How I Won My Credit Card Debt Lawsuit (Interview)

Hannah Locklear | January 05, 2024

Being sued for credit card debt is not a good feeling, and it can be pretty isolating.

You may have already gone online to look for an attorney to represent you in the case and discovered that it's expensive, time consuming, and a pretty complicated process to find a lawyer.

Luckily, Solo Suit exists to help people like you represent yourself in court and feel less alone throughout the debt collection lawsuit process.

In this article, we're going to show you an interview that I recently had with a real SoloSuit customer who used our services to fight off a major debt collection agency and credit card company in court. His name is Mason from South Carolina, and here's how he beat Zwicker & Associates and Discover credit card in court.

Don’t like reading? Watch the interview in the video above.

SoloSuit user interview begins here

How did you incur the debt?

Hannah: Thank you so much, Mason, for joining us to share your experience about using Solo Suit to fight your debt collection lawsuit. We really appreciate you. First and foremost, can you tell us a little bit about the debt that you incurred?

Mason: This was a debt from a credit card company. I'd say it was four and a half years after this account was closed, or so I thought, and Zwicker & Associates decided to pursue the debt. When I received it in the mail, I, of course, was confused at first because I was like, why would they be coming after me for this very old debt? And the amount they were asking for was not what I recalled owing at all on that account.

How much did they claim you owe vs how much you actually owed?

Hannah: Interesting. So do you remember how much they claimed that you owed versus how much you potentially actually owed?

Mason: The amount that they said I owed was $5,777, which was far beyond any amount that was owed. They were pursuing that debt. And I knew the last time I had that account was years ago. I just did some digging, called my bank to confirm when was the last time a payment was made to this account. They were able to immediately verify, after some digging, that it had been four and a half years since any payment was made to this company. So it was clearly a debt collection company that had purchased the debt and decided to pursue it.

Hannah: Got it. It sounds like the debt was so old that you had kind of forgotten about it or you had forgotten making payments on that particular account.

Mason: Absolutely. Yeah. I'd completely forgotten about the account. I thought it just was gone. Done.

Hannah: Yeah. So you said it was over $5,000 that they claimed that you owed. Do you remember, realistically, how much you think you actually owed at the end of the day?

Mason: I'm pretty sure it was only around $1,500, I want to say. And that was after I had made a good faith effort to obviously pay that card down and pay it completely off. And, of course, I did everything that I could to pay that card back.

How did you find out you were being sued for credit card debt?

Hannah: Cool. Well, so tell us a little bit about how you found out that you were being sued. It sounds like you got something in the mail. Is that right?

Mason: This is a Monday morning at 07:00 a.m., that a sheriff served me with lawsuit papers from this credit card company. And at first, it was nerve wracking because we were woken up very early. Bless my wife. She was confused and just as nervous as I was about this situation.

I was wondering to myself, how were they able to do this at this point? I began searching or Googling online on how the best way to answer a lawsuit, because I knew that if I didn't respond or didn't do anything or take any action, that it would not work out in my favor. I found SoloSuit and saw that I could file the Answer document that I needed to file with the court to at least keep this from getting any worse.

Hannah: Yeah. So you got served on a Monday morning, you said, and it was a sheriff that dropped it off at your house.

Mason: Yes.

Hannah: That was probably pretty intimidating, I'm guessing.

Mason: So nerve wracking. Yes. I was wondering, what did I do, what is this about? And then when he handed me the documents and I reviewed them, I was like, this is a very old account that I have no idea why this is happening right now.

What was the deadline respond to the Summons and Complaint?

Hannah: Sure. Yeah. So you got served on the Monday. Did it say anywhere on the court documents, like, when you had to respond?

Mason: So South Carolina allows you 30 days to respond. Of course, I wasted no time, found SoloSuit, filled out the required information to fill out the Answer document. And I think by the end of that same day, I had sent the or requested that the answer document be sent to the courts.

Hannah: Wow. So you were right on it by then.

Mason: I was. I mean, talk about nerves, right.

How did the SoloSuit software help you respond to your case?

Hannah: Can you tell us a little bit about your experience using the SoloSuit software and everything? How did it go for you?

Mason: I'm grateful to have found you all on Google. There are those certain websites that offer, not legal advice, but ways to go about like, what if you receive this? Here's what you do next. But none of them really help you out. They just sort of tell you kind of what you should do, but there's no real definitive answer on what's next or what you should do or any guidance on how you should file an Answer or anything like that.

I found SoloSuit. So I went through the process. It asked some simple questions on the Summons that I had received: the date, the court… I followed that step-by-step process which I found very intuitive and easy because it just asked the questions, and it even had sort of images on where that information was located—so, like case number and the court. And I filled out all that information and on the last step, of course, it asked the question of if I would like to free file and send that myself or have you all [SoloSuit] send it. And of course, I chose to have it sent on my behalf. And it was just sort of an instant sigh of relief just knowing that I was answering that document.

