Who Is Suing You?
The most important text on your summons is the caption, the block at the top naming the parties. Find the plaintiff there, then find it below. What kind of company is suing you decides what it has to prove, and what it has to prove decides how your case gets defended. I've written a page on each of these outfits. If yours isn't listed, the general advice in sued for an old credit card debt still applies, and you generally have thirty days from service to file a response either way.
Debt buyers
Companies that purchased your defaulted account, usually for pennies on the dollar. The first thing every one of them must prove in a defended case is that it owns your account at all.
- Midland Funding / Midland Credit Management — the Encore Capital family's flagship
- LVNV Funding — the Sherman family's unusually invisible shell
- Portfolio Recovery Associates — one of the two giants
- Cavalry SPV I — the Cavalry family's suing entity
- Asset Acceptance — Encore family
- Atlantic Credit & Finance — Encore family, higher balances
- CACH, LLC — old suits and judgments; portfolios now with the Sherman family
- Jefferson Capital Systems — one of the largest, publicly traded
- Velocity Investments — New Jersey buyer, sues through a firm network
- Crown Asset Management — Georgia buyer, everything outsourced
- Absolute Resolutions Investments — Minnesota buyer, two-name operation
- Unifund CCR — one of the oldest in the business
- Credigy Receivables — owned by a Canadian bank
- Persolve — California hybrid debt buyer and law firm
- Investment Retrievers — California buyer, auto deficiencies
- BH Financial Services — California buyer, online-lender loans
- GCFS (GCSF) — small Paso Robles buyer
- Sierra Managed Asset Plan — mostly old cases now
- Sherman Acquisition — mostly a chain-of-title link today
- Equable Ascent Financial — likely defunct; old paper
- Palisades Collection
- Mountain Peaks Financial Services — thin public record
Banks suing on their own cards
Original creditors. No ownership mystery to chase, but a lawsuit is still not a bill. The records, the numbers, and the timing all still have to be proven.
- Capital One — sues more readily than almost anyone
- Citibank — also behind many store cards
- Bank of America
- Discover Bank — merged into Capital One in 2025
- American Express
- Wells Fargo
- Department Stores National Bank — the Macy's / Bloomingdale's card bank
- FIA Card Services — old MBNA / Bank of America paper
- First National Bank of Omaha — co-branded cards
Collection law firms
The firm on your paperwork is usually filing for a client. The client is the plaintiff, and the caption tells you which kind of case you actually have.
- Hunt & Henriques — San Jose; files statewide for banks and debt buyers (first steps here)
- Mandarich Law Group — Woodland Hills; files for CACH, Velocity, LVNV, and others (first steps here)
- Winn Law Group — Fullerton; Cavalry's California firm
- The Brachfeld Law Group
- Neuheisel Law Firm — defunct since 2017; old cases and judgments
Servicers and name decoders
Names that show up on letters and statements while a different company does the suing.
- Resurgent Capital Services — services LVNV and the Sherman family
- Cavalry Portfolio Services — services Cavalry SPV I
Whoever it is, the clock is the same
You generally have thirty days from the day you're served to file a written response with the court. Before you decide anything, the top five mistakes people make when they get sued is five minutes well spent. And if you'd rather hand the whole thing to someone who does this for a living, the consultation is free, it takes fifteen minutes, and you speak with me directly. No intake screener, no telemarketer.