The first step in winning a credit card lawsuit is to defend the lawsuit. This means that you need to respond or answer the complaint against you. Whether a creditor files at the Court of Common Pleas or the local magistrate the first step you need to take is to defend the lawsuit.
At the Court of Common Pleas this can be by filing Preliminary Objections or Answering the Complaint. If you have been sued at your local magistrate you will begin your defense by notifying the magistrate you are going to defend the case. If you hire our firm to defend the case we take care of all of these steps for you. However this is an important step because it prevents the credit card company or debt collector from getting a default judgment.
Essentially if you don’t answer or tell the court you’re going to defend the case the court automatically awards the creditor a judgment without the creditor having to prove anything. This is what the debt collectors and credit card companies rely on because they don’t always have all of the records they need to prove you owe the debt or that they are the right person to collect the debt from you.
The Second step is to make the company who is suing you prove they are the correct company to sue you. Believe it or not, many of the debt collectors that file credit card lawsuits don’t have the proper paperwork needed to prove you owe them a debt.
The third step is to look at the amount they are suing for. Did the creditor add interest, do they have the contract signed by you, can the creditor show what payments were made and how they calculated the balance?
A fourth step that our attorneys can assist you with is checking the statute of limitations. We make sure that the creditor has sued you at the right time. If a creditor waits more that 4 years from the last payment you made, they can be barred from collecting from you under Pennsylvania law.
The last step, hire your own attorney. The credit card company or debt collector will have an attorney. You should have one too. We can and are successful at defending clients against these predatory debt companies.
We can defend you without you even needing to go to the hearing. We can defend you for a fraction of the amount of debt you owe. We even offer payment plans contingent on us being successful in resolving your debt.
If you have any questions about the topic discussed in this article, or any bankruptcy law matter, please give us a call at Bononi & Company 724-832-2499.