Love, Beal & Nixon Just Served With Summons, HELP!Oklahoma City Oklahoma
Was just served with a summons that was Dated on May 4, 20007 and served today on August 29th, 2007 to my daugther for a Capital One Credit Card. Love, Beal & Nixon has contacted me at home, work and cell phone. They have even told me what was on my credit report. Can they do this? What are my rights? I told them I would make payments, but they said that I had to pay the full amount. I cannot afford that. The credit card was only for 500.00 and with the finance charges and late fees that Caital One Charged me it is 880.14 plus 246.16 in finace charges according to this summons. Can someone please tell me what to do and what lawyer I can contact. I have not ussed this card since 2002. Please help.
Katie
Sapulpa, Oklahoma
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Tim
Valparaiso,Indiana,
U.S.A.
Advice
#2Consumer Suggestion
Fri, August 31, 2007
Of course, your best option is to get yourself an attorney. Not knowing your area, I wouldn't know who to contact. You can try contacting your local bar association for some help.
But here are a few pointers/things to consider:
First: the summons was issued in May, and served just recently. The summons itself probably states how long it is valid for. See if they served it after it was no longer valid (although this is a long shot).
Second: when is your court date? There are rules regarding how much time a person needs to be notified of a pending court proceeding before such proceeding is scheduled. Maybe the summons was served too late. In either of these two events, you can seek to have the summons quashed, but this will only delay matters in the long run.
Third: calling cell phones, calling workplaces, and accessing credit reports are governed by pretty strict rules. There's probably no problem with them accessing your credit report. The cell phone calls could be a TCPA violation if they used an auto-dialer. Calling your workplace likely IS a FDCPA violation if they already knew how to get in contact with you at home.
So you may have a couple of claims against them. I'm assuming you're in small claims. You may want to do a bit of research into the FDCPA and the TCPA, and see if it looks like they violated these laws. If is appears as such, you can file a counter-claim against them for these violations. You could potentially have claims against THEM that exceed the amount of money they are trying to get out of YOU.
In the least, this gives you a great deal of leverage. Not only are they not going to want to be on the hook for TCPA and FDCPA violations, but they are also not going to want to expend hours of lawyer-time in defending against such claims.
To file such counter-claims, if you feel that they are appropriate, just draft a letter detailing your claims, point to the specific laws that were violated and how they were violated, reference the original case number, and entitle your letter "Defendant's Counter-Claims Against Plaintiff" make three copies, take them down to the clerk's office, and ask them what to do from there.
But again, your best bet is to hire a local attorney.
Best regards!