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Received summons

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isis297

Member
What is the name of your state? NY

I was hoping to get some guidance. My husband and I had a Discover card. I was laid off last spring and we fell behind on our payments. In August, my MIL entered the hospital with terminal illnesses and we began being with her often to spend time, help take care of things, etc. I would try to talk to representatives via Discover's website's email system trying to set up a payment. I explained the situation about my MIL and told the lady that I would respond as quickly as I could to her messages but that if there were times it took a couple of days, that was why. We came to an agreement in September I think it was and I asked her to please do the payments as automatic withdrawals because I didn't want to risk any issues coming up. She said that was mandatory. She asked whose names were on the bank account and if permission was given to make the withdrawals. I told her absolutely! In fact, I believe this was mentioned 2 or 3 times. The payment was supposed to come out early in the month but it didn't. Then I saw an email had come through saying that she had to hear back from me within 1 day to give permission to do the withdrawal even though I had already put in writing more than once to do it. I didn't get the message until after the fact as I was with my MIL.

I called them panicking saying that I didn't understand what had happened. I had given permission more than once. They said oh well, that one day had lapsed. I was very upset telling them that I had received a letter stating that if the account wasn't put on an agreement it would be turned over to an attorney by the end of October but here we had reached an agreement before the beginning of the month. At this point it was still in October when I was trying to get the account reinstated and they told me there was nothing else for them to do. That she must have had some legal jargon she still had to write to me to make the agreement we had official. I told them I was made to believe that everything had been set up and that the payments were supposed to start at the time she had sent that email about "1 day" which was why I thought everything had been taken care of. Didn't matter. I couldn't make the monthly payments...I surely couldn't pay the past due at one time. I was depending on that payment we had agreed to.

We got a letter from the law office but I tried for a couple of months to send the letter I had to different departments trying to get help to get them to reinstate the account at least so that payments could be made vs. having an open account again. I kept getting told oh well. At this point my MIL is doing worse as well as now my husband's health. Then Covid...then my husband got laid off. My MIL died and we had hoped to use any inheritance to take care of the account, but that has been held up because of Covid too. So now we are both out of work and trying to survive on unemployment which took time in itself.

This past Monday I was delivered a summons with my husband's name that there has been a complaint filed with the Supreme Court of the State of NY for our county. I need guidance please as we want to take care of things, but I have questions and I still don't know how to even do this because of where it's been at since it got to the attorney.

1. The formal complaint is dated 10/1 but at the top it says 10/9 7:20 am. The page in front of that says just the part at the top about 10/9 and 10/1 in the body and that he has 20 days to respond or 30 days if the summons is not personally delivered to him within the state of NY. Well it was delivered to me, not him. So do we have 20 days or 30 and is that from 10/1 OR the date on the first page which is the notice of commencement of action subject to mandatory electronic filing which is dated 10/12 OR is it the date it's served since we didn't know anything about this until this past Monday 10/19?

2. What do we do now? Does this automatically go on his credit as a lawsuit? It's on there as a collection but I'm sure a lawsuit would look even worse.

3. I know same question, but what do we do now? When I asked Discover about reinstating the account and honoring our agreement they told me because the account had been turned over there weren't any emails to prove our conversation. How do I take care of this knowing I'm having to choose keeping a roof over our heads and food on the table but still wanting to deal with this/make the payments we had originally agreed to/etc? I know it doesn't help but I'm so angry they did this when we had the agreement we did.

I appreciate any guidance.
 


zddoodah

Active Member
Just FYI, I didn't read the first several paragraphs of your post, but I don't think doing so is necessary to answering your questions.

1. If you're not named as a defendant, then your husband has 30 days from the date of service to respond. Thirty days from 10/19 is 11/18. The other dates on the document aren't relevant for this purpose. If you are named as a defendant, then you have 20 days to respond (which would be 11/9 since 11/8 is a Sunday), and the time for him to respond hasn't started running.

2. I don't know what you do now. You'll have to decide that. If the debt isn't disputed, forcing the plaintiff to spend a bunch of money litigating probably isn't a good idea, and you'd probably be best off trying to settle. As for his credit, nothing happens "automatically," and we have no way of knowing if the plaintiff will report the matter to the CRAs.

I'm having to choose keeping a roof over our heads and food on the table but still wanting to deal with this/make the payments. . . .
If you're to this point, then you and your husband may want to consider bankruptcy.
 

isis297

Member
Do I contact the law firm to set up a payment arrangement if one can even be reached or do I respond to one of the companies that already reached out about "maybe they can help"? Also, do I set up payment arrangements with them or do I hire one of those companies that help you clean up your credit? There is NO recourse for the fact that we had agreed to a payment plan though and they didn't put it through? :(

And it is definitely from the date of being served?
 

quincy

Senior Member
What is the name of your state? NY

I was hoping to get some guidance. My husband and I had a Discover card. I was laid off last spring and we fell behind on our payments. In August, my MIL entered the hospital with terminal illnesses and we began being with her often to spend time, help take care of things, etc. I would try to talk to representatives via Discover's website's email system trying to set up a payment. I explained the situation about my MIL and told the lady that I would respond as quickly as I could to her messages but that if there were times it took a couple of days, that was why. We came to an agreement in September I think it was and I asked her to please do the payments as automatic withdrawals because I didn't want to risk any issues coming up. She said that was mandatory. She asked whose names were on the bank account and if permission was given to make the withdrawals. I told her absolutely! In fact, I believe this was mentioned 2 or 3 times. The payment was supposed to come out early in the month but it didn't. Then I saw an email had come through saying that she had to hear back from me within 1 day to give permission to do the withdrawal even though I had already put in writing more than once to do it. I didn't get the message until after the fact as I was with my MIL.

