- Report: #248148
Complaint Review: Unifund CCR Partners - Sessoms & Rogers Law Firm - Cincinnati Ohio
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Unifund CCR Partners - Sessoms & Rogers Law Firm
10625 Techwoods Circle Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.A.
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Unifund CCR Partners - Sessoms & Rogers Law Firm Collection after SOL Filed against wrong person inaccurate reporting ripoff Cincinnati Ohio
Where do I begin?
In June 2006, we received a letter from Sessoms & Rogers lawyers representing Unifund in collection of a Universal Bank credit card we had never heard of. We ran credit reports and there was no Universal Bank listed, so we filed a letter of dispute with the lawyers.
Starting in July 2006, Unifund starting reporting negatively against our credit as a collection account.
We received no response from the lawyers, but on 6 August we were served with a court filing for almost $10,000, plus $1,600 in lawyer fees. We again replied in dispute, and also asked that Unifund stop reporting against our credit. The lawsuit was dropped.
Meanwhile, Unifund continued to report the account as a collection account.
In February of 2007, Unifund and their lawyers filed again at our previous address, in a different county, 130 miles away. Our previous address was my wife's hometown. This time, they filed by certified mail instead of having the sheriff come out. A postman recognized the addressee (it's a small town) and forwarded the certified letter to my wife's mother. She signed for it (not knowing who it was from or what it was about). It got tossed aside and was not sent to us for a while.
In the meantime, a default judgment was issued - which is a neat trick since we don't live in that county. When we found out what was going on, we again disputed the action, but they pressed forward anyway and had the sheriff serve the judgment - ON MY MOTHER-IN-LAW! Turns out they had my wife's name and somehow had my mother-in-law's social security number.
So now we have gotten a lawyer involved - turns out there was an old open account, but Sessoms & Rogers has been unwilling or unable to provide many details - but we are certain the SOL has passed. When we pressed for dismissal of the action based on the wrong defendant, they refused and tried to insist that my mother-in-law is actually my wife. But they did offer a settlement offer of $2000 - quite a comedown from $10K.
So it looks like we are going to court, as apparently they intend to press through with this. I don't see how they can file an action against my wife in a jurisdiction in which she does not live. Their argument is that, since we filed a response, then we must have recieved the original filing (even though my wife never signed for it - you know, there is a box on the certified mail form to check and ONLY that person can sign for it). On the other hand, if we did not respond, they get a default judgment.
By the way, they never replied to my original dispute requesting verification...
Wow, hard to believe this goes on in America - my attorney fees are now approaching $1000.
Marvin
Albemarle, North Carolina
U.S.A.
In June 2006, we received a letter from Sessoms & Rogers lawyers representing Unifund in collection of a Universal Bank credit card we had never heard of. We ran credit reports and there was no Universal Bank listed, so we filed a letter of dispute with the lawyers.
Starting in July 2006, Unifund starting reporting negatively against our credit as a collection account.
We received no response from the lawyers, but on 6 August we were served with a court filing for almost $10,000, plus $1,600 in lawyer fees. We again replied in dispute, and also asked that Unifund stop reporting against our credit. The lawsuit was dropped.
Meanwhile, Unifund continued to report the account as a collection account.
In February of 2007, Unifund and their lawyers filed again at our previous address, in a different county, 130 miles away. Our previous address was my wife's hometown. This time, they filed by certified mail instead of having the sheriff come out. A postman recognized the addressee (it's a small town) and forwarded the certified letter to my wife's mother. She signed for it (not knowing who it was from or what it was about). It got tossed aside and was not sent to us for a while.
In the meantime, a default judgment was issued - which is a neat trick since we don't live in that county. When we found out what was going on, we again disputed the action, but they pressed forward anyway and had the sheriff serve the judgment - ON MY MOTHER-IN-LAW! Turns out they had my wife's name and somehow had my mother-in-law's social security number.
So now we have gotten a lawyer involved - turns out there was an old open account, but Sessoms & Rogers has been unwilling or unable to provide many details - but we are certain the SOL has passed. When we pressed for dismissal of the action based on the wrong defendant, they refused and tried to insist that my mother-in-law is actually my wife. But they did offer a settlement offer of $2000 - quite a comedown from $10K.
So it looks like we are going to court, as apparently they intend to press through with this. I don't see how they can file an action against my wife in a jurisdiction in which she does not live. Their argument is that, since we filed a response, then we must have recieved the original filing (even though my wife never signed for it - you know, there is a box on the certified mail form to check and ONLY that person can sign for it). On the other hand, if we did not respond, they get a default judgment.
By the way, they never replied to my original dispute requesting verification...
Wow, hard to believe this goes on in America - my attorney fees are now approaching $1000.
Marvin
Albemarle, North Carolina
U.S.A.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Marvin
Raleigh,North Carolina,
U.S.A.
The madness w/Unifund continues...
#2Author of original report
Tue, April 01, 2008
Just wanted to check in and update what happened in this sordid mess: Took Unifund and their shady lawyers at Sessoms and Rogers to court in the town 130 miles away from where we live now. Judge immediately overturned the default judgment. We asked for compensation for attorney's fees in defending against this erroneous civil action but were denied by the judge, who ruled that Unifraud/S&R acted in good faith in filing by certified mail to an address that did in fact appear on the credit report (EVEN THOUGH IT IS NOT OUR ACCOUNT AND NOT MY WIFE'S SSN IN THEIR RECORDS!!!) and that they should not be held responsible for the Post Office's actions. So... we are out $1235 for our lawyer's fees. Fast forward to last month when we made a routine check of our credit report to find that, lo and behold, the judgment is showing on my wife's credit report. We filed a dispute with Experian and the report was quickly changed. Then today I get an alert from her TransUnion account and Unifraud has created a new collection account on her report as of 3/28/08 - clearly in retaliation for the contesting of the judgment correction, I am sure. Unifraud has filed on my wife twice and it has been dismissed twice as not her account, and yet they still report it as collections on her credit. Anybody know how to go about filing an FRCA claim?
Larry
West Sacramento,California,
U.S.A.
Hope you win!
#3Consumer Comment
Sat, May 12, 2007
Marvin, I responded to you on another thread about Unifund, so I won't go into it all again here. In the other thread I failed to pick up on one point in your story and that was that the postman rerouted the certified letter to your mother-in-law. This is just one more problem with service of process by certified mail. The postman did not know that he had been drafted into being a process server. He had no idea of the contents of the letter nor the ramifications of delivering it to the wrong party. The certified letter was sent to an address where neither you nor your mother-in-law resided. Had the postman returned the letter to the sender as he should have, none of this would have happened. As you said, it's a small town and the guy was just trying to be helpful. The plaintiff (Unifund in this case) is usually required to defend his method of service of process and your attorney should be able to kick their butts. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.
