I had Capital One serve me without attaching the contract or provide credit card statements. They did, however, come up with an Affidavit.

I filed a Motion to Dismiss case with success and they received 30 days to comply. This meant that they had 60 days to come up with the contract.

Before the 60 days were up they filed every single credit card statement I had with Capital One and a customer agreement. I flipped the customer agreement over and noticed the copyright was from 2005. I did not have an account open with them in 2005 so I filed a Motion to Strike the agreement as it was irrelevant and I won that case.

So, credit card statements and a customer agreement are important. Flip them over and check the copyright dates.

If a collection agency or junk debt buyer is suing you and they have attached credit card statements, take a look at the statements. Are they fabricated? Do these statements have the original creditor and your account number listed on them? Are these statements the original statements or copies of the original statements from the original creditor?

Junk debt buyers like to fabricate their “own statements” so be aware.

If they are copies straight from the original creditor, that’s not good for you. However, they would still have to prove that they are the real party in interest. They are going to have to prove that they have purchased your debt from the original creditor. This would be the chain of assignment or assignment.

Just having credit card statements is not good enough as I have said. Capital One came up with all of my statements and I still won that case because of the error on the customer agreement. The customer agreement governs your entire account; it is what you agreed to before you opened the account and you must be able to see exactly what you agreed to especially when being sued. You need that customer agreement and you need that agreement to coincide with the year you had the account open with the original creditor.

They will have to prove to you and the court that they own the debt as well as present the real assignment and not some sheet of paper that is made up from their company. The assignment would be straight from the original creditor who signed this debt over and this would be signed by the original creditor as well.

They will, depending on your court rules, have to produce the customer agreement that has the copyright from the year that you had an account open with the original creditor and the contract.

So, just because the agency has credit card statements doesn’t mean you should give up. They have a lot of work to do to present real proof. Just answer your Summons to avoid the default judgment and press them for the rest of the documents at trial or during discovery.

The older the credit card debt, the harder it is to prove. If this account is only a few years old, they will still have to prove that they can legally collect that debt.

No matter what, answer your Summons. You never know, just by answering they might just go away.

Additional Information

• Rebecca

  “I received a summons on July 31 from a supposed law firm hired by Capital One. Since July 31 was a Saturday, on Monday I sent off a certified return receipt requested to this law firm and requested validation of the debt. They responded with sending me about 10 copies of credit card statements. I called the court office, said I was coming and waited. Today was the hearing. I showed up and found out the case had been withdrawn.”