I called them panicking saying that I didn't understand what had happened. I had given permission more than once. They said oh well, that one day had lapsed. I was very upset telling them that I had received a letter stating that if the account wasn't put on an agreement it would be turned over to an attorney by the end of October but here we had reached an agreement before the beginning of the month. At this point it was still in October when I was trying to get the account reinstated and they told me there was nothing else for them to do. That she must have had some legal jargon she still had to write to me to make the agreement we had official. I told them I was made to believe that everything had been set up and that the payments were supposed to start at the time she had sent that email about "1 day" which was why I thought everything had been taken care of. Didn't matter. I couldn't make the monthly payments...I surely couldn't pay the past due at one time. I was depending on that payment we had agreed to.

We got a letter from the law office but I tried for a couple of months to send the letter I had to different departments trying to get help to get them to reinstate the account at least so that payments could be made vs. having an open account again. I kept getting told oh well. At this point my MIL is doing worse as well as now my husband's health. Then Covid...then my husband got laid off. My MIL died and we had hoped to use any inheritance to take care of the account, but that has been held up because of Covid too. So now we are both out of work and trying to survive on unemployment which took time in itself.

This past Monday I was delivered a summons with my husband's name that there has been a complaint filed with the Supreme Court of the State of NY for our county. I need guidance please as we want to take care of things, but I have questions and I still don't know how to even do this because of where it's been at since it got to the attorney.

1. The formal complaint is dated 10/1 but at the top it says 10/9 7:20 am. The page in front of that says just the part at the top about 10/9 and 10/1 in the body and that he has 20 days to respond or 30 days if the summons is not personally delivered to him within the state of NY. Well it was delivered to me, not him. So do we have 20 days or 30 and is that from 10/1 OR the date on the first page which is the notice of commencement of action subject to mandatory electronic filing which is dated 10/12 OR is it the date it's served since we didn't know anything about this until this past Monday 10/19?

2. What do we do now? Does this automatically go on his credit as a lawsuit? It's on there as a collection but I'm sure a lawsuit would look even worse.

3. I know same question, but what do we do now? When I asked Discover about reinstating the account and honoring our agreement they told me because the account had been turned over there weren't any emails to prove our conversation. How do I take care of this knowing I'm having to choose keeping a roof over our heads and food on the table but still wanting to deal with this/make the payments we had originally agreed to/etc? I know it doesn't help but I'm so angry they did this when we had the agreement we did.

I appreciate any guidance.
Answer to your second question:
Should the creditor be awarded a judgment against your husband or you, the judgment will not appear on your credit reports. The credit account that led to the judgment will appear and remain for 7 years, however.
 

isis297

Member
Answer to your second question:
Should the creditor be awarded a judgment against your husband or you, the judgment will not appear on your credit reports. The credit account that led to the judgment will appear and remain for 7 years, however.
I "know" you from being on this page for some time and I respect your knowledge. Is the best move to contact the law firm or contact one of the companies that helps negotiate collections? I've never been in a situation where someone took this route instead of just sending to collections and calling. In fact, they've never even called until today which I missed as I was indisposed when they called. :(
 

quincy

Senior Member
I "know" you from being on this page for some time and I respect your knowledge. Is the best move to contact the law firm or contact one of the companies that helps negotiate collections? I've never been in a situation where someone took this route instead of just sending to collections and calling. In fact, they've never even called until today which I missed as I was indisposed when they called. :(
There are several members named Isis now. Are you one of the original forum “Greek goddesses?” Antigone and Proserpina and Artemis were others. (“Nike” also used to show up with some frequency but only in spammers ads :)).

The first thing you will need to do with the debt is answer the complaint. You have a limited time to do this. You can start negotiating a payment plan or a payoff figure with the creditor after that is taken care of. You do not want to miss the filing date or the hearing, though, as that can lead to a default judgment if you fail to reach a settlement.

TigerD is a member of this forum. He is a former debt collector from Missouri and is now an attorney. You might remember him as “debt collector.” TigerD put together some tips on how to negotiate a settlement. You might benefit from reading through his tips:
https://forum.freeadvice.com/threads/how-to-negotiate-a-settlement.428587/

You can start negotiating anytime, keeping in mind that submitting an Answer to the Complaint is most important right now.

TigerD mentions in his tips that if you are unsure about your own ability to negotiate with the creditor, you could hire a professional negotiator - but the creditor could take this to mean you have excess money to pay for a professional and might be less likely to settle for a lower amount or make another payment arrangement.

I am sorry life has been so cruel to you recently.
 

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