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.