Who Sues?

[treehugger1]

I went down to my local courthouse today and looked up cases where C1, BOA, DISC, etc are listed as plaintiff.

Discover seems pretty active through Man-B.

C1 showed as plaintiff for only one case within the last six months.

BOA - nothing going back several years.

Chase showed very few cases.

I do live in a very backwoods area of my state, but still there are tens-of-thousands of residents. The county unemployment rate is 13+%. You would think I would have found far more suits due to estimated CC defaults, but there are very few. When I listed the local CA (who only collects on local accounts for the most part) there were 100's of civil cases over the past few years. So, it appears that there are plenty of folks here who default on accounts, but national class OC's, CA's, and JDB's seldom file suit.

I did find out other information related to court filings. It appears that in many of the cases I looked at, there was a motion to grant extended time for the defendant to provide an answer. In most cases, the motion was granted and 60 - 90 additional days given. I asked the clerk if there were forms related to filing general motions, and she gave me a packet of forms that must be filed with a general motion. I also thought it was interesting that many of these cases were pro se on the defendant's part. I found this info interesting and thought others might also. As always, every state is different, but I had no idea that one could request a motion for additional time to answer a complaint. I'll file this away in the active information file.

[catleg]

So far from my experience, Chase and Citi will sue you if it looks like you have equity in a house, and a JDB will sue you if they are a law firm and the cost is low enough and they think you have a job they can garnish wages from.

You probably know enough to slow down their court case and/or judgment collection pretty significantly at this point as well.

[BigJohn]

When checking the courts as to who sues, it might help to check with your State's Corporate Commission to see exactly what name they use in your State. That is the name they should file under.

[albacore44]

So far from my experience, Chase and Citi will sue you if it looks like you have equity in a house, and a JDB will sue you if they are a law firm and the cost is low enough and they think you have a job they can garnish wages from.

You probably know enough to slow down their court case and/or judgment collection pretty significantly at this point as well.

That would be interesting, I wonder how they determine that ??. I guess they would pull your credit file and see who holds your mortgage and the balance, then zillow it to get a rough determination. In my case I have several Citi cards I have defaulted on and Citi holds my mortgage. So if they sued and moved to Garnish, that could push me into Foreclosure and they would end up with a larger loss

[treehugger1]

Albacore, your picture is hot and beautiful today!

For all you know your many citi CC's could get farmed out to many different CA's. I don't know how likely it is that Citi will sell its debts to JDB's. I don't think I saw any Citi suits where Citi was listed as a plaintiff here in my area.

As has always been stated, there is no apparent rhyme or reason as to suits. I am beginning to think they are somewhat rare. At least that is my take in my county.

The stipulated judgment is an interesting take on things. I'll also file that in my priority notes file. It does seem that most courts/judges have a lot of leeway in granting extension requests. It makes sense, if thre is the possibility that a suit would eventually be a waste of taxpayers money paying a judge for a civil case that could end up in BK.

[albacore44]

Albacore, your picture is hot and beautiful today!

For all you know your many citi CC's could get farmed out to many different CA's. I don't know how likely it is that Citi will sell its debts to JDB's. I don't think I saw any Citi suits where Citi was listed as a plaintiff here in my area.

As has always been stated, there is no apparent rhyme or reason as to suits. I am beginning to think they are somewhat rare. At least that is my take in my county.

The stipulated judgment is an interesting take on things. I'll also file that in my priority notes file. It does seem that most courts/judges have a lot of leeway in granting extension requests. It makes sense, if thre is the possibility that a suit would eventually be a waste of taxpayers money paying a judge for a civil case that could end up in BK.

When I reviewed our court docket it seemed that Citi sells off its debt to a well known JDB called Hunt and Henriques located in N. cal. loads of internet info on them.

[backtoschool]

From my personal experience, the JDB's sued me to try to garnish my wages. (the one exception is Asset Acceptance, who I think has a staff lawyer that sues everyone....)

I ended up with three judgements before I filed chapter seven (none got a penny though...) Here is who did file a suit against me and who didn't:

1. Washington Mutual (formally paypal card through providian) They filed quickly, through a sewer service lawyer in nyc. They were looking to garnish my wages I think. They were turned over to Arrow when the suit was filed.

2. HSBC (this was a regular card, not one of their store cards or the credit rebuilder cards. They sued pretty quickly and again were looking to garnish wages.

3. Asset Acceptance: bought a charged off crate and barrel card and sued me pretty much the minute they bought it.

Major cards that did not sue me:

Amex, citibank, chase.

It's ironic, that the cards that did NOT sue me had WAY higher credit limits and balances (over 15k each) than the cards that did sue me.

Just some info for those that are tracking these things.

[splinter]

Here's the cast of characters in my freak show that premiered in 2006 (This was from 2006--not 1996 made a mistake)

4 BofA
3 BofA - Business
1 Cap1 - Business
3 Cap1
2 Chase
1 Chevron
1 Lowes (Can't remember who this is with?).
2 Personal lines of credit (can't remember who?).
Student loans from 1995 default.

