Sued By CACH, 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 CACH can take a default judgment against you. Respond, and CACH has to prove it actually owns the debt, which is harder than it sounds. Here's how, and how I can help.
CACH, LLC is a debt buyer with a complicated afterlife. For years it bought defaulted credit card accounts by the portfolio and sued Californians on them in volume. Then, in 2017, its corporate parent, SquareTwo Financial, went through bankruptcy, and the receivables business was sold to an affiliate of Sherman Financial Group, the family behind LVNV Funding and Resurgent Capital Services. So a CACH matter today usually means an older lawsuit, an old judgment, or an account whose collection now runs through Resurgent's machinery.
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.
I know CACH's paperwork firsthand. I represented the consumer in CACH, LLC v. Rodgers, a published appellate decision from 2014. CACH had won at trial using a records declaration from a witness who, it turned out, could not actually be reached for a trial subpoena at the address provided, and California law (CCP §98) requires that such a declarant be genuinely available. The Appellate Division held the declaration should never have come into evidence, and the judgment was reversed. Past results can't promise anything about your case. The practical point is narrower. The shortcuts debt buyers use to prove accounts are not automatic, and a defended case is where they get tested. I've also written a step-by-step page on what to do when CACH sues you.
And if part of you hesitates to fight because the debt was real once, look at what actually happened. CACH 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, CACH 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.