How long did it take for the court to file your Answer?

Hannah: Wow. So it sounds like you used our standard package, which is where you can create the Answer document on our website, and then we file it for you. Did you see, after using our services, about how long it took before the court had received the Answer and filed it into your case?

Mason: Yes. So it was about, I want to say ten days. And of course, once that was received, I was sort of hitting refresh on the court's website daily just to check and see if that had gone through. And of course it did. Finally, after like ten to eleven days. I think it was eleven days.

Hannah: Yeah. In our experience, a lot of the time we'll send the documents within a day or two of someone using our services, and then oftentimes the court will take another few days to process it on their end before it actually ends up filed into the case. So it's good that you were really proactive in getting it taken care of, like the same day that you were served with the documents. I love that proactivity.

Mason: I appreciate you sharing tracking numbers because I was able to see when exactly the court received it. And then, of course, it was just a waiting game to see when they actually acknowledged receiving it.

Hannah: You should have received a tracking number for the court, but also for the opposing attorney who we also served your Answer document to, right?

Mason: Yes.

Hannah: And did you see that both of those went through and everything went smoothly there?

Mason: Yes, they both actually received them, I think around the same day.

What happened after you filed your Answer to the debt lawsuit?

Hannah: So tell me a little bit about what happened after the Answer was filed with the court and into your case.

Mason: After about, I would say eight days, I received a response from the plaintiff attorney in a nice manila envelope, and they were filing for a Motion for Summary Judgment after receiving the Answer document and after the court had acknowledged them.

Of course, once I received that, I read over the paperwork and they were essentially submitting the same documents in the Motion for Summary Judgment that they had submitted originally, which I knew were inaccurate or false. They were submitting just a statement of how much was owed to Discover, which was not an accurate representation of when the account was last paid on.

It was just literally a letter from Discover that said, this account ending in XXX owes this amount of money without any further proof or representation of how old the debt was, the accurate amount of what the debt was, when the account was closed, or when it was last paid on.

On receiving the motion of summary judgment, again I went back to SoloSuit, and I knew that there were a couple of options on your website. I saw that filing a Motion to Compel Arbitration was an option. I thought not doing anything with the Motion for Summary Judgment would not work out in my favor, so I proceeded to file the Motion to Compel Arbitration. It was shortly thereafter that the judge scheduled a hearing.

Hannah: Okay, so you filed the Motion to Compel Arbitration in response to Zwicker & Associates’ Motion for Summary Judgment, right?

Mason: Yes.

What happened after you file a Motion to Compel Arbitration?

Hannah: When the court received your Motion to Compel Arbitration, they set up a hearing.

Mason: Yes.

Hannah: Okay. And you used SoloSuit to generate the Motion to Compel Arbitration document, right?

Mason: I did.

Hannah: And then you filed it into the court yourself?

Mason: Yes.

Hannah: Okay. Did you mail it or did you drop it off at the courthouse?

Mason: So I mailed it myself, and because the court is in the same city here, I just thought that it would take like a day or two to get there by mailing it out here.

Hannah: And I'm assuming it only took a couple of days to get to the court, right?

Mason: Like a day or two. And they acknowledged it, maybe, five to six days later.

Hannah: Okay. So about the same timeline as your Answer document, right?

Mason: Roundabout, yeah.

Hannah: Did the court send you documents letting you know that there was a hearing scheduled, or how did that work?

Mason: Yes. So, of course, again, anxiety was setting in, and I was hitting refresh on the website of the courts to see. I noticed that they had scheduled the hearing, but of course I had not received an official mail document yet. So once I saw that, it was at least a sigh of relief that I knew this was going to go before a judge, which is exactly what I wanted to happen, to be able to show the proof that this was beyond the statute of limitations of years.

So I would say maybe five days later, I received the actual Summons to appear before the court, which was scheduled for 9:30 a.m., and so I just thought, let me get my paperwork in order. Which I had already done my due diligence in contacting the bank, which, as stated before the bank, had sent me statements showing proof of when the last payment was ever made to this credit card company. I also reached out to a family friend that recommended that I get a copy of the bank's arbitration clause as well, just to have that.

Hannah: That's awesome.

Mason: I was still very nervous, but confident that I had supporting documentation to show exactly how I felt about what was happening.

What happened when you went to court for your debt lawsuit?

Hannah: Yeah, it sounds like you really had all your ducks in a row. That's awesome. So, yeah, tell us a little bit about what the court process itself was like. You showed up, I'm guessing. Was it hard to find the courtroom?

Mason: Nerve wracking. So I'd never been in this situation before, of course, never been to civil court. So I showed up, checked in with my nice little folder with all of my documentation in it, prepared to see the judge, and fortunately, Zwicker and Associates did not appear. They did not show up, and of course, it worked out in my favor.