Only suit was by Cap1 this year for a $3400 balance that grew to $5600 with fees and interest. That card was the only secured card I got in 1995 with a $200 security deposit. The other Cap1 cards had higher balances, except for the two personal ones. So I have no idea why they sued for that card, which was the oldest account I had. There was another Cap1 account I opened only a few years before default. They had balances of like 6k or 8k. So I don't know why they sued for the secured card that was older with a lower balance. But most of the accounts still have around a year and a half to SOL, so we'll see who else sues...

None of the business accounts have shown up on my CR. The accounts must be associated with the company EIN and not my SS#. It was a NV c-corp that I dissolved, but they're trying to collect.

Chevron and the student loans haven't shown on my CR either. They're trying to collect.
------------------
Here's some observations:

I'm thinking I may not get sued for the biz accounts. Because I dissolved the corp, so they'd have to sue me personally for acting on behalf of the company. That may be too tough a nut to crack.

I think I was able to continue to get credit (when I shouldn't have) because half my debt was business and half was personal. The business and personal credit reports were separate. So if a creditor looked at either CR it looked reasonable. But if they would have seen both, they would have realized it was a sinking ship.

I got ripped off on the personal lines of credit. They were charging me a monthly insurance fee. After I defaulted, I figured out the insurance fee was going to them and not to an outside insurance company. And if my accounts were insured, then why are they trying to collect? Shouldn't the insurance pay for the default? Yeah, it was a rip off just to charge extra fees.

I owe BofA a lot and haven't been sued yet. They offered to settle only one account of 8k (original balance) for 15% but no offers on the other accounts. I don't accept collection calls. So other than the collection letters, they've been well behaved.

[AngelinaCatHub]

albacore44:

You are too cruel. First the prize of my life, then a real hottie, the guy, I'm not into, but this one, Oh, THIS one, has my 'fancy'. Please do not let Mrs. C. know I posted this, but, do you have her email?????

Oh gawd, Mrs. is over my head reading this, I'll post later....(if I survive) 'Hub

[treehugger1]

Albacore and BB ( and others,) It does appear that eventually Shiti sends claims to collection attorneys. However, I find very few accounts where CITI (SHITIBANK) actually sells accounts to JDB's. Is H and H actually a JDB, or is this the attorney firm they use? You can determien this depending on who the plaintiff is on the court docket. If Citi is the plaintiff, then it is unlikely Citi sold the debt.

[BigJohn]

This makes no sense at all... How would you know what name to search for if you don't know what name your looking for? Citi Bank is still Citi Bank... And if you knew what name you were looking for, you wouldn't need to search the corporate registry to see if they were listed as a corporation.

'If' you were going to waste your time searching anything, just do a business trade name search and business license, you get more from that than a corporation search (unless they incorporated in the state you are looking in).

And since when does a creditor need to file as a corporation in any state but the state they are incorporated in? (if they are even incorporated, DBA's do not appear on the corporate register).

So, if I want to look and see if Citi Bank sues people why wouldn't I just do a search for Citi Bank on the courts website? Seems to be working great so far.

The search engines for the courts in my area have to have exact spelling. I know of two companies that nothing showed up when I did searches they are commonly known by. When I checked with the State's Corporate Commission, the name I was using at the court level came back with the proper name they use for official business.

[ForumReader]

Albacore and BB ( and others,) It does appear that eventually Shiti sends claims to collection attorneys. However, I find very few accounts where CITI (SHITIBANK) actually sells accounts to JDB's. Is H and H actually a JDB, or is this the attorney firm they use? You can determien this depending on who the plaintiff is on the court docket. If Citi is the plaintiff, then it is unlikely Citi sold the debt.

regarding "Shiti". Isn't Sears financed by Shiti now? I had a Sears card with them, but have not used it in over a year now. Sears (Shiti) did send a collection action on my card and it appeared on my credit report at the time of filing, but I do not rememeber the name of the CA. Too many take overs and I get confused whose is with this and that now

[catleg]

Citi is Sears, Home Depot, Exxon, and a ton of others.
Chase is half of Target, half of Kohl's and a ton of others.
(those are just the ones I'm involved with)

[luke326]

I've been sued by Discover (Brumbaugh and Quandahl), BoA (Arrow Financial), WaMu (Can't find the paperwork) and Capital One (Brumbaugh and Quandahl) within the last 12 months. This used to bother me. I've gotten over it.

[treehugger1]

Luke... Sounds as if you are in a position to thumb your nose at suits. Good for you, if you are not in a position for garnishment, etc. I'm surprised by the number of suits I see against folks who have no assets, nearly all income, personal property exemptions, etc. I have to think that there are some law firms out there taking creditors for a ride. In other words, the law firms are not on retainers based on what they collect (suit or pre-suit,) but they are probbaly billing the OC or JDB regardless of whether or not they ever receive a penny. Too bad for OC's and/or JDB's