Sued By Asset Acceptance, LLC? Here's Help.
You have about 30 days from the day you were served to file a written response, and that's usually enough time.
Miss that deadline and Asset Acceptance can take a default judgment against you. Respond, and Asset Acceptance has to prove it actually owns the debt, which is harder than it sounds. Here's how, and how I can help.
Asset Acceptance, LLC is a debt buyer, and since 2013 it has been part of Encore Capital Group, the same family as Midland Funding and Midland Credit Management. It purchases defaulted consumer accounts, credit cards above all, and turns them into collection lawsuits. If Asset Acceptance is suing you, you're dealing with a small badge on a very large machine.
The paper problem
A defended collection case usually comes down to proof, and the first thing a debt buyer must prove is that it owns your account. That is harder than it sounds. Debt buyers purchase defaulted accounts by the portfolio, on spreadsheets, sometimes through more than one intermediate owner. The specific assignment of your account is often missing or defective — and without it, they cannot prove they own the debt.
California adds its own teeth here. A debt buyer suing in this state has to possess and plead specific documentation about your account, including the complete chain of title, meaning every company that has owned your account since the original creditor (the Fair Debt Buying Practices Act, Civil Code section 1788.50 and following). Those requirements are not self-executing, though. Somebody has to know what buttons to press and switches to flip. The whole industry is, in my view, a square peg being forced into a round hole. The square peg is the bulk collection business these companies want to run through the courts. The round hole is a court system built to decide cases one at a time, under rules of evidence, with rights on your side of the table. In a defended case, that square peg tends to get stuck.
The record behind that machine is public. In 2012, the FTC obtained a $2.5 million settlement from Asset Acceptance over allegations that included collecting debts without adequate substantiation and failing to disclose when debts were too old to sue on. In 2015, the CFPB's consent order against Encore and its subsidiaries, Asset Acceptance among them, found collection on debts lacking adequate documentation, robo-signed affidavits, and suits on time-barred debt, with up to $42 million in consumer refunds and a $10 million penalty. And in 2020, the CFPB obtained a further $15 million penalty over allegations that the companies had violated the 2015 order. (Findings and allegations per the FTC's and CFPB's public releases; the orders were resolved by settlement.)
And if part of you hesitates to fight because the debt was real once, look at what actually happened. Asset Acceptance bought your account, or claims to have bought it, for next to nothing, on a bet that nobody would make it prove anything. In my view, a company running that bet has no special claim on your guilt. You didn't choose this course. They did. Make them prove it.
Use the thirty days
From the day you're served, you generally have thirty days to file a written response with the court. If nothing gets filed, Asset Acceptance can ask for an automatic judgment against you (called a default judgment), and with a judgment they can levy your bank account, meaning they take the money directly, garnish your wages if you have a job, or put a lien on your house. Responding is what makes everything above matter, because a defended case is where the proof gets tested.
Two reads that will help. Here's how to calculate your deadline, which is more particular than people expect. And the top five mistakes people make when they get sued is five minutes well spent before you decide anything.
Let it be my problem
If you'd rather hand this off, the consultation is free, it takes fifteen minutes, and you speak with me directly. No intake screener, no telemarketer. Although the outcome can't be guaranteed, you can offload the process, so you know that whatever can be done is being done while you go about the other things in your life. It's sort of like the alarm clock by your bed. Once it's set, your brain stops holding the time, because that's taken care of. Let me take care of this.