What documents did you bring to court with you?

Hannah: That's awesome. I'm glad they didn't show up, but what happened at court? Did they ask you to present anything?

Mason: The judge asked what brought us in front of the courts. And I mentioned quite plainly that the credit card company was pursuing a debt that was beyond the statute of limitations for our state.

And she was immediately able to see with, I think, the evidence that they submitted in their initial Summons and Complaint and the subsequent Motion for Summary Judgment because they submitted the same documentation for both, which just shows that they weren't really acknowledging what they're just trying to really push that to the judge and just make them see, oh, this person owes this amount of money, and we think that we should win. And in reality, I just presented to the judge that this is why they're incorrect in what they're asking for and what they're stating.

Hannah: So you did show the judge all of your documents, and she saw pretty quickly that you had a great case and that they were going to rule in your favor.

Mason: I would definitely recommend to someone, just have your things in order. Like, have your documentation in order. For sure, yeah.

Hannah: That's awesome. Well, it sounds like you did everything right from being proactive, responding quickly, and then from doing all the background research that you needed to do on the statute of limitations, on the deadline to respond, and all the other sorts of things that you did to prepare for the court. That's awesome. Congrats to you. It sounds like you did most of the work, but hopefully SoloSuit helped.

Mason: SoloSuit was a huge help. Because in not only looking at your website and helping construct the Answer document and knowing what steps to take next as far as the Motion to Compel Arbitration, there is also helpful information on your website on how many days do we have to respond to a lawsuit? What should I do next? What are the best steps to take next? And I noticed on your blog, for example, you have answers to how to respond to even certain companies that may be, I don't mean to call them collection mills, but how to respond to certain companies that it's just sort of what they do, and there's a clear way to respond to them.

What was the judge’s final decision?

Hannah: Well, I'm so glad that our resources and our services were able to help you out and prevail in your debt lawsuit case. You said that the court ruled in your favor and that they dismissed your case with prejudice or without prejudice?

Mason: With prejudice. So the judge, I think, presenting the evidence, I don't know, I think it allowed her to see that not only were they pursuing this debt, but that it was beyond the statute. It was beyond the statute of limitations, and that just what they were pursuing just wasn't valid. So I think that she realized that.

Hannah: Yeah. So with prejudice, meaning you can never be sued for this same debt again, right?

Mason: Yeah. This debt is gone. Which is so… I can't tell you how relieving that was to receive that letter.

What was the craziest part of being sued for credit card debt?

Hannah: I can imagine that probably is a great feeling. Well, Mason, I just have two more quick questions for you. The first is, what was the craziest or most surprising part of the whole process?

Mason: The craziest part of the process? I mean, obviously it's a shock to the system to deal with a situation like this, because, again, I've never been in this situation, so I had absolutely no clue on how to handle it. Super thankful to have SoloSuit in place, because without it, I would have had no idea how to respond to this. SoloSuit made it a step-by-step process and easy to follow. It brought the anxiety down from 100 to a ten.

What was the best part of using SoloSuit?

Hannah: That's awesome. So actually leads really nicely into my last question. And that's what was the best part for you of using Solo Suit?

Mason: The straightforward process, the answers, letting you know that you're not alone, I think was the biggest relief. I hope to not be in this situation again. I mean, it would be rather unusual if I found myself in this situation again, but…

Hannah: Yeah, hopefully you never have to be our customer again. But if so, I hope that we can help in a similar way. And I do think that being sued for debt can be kind of an isolating feeling. And so, at the end of the day, I'm really glad that, if anything, we made you feel like you weren't alone in the process.

Well, thank you so much, Mason. I really appreciate you taking the time to share your story. These are the kind of stories that we love to hear, because this is why we do what we do at SoloSuit. We just want to help people feel less alone throughout the process and eventually prevail. So thanks so much for sharing.

SoloSuit is rooting for you

We hope that today's video was helpful and that you learned a thing or two about how you can win your debt lawsuit.

If you have any questions or if you just need a helping hand, head on over to Solosuit.com, where you'll find endless resources from legal documents that you can personalize to your case to educational resources on our blog. It's our mission at Solo Suit to help you feel less alone during your debt lawsuit. Thanks so much for watching and good luck with your case. Solo suit is rooting for.

What is SoloSuit?

SoloSuit makes it easy to fight debt collectors.

You can use SoloSuit to respond to a debt lawsuit, to send letters to collectors, and even to settle a debt.

SoloSuit's Answer service is a step-by-step web-app that asks you all the necessary questions to complete your Answer. Upon completion, we'll have an attorney review your document and we'll file it for you.

>>Read the FastCompany article: Debt Lawsuits Are Complicated: This Website Makes Them Simpler To Navigate

>>Read the NPR story on SoloSuit. (We can help you in all 50 states.)

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