Mann Bracken on behalf of Centurion Capital Corp sued our client back in 2006 and obtained a default judgment. They alleged that he was served properly but our indication from this matter was that he was another victim of Sewer Service in New York. Years later Mann Bracken folded and Houslanger & Associates took over as the debt collection law firm attempting to enforce the judgment. They were able to locate and freeze our client's bank account almost eight years later. The debt had accrued to over $13,000 because of judgment interest and attorney's fees. Our client never had any notice of the actual lawsuit and found out about the judgment when he went to his bank to withdraw funds.
We contacted Houslanger & Associates immediately to point out that there were multiple faults with the judgment against our client. The debt had been assigned multiple times from Discover to Centurion Capital Corp and we did not believe that they would be able to prove that a chain-of-title existed. We also pointed to the fact that it would be highly unlikely that Centurion would be able to produce someone to attest to the fact that this debt was assigned properly and prevent this from becoming hearsay. Finally there was the common issue of a lack of notice to our client that the matter had been transferred from one collection law firm to Houslanger. All these factors led to Houslanger & Associates vacating the judgment against our client and accepting $3,500 in an out of court settlement to resolve the matter, a reduction of 74% of the alleged debt owed..