The short answer: The Hearsay Evidence Rule.
This rule prohibits the admission into evidence of statements – oral or written – made by an out-of-court witness offered to prove the truth of the matters asserted. In the realm of credit card collection, a credit card agreement and billing statements are both written statements by out-of-court witnesses offered to prove the truth of their contents: that you owe a particular amount of money.
A witness from the original bank must authenticate the documents by "laying a foundation" to show that 1) the documents were created in the regular course of business; 2) the bank's regular course of business included making those documents; 3) the creator of the documents had a business duty to create them; and 4) the documents were created at the time that the transactions reflected took place, or a reasonable time thereafter.
Debt buyers tend to lack access to those bank witnesses who possess first-hand knowledge of the original bank's record-keeping practices.
Assignment problems
The debt buyer must prove that the debt was legally assigned to it.
Debt buyers purchase large portfolios of accounts from creditors then subdivide the portfolios into smaller segments and sell off those segments to different debt buyers. A debt buyer must show a continuous, unbroken chain of assignments.
- The assignment must identify the particular account at issue.
- The assignment must be signed by each party who sold the debt.
- The assignment must have been created for routine business activity, not for litigation.
- Multiple transfers amongst debt buyers of a particular debt lower the likelihood that the current debt buyer will have a valid assignment in admissible form.
Call us if you have received any communication from any of the following debt buyers:
- Palisades Collection, LLC
- Midland Funding, LLC
- Midland Credit Management, Inc.
- Asta Funding
- Asset Acceptance
- Portfolio Recovery Associates
- LR Credit 10, 15, or 13 LLC
- Erin Capital Management, LLC
- Colorado Capital Investments, Inc.
- NY Financial Services, LLC
- RAB Performance Recoveries, LLC
- Rushmore Recoveries
- Metro Portfolios
- LVNV Funding, LLC
- Erin Capital Management
- Gemini Asset Recoveries
- Independence Receivables
- Metro Portfolios
- Northstar Capital Acquisition
- NY Financial Services
- Pinpoint Technologies
- RJM Acquisitions
- Rushmore Recoveries
- Worldwide Asset Purchasing
- CACH, LLC
- CACV – Collect America