Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Georgia

A dismissal WITHOUT prejudice means that there is no bar to you being sued again on the same account.

However, since the first dismissal was in 2011, there may be a statute of limitations issue here. The statute of limitations on a credit card debt runs from the date of your last payment. When was that here? If 6 years or more then you have a valid defense and you would need to file an answer for that reason. Here is a link to GA small claims (magistrate) court: http://www.georgiacourts.org/councils/magistrate/forms.html. There is an answer form - its blank. You will need to fill it out with the details of your defense if you do not hire a lawyer.

Your second issue ties in with this. There is no discovery in small claims court nor is there any requirement that the creditor attach a copy of the credit card statement or contract. The parties are expected to work this out prior to the hearing.

The fact that the bills of sale are different raises an interesting question. I bet this debt was sold more than once. You need a bill of sale from each creditor in the chain of title - so if original creditor sold to junk debt buyer A who then sold to B who then sold to C who is suing you, you need 3 bills of sale showing sale of the debt from original creditor to A and from A to B and B to C. If any is missing then you may have a valid defense. All claims must be prosecuted by the real party in interest and your defense would be that you do not deny owing money to the original creditor (assuming there has been proper proof of your financial responsibility for the debt like an original credit card statement and credit card agreement) but you want proof that original creditor sold your debt and that your debt is now owned by junk debt buyer. The bills of sale are just indication that a whole bunch of debts were sold. in addition to these, you need an affidavit from someone at either the original creditor or who works for the junk debt buyer who can attest that your debt was included in this big portfolio of debts bought by the junk debt buyer. You also want to know, assuming that all of this has been established, how the amount of debt was calculated. You need a breakdown of what was owing as of the time of last payment, if interest accrued since then, at what rate, whether original creditor continued to charge interest and at what rate, whether debt buyer charged interest and at what rate.

You do not let the judge know. This is part of the discovery - you should be requesting this information from their lawyer. If they refuse to provide it, then absolutely at the hearing you tell the judge that no information was attached to the complaint, that you requested it (send your request in writing and keep a copy) and if you did not get it then you tell the judge that there is no proof that this junk debt buyer bought the debt, no proof of their damages and so on.

If you start demanding this from the junk debt buyer, they will be very willing to settle with you. Who is the junk debt buyer? Who is the law firm? How much is owed? It may be cheaper just to see what you could settle for if you have the funds to do so.

If you don't, then I strongly suggest that you get a lawyer to review your documentation. You might even pay the lawyer to (a) draft an answer on your behalf and/or even represent you at the hearing, depending on cost and whether you have some valid defenses, like statute of limitations or lack of proof. If you do, then the cost to hire a lawyer may be justified as there is a good chance that the lawyer might be able to get this dismissed.