A consumer recently came to Boevingloh & Pliakos with a debt collection case that had already spiraled well beyond where it needed to go. The underlying facts, generalized here to protect the consumer’s privacy, involved a fairly ordinary Missouri collection lawsuit on an old written service contract. The paperwork the debt buyer had assembled looked weak. That part was a
You receive a letter from a law firm you have never heard of saying that a debt collection lawsuit has been filed against you in a Missouri court. The letter includes a case number. It tells you to call right away. It may say you need to respond within a certain number of days. Your first reaction is probably skepticism.
If you have been served with a lawsuit from Portfolio Recovery Associates LLC, you are not alone. Portfolio Recovery Associates is one of the largest and most active debt buyers in the United States, purchasing billions of dollars in charged-off consumer debt every year and filing collection lawsuits against consumers in courts across the country, including Missouri’s associate circuit courts.
Most people who have dealt with a debt collector that crossed the line assume the situation is theirs alone to deal with. The collector called at the wrong hour. The letter misrepresented what would happen if they did not pay. The texts kept coming after they asked them to stop. The amount on the lawsuit did not match anything they
There is a common misconception about FDCPA violations. Most people who experience one assume it happened to them alone. A misleading letter arrived. A call came in at 7 a.m. A debt buyer filed suit on an account that was clearly past the statute of limitations. These feel like individual grievances, and in terms of how they are experienced, they
It usually starts small. A text shows up from a number you do not recognize, mentioning an account balance and asking you to call back. Then another one comes the next day. Then one at 6 a.m. Then one that feels like it is trying to scare you into responding right away. If this has been happening to you, the
Imagine your attorney calls and says something like this. We think we can win this case, but I am recommending we offer the debt buyer a small settlement anyway. To many people, that sentence does not make sense. If the case is winnable, why offer to pay anything at all. So a fair number of people do something completely understandable.
If you have been served with a lawsuit from a company called Midland Funding LLC, you have a lot of company. Midland Funding is one of the largest and most active debt buyers in the United States, and it files collection lawsuits against Missouri consumers on a regular basis. Like most people who receive one of these lawsuits, you probably
If you have been sued by a company called LVNV Funding LLC, you are not alone. LVNV Funding is one of the most active debt buyers filing collection lawsuits in Missouri courts, and it files hundreds of cases every year against Missouri consumers. For most people, the name means nothing. They have never borrowed money from LVNV Funding, never spoken
One of the most common reasons people don’t fight a debt collection lawsuit is the assumption that hiring an attorney will cost more than the debt itself. It is a reasonable concern. Legal fees have a reputation for being unpredictable, open ended, and impossible to budget for. If you are already being sued for a few thousand dollars, the last
