Can u be sued after a charg off

I had a collections agency contact me today saying that they are suing me for not paying a very old debt. but if my credit report shows it as closed or a charg off can they still do that?

I've already gotten a summons for a court apperance for next month. what should i do?

They can try, but whatever you do don't agree to make payments or make a payment, the clock starts ticking again.

What they did was buy the debt from whoever you owed the money too, probably for a penny or two on the dollar, and they hope they can get you to pay them.

Tell them you will only talk to the original debtor and no one else. After all you don't owe them ANY money you owe the original debtor the money.


EDIT

Talk to a lawyer, you'll have to show up in court or they will win by default.

Charge off means that the company sent it to to the collection agency and they don't plan on getting it back.

Now that the collection agency owns the debt. They can try to collect it via any legal means including a lawsuit. They usually don't do that unless its a truly HUGE sum of money, like tens of thousands of dollars.

You can ignore them and wait it out after seven years it should be removed from your credit report anyway. In the mean time, do what you can to fix your credit rating. Don't neglect any other debts. Pay your bills on time. See if you can rent some furniture or something and pay it back over time on time. Maybe get a bank loan but don't spend too much of it. Use the money to either pay higher interest debts or pay the bank back over time.

You can have the collection agency stop contacting you by sending them a letter in writing.

I'm including a link to the FTC's website on Fair Debt Collection Practices.

You don't have to put up with the harassment that collection agencies use on the un-informed.

Just be more careful next time and pay your bills.

I'm pulling for you.

Good luck.

nope... just get a copy of your credit report. a charge off means that the company wrote it off as a loss (just like a dept store writes off so much in theft--taxes) so it does not go against their profit margin. ie have to pay taxes on it. they cannot collect twice! generally companies sell to a third party for a cheap price, and it is up to that 3rd party company to go after you. i believe there is a statute for anyting over 2yrs, cannot be collected on. get copy of c.r. (google statutes for collections)

Yes, you can still be sued for this debt. Charge off simply means the creditor was able deduct the debt from its taxes and they can still hire an outside collection agency to collect.

http://www.cardreport.com/credit-problem...

If you pay one penny on this the statue starts all over again ...it's as if this happened yesterday

of course they can

ANd the poster that said they got the money from the Government..geeez that sure is wrong and wierd.

No they can not. They got that money back from the government.