The Story So Far

The purpose of this blog is to keep a record of my steps I take in defending myself that others might find helpful if they are in a similar situation. It's worth noting that most of my links from this blog will be for information and forms specific to Chicago. If you're not in Chicago, Google should be able to find you a local resource that is hopefully equivalent, if not better. I am not a lawyer, so I can't give out legal advice. All I can do is provide this guide, such as it is.

On Friday September 25, 2009 I was home alone, packing. I had to be out of my apartment by October 2nd. There was a knock on the door, which was odd since we had a buzzer system to let folks into the building. It was a man in a Kevlar vest with a badge, and he had papers for me. I had been served papers informing me that I was being sued for $10,593.26 in credit card debt.

I'm disabled due to illness. Until I became disabled I had a Chase Manhattan credit card with a credit limit of $5,000. I used it to buy a computer and some peripherals for a total of just over $4,000. I was making double payments to pay down the principal until I fell ill and defaulted on the card. The debt grew from Chase's late fees and interest until it wound up being charged off and sold to a third party collector, who inflated it with their own interest and late fees before selling it to a third party collector, who inflated it with their own interest and late fees before selling it to a third party collector, ect. Later I would learn the casual term Lawyers have for this kind of thing is "Zombie Debt" it should have died, but it won't.

So I was coming up on the tail end of a big move, and I became involved in this law suit. Fun stuff. I stopped packing for the day and hopped online where I found the site for Illinois Legal Aid. Specifically of use were their pages on What To Do When A Creditor Sues You and their link to the Cook County specific Coordinated Advice & Referral Program for Legal Services (C.A.R.P.L.S.).

Following advice from C.A.R.P.L.S., I filled out a form to have my court fees waived since I have no income. I took the competed form along with a completed form for my Appearance to the court house listed on the summons and complaint papers I was served with. Once the waiver was filed and I received the Order from the judge that my fees were waived, I filed the Appearance, and the clerk there gave me two copies of the Appearance, one for my records and one to be mailed to the lawyers who are representing the company suing me. This took about a half hour once I had gotten to the court house.

Since the sum of the law suit was more than $10,000 I also had do file an Answer, a form that responded to each of the lines in the complaint saying what I agreed with and what I had an argument against. In Chicago, C.A.R.P.L.S. keeps a help desk in the same room where all the paperwork must be filed, so I took my Answer to this desk to have them look over my responses, just to make sure I had answered everything completely and worded it all correctly. Once we were satisfied with my Answer, I had it notarized, made three copies, and filed the notarized original. Once I was home I mailed off a copy to the lawyers representing the company that is suing me, and now I have nothing that must be done until the court date in December. However, just because there is nothing that must be done does not mean there is nothing that can be done.