In early February my wife was served with a summons requiring her to respond to a complaint filed by Trauner, Cohen & Thomas, L.L.P. Representing CACH, LLC.
The complaint alleged that my wife owed $791.13 from a past due credit card account with Maryland National Bank, N.A. Shortly thereafter the phone calls began. The first phone call was from someone who represented himself to be an attorney working for Trauner, Cohen & Thomas. His first attempted to intimidate my wife by telling her he was right across the street from the courthouse and if she didn't agree to pay the amount due he was going to walk across the street and file to garnish her wages. Unfortunately for them my wife doesn't intimidate. She fired back that she does not and has never had an account with Maryland National Bank. The response was, we have a copy of your contract and we even have copies of all the sales receipts and know everything you purchased. When she asked for copies of these documents the caller told her that the documents were on file at the courthouse and we would have to go there to see them. Off we went to the courthouse and guess what? No documents, all that was there was a copy of the summons nothing more. While there we filed a response to the complaint and waited to be notified of a court date.
Well, court was today.in the intervening time we received several more phone calls from Trauner, Cohen & Thomas's office each getting uglier and uglier. Finally, I asked them not to call any more and told them we would se them in court. We only received one more phone call and this one was much nicer, in fact they generously offered to settle out of court for a lot less than the supposed amount due.
Part of the complaint contained a ruling from the National Arbitration Forum, signed by a Michael A. Caldwell, Esq. He had found against her at an arbitration hearing in January. The award said in part The evidence submitted supports the issuance of this Award.
In court, the attorney for Trauner, Cohen & Thomas, LLC offered to make it go away and assured us that they (Trauner, Cohen & Thomas) had the authority to remove all the nasties from my wife's credit report if we would agree to pay something. He suggested $100 per month for five months and then revised it downward to $50 a month for five months. We declined.
Our case was the first called. Trauner, Cohen & Thomas's attorney sole piece of evidence was the Award from the National Arbitration Forum. The judge asked if he had any supporting documents, e.G. A contract. He replied no, he did not but he had an award from arbitration. The judge told him that my wife had no requirement to reply to the arbitration since she never had a contract with Maryland National Bank. The arbitration was non-binding.
The moral is stand your ground these people make bottom feeders look good. Just because you're served does mean you are required to pay. If you do not owe the money go to court in many cases they do not and cannot produce proper evidence. If you do owe the money they will negotiate down from the original amount because they buy these contracts for pennies on the dollar and it is almost 100% pure profit for them.
Walt
Suwanee, Georgia
U.S.A.
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