Failure To File Proper Paperwork A Stumbling Block For Plaintiffs In Credit Card Suits As Well As Mortgage Foreclosures

In Erie, Pennsylvania, the Erie Times News recently ran a story on how some individual consumers are fighting back against large finance companies in debt lawsuits:

• [A] recent ruling in Erie County Court, as well as rulings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Erie and in Pittsburgh, show how judges are forcing credit-card companies, banks and mortgage companies to play by the rules, even as those corporations are desperate to collect on debts in these desperate times.

• The fine print -- all those regulations enumerated in tiny words in credit-card contracts and mortgages -- apply not only to you, the consumer. The banks and credit-card companies must follow them too. And, with the help of vigilant judges, "they are starting to," said Erie lawyer Lori R. Miller.

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• Erie County Judge Shad Connelly, citing Pennsylvania law, agreed with Miller and threw out a suit over a claimed debt of $21,305, including more than $3,000 in interest, on a Bank One credit card. Connelly said the plaintiff, a debt-collection company called Unifund CCR Partners, failed to file the proper paperwork(1) and filed an amended version of its suit too late.(2)

For more, including how two bankruptcy judges in Erie and Pittsburgh are holding lenders feet to the fire in home foreclosure actions, see In some area debt cases, small print has yielded big help.

(1) Among the documents lacking, Connelly said, were a complete list of the dates and merchants for the disputed charges; the contract or credit agreement that Anderson would have received with the disputed credit card; and the appropriate documentation showing how Unifund purchased Anderson's claimed debt from another company, First USA Platinum.

(2) Reportedly, Judge Connelly gave Unifund a chance to file a corrected suit, though attorney Anderson could argue that any new civil action violates the four-year statute of limitations in her case.