I received a "notice of intent of legal action" from a law firm representing Unifund last week. It's for an old Citibank debt (~$3k) where I'm pretty sure the last payment was mid to late 2018 (aka still barely within the 4 year SOL). I received a notification of them representing Unifund several months back, with a notice that I had 30 days to request debt validation, but I didn't receive it in time and therefore did not request the debt validation. I have received no prior communication from the law firm or Unifund other than that to my knowledge. This one said I had 10 days to call them to attempt to come to an arrangement.
Is there any point to requesting debt validation at this time? Or will they just sue me if I do that? Are they still required to send it?
The credit card in question was wiped clean from my credit report at random several years back so I don't know when exactly the last payment was made, and I don't know how much was owed on it. I am in a better financial position now and would like to handle this in the least stressful way possible but I'm also not comfortable enough that I can just hand over $3k at the drop of a hat. I've read reviews about this law firm that claim they're not easy to make settlement arrangements with so trying to figure out if I should try fighting it instead. Thank you.