CAPITAL ONE JUDGMENT VACATED AND CASE DISMISSED
Capital One Bank is a common and aggressive creditor in the field of debt
collection and litigation. Unlike other banks who sell or assign their
debt to third party debt-buyers, Capital One most often pursues consumers
as the first-party original creditor. This can generally make it more
difficult to defend against them in debt collection lawsuits because they
will likely have the credit card agreement, statements and history of
payments made which are necessary to meet their burden of proof in court.
Capital One tends to sue consumer debtors more often and rather quickly
instead of first pursuing a course of collection. This also means that
they frequently obtain default judgments against consumers due to the
poor service of process in New York State. Most consumers we work with
only learn of a default judgment against them when their bank account
is frozen, or they receive a wage garnishment.
In this particular situation, our client learned of a default judgment
against him after receiving a letter from the Marshal in regard to a wage
garnishment. We learned that Capital One had retained the debt collection
law firm of Selip and Stylianou to sue him five years before he learned
about the judgment. Selip and Stylianou is a common debt collection law
firm in New York and frequently sues consumers and conducts post-judgment
enforcement on behalf of creditors like Capital One. Our client had lost
his wallet years before this lawsuit and had his identity stolen. He filed
a police report about the issue at the time and then traveled out of the
country to Turkey before and during this lawsuit. Because he could not
have possibly been served with this lawsuit while out of the country,
we were able to have the judgment against him vacated. We were then able
to have this case dismissed entirely after providing Selip and Stylianou
a copy of the police report filed along with an identity theft affidavit
showing that this debt and judgment was the result of identity theft.
This erased a debt of over $10,000.