In this case our client was sued by Cavalry SPV I LLC, a common low end debt buyer by way of their attorneys Schachter & Portnoy LLC whom handle many of these debt collection lawsuits in New York. This debt buyer usually buys this sort of debt when it has already been bought and sold a few times over making it difficult to prove whose debt it actually is. In this particular case the debt was bought and sold and least four times before it was acquired by Cavalry. Our client was never actually served in the matter but thankfully received a notice in the mail from the Kings County Civil Court that there was a lawsuit filed against him. Often these lawsuits are won on default and a judgment is entered against the consumer because they have no notice about the lawsuit. That puts them in a terrible position because the burden shifts on them to vacate the judgment instead of on the creditor to prove their case.
We immediately filed an answer to the complaint with all the necessary affirmative defenses. The basis of our defense was to make Cavalry and Schachter prove that they had standing to sue our client. What this means is that Cavalry would have to show proof of the original creditor and every assignment or sale of the debt to its new owner. The likelihood of them being able to get all of that paperwork together is doubtful. The amount our client was being sued for was just over $25,000. Schachter reached out to us after receiving our defenses and said that they would be willing to settle the matter out of court for $5,000 saving our client a tremendous amount of money, protecting against judgment and avoiding the risk of potentially losing at trial.