case Won by default and the people that did approach the bench just took the payment plan just like the attorney wanted, now I was a little scared because this could have went wrong if they had the signed contract but they didn’t and the attorney tried to intimidate me but I said where’s the signed contract and with that he said well the paper works in. My car and I said I have all day I will wait so he said come with me out to my car on the walk out I said you won all those suits by default judgments and I pushed a little more I said just come up with the contract with my signature and he stared about the affidavit and I told him “that’s not worth the paper it’s written on.
  
  When he opened up his trunk and found my paper work he filled out the dismissal sheet and I made him go back in so that I had the written proof right from the judge it was great when I first when up to him and asked about. The file for me he looked and said I didn’t know there was counsel on this case and I smiled because I looked the part … Thanks very much and I will be purchasing your information The best information I have ever got for free”




• Year Zero

  “I have recently received a summons from Cap One and am planning on denying all allegations until they provide proof of a signed contract. Weltman, Weinberg & Reis are listed as the attorneys for this complaint. Through much research i found that they can play rather dirty at times. Question 1. Is it likely that they will come up with the contract? (I honestly don’t remember signing one) Question 2. Is there an affirmative defense I can present that will compel them to show proof they have been contracted by Cap One to pursue this complaint. Any help would be appreciated.”




• celodea

  “It is my understanding that Cap One does not have to produce the signed Contract. The card Agreement they included in mine was dated 2005 also, and my card was opened in 2002. But I thought we didn’t want them to know we had a card or that it was our debt? How do you get around this? I want to pick apart their Affidavit. Does anyone have the Rules I can use to dothis? My trial is in 1 day. thanks.”




• Dan Says

  “Unfortunatly I too was screwed by Capitol One before I knew about how to contest a debt and/or validating a debt collector. I received a resulting defalt judgement- but after looking over the creditors court papers, I noticed a “Lost Original Document” paper stating “The original document was lost(credit card application/contract). Is this something I possibly could use to file the “Motion To Vacate” action at the court? Thanks.”




• Dan

  “I filed a motion to dismiss and the court granted it without prejudice. The court gave them 20 days to comply with court rule 9.2. It has been almost 30 days and I have heard nothing. As long as they mean regular days and not business days then they are late. Right? I am only one day away from it being 20 business days. So should I file a motion to dismiss with Prejudice because the Plaintiff failed to obey the Court order and comply with Rial Rule 9.2? Or do I just wait?
  
  Thanks in advance for your help”