Hey everyone, I am looking for guidance on next steps. I opened my first credit card living in South Carolina with Capital One in college, it had a $10,000 limit (I'm not sure how, I knew nothing about money) and maxed it out and forgot about it. I can't remember when I started receiving calls and letters about collections, but eventually I told my mom about the debt and she suggested I ask for a hardship thing which I did. Interest and late fees stopped, and again I forgot about/ignored the debt. I checked my credit score a couple months ago and saw that it had jumped like 300 points overnight, and found that the Capital One account was no longer on my report, and naturally I was elated, thinking I was forgiven and that I had gotten out of this alive. A couple months later when I checked my score, It was down like 100 points and the new account on my credit score was Portfolio Recovery Associates to the tune of $11,383.67. I began receiving letters again a few months ago, now living in Virginia.
I received a letter dated 3/26 that my account has been transferred to litigation department, "at this time, no attorney within the litigation department has personally reviewed the particular circumstances on your account." It appears PRA has purchased my account because Capital One is listed as "seller." I have not responded to any letters or spoke on the phone to anyone regarding this account in years. My guess is that this is within the statute of limitations (6 years for both South Carolina and Virginia), however I don't really know when I stopped paying the credit card bill, probably sometime in 2014.
I make very little money (working on it though), have no property except a car which I still make payments on (Capital One Auto Finance), and cannot realistically even settle, their offer for a one time payment of $7,968.56 or monthly payments of $758.91 (I know that it is not advised to make payments to a collections agency) as I simply cannot afford these rates. I don't have a record of these letters (simply threw them out) or of the original credit card details (when I opened it, when I stopped paying, etc.). This is my only debt- no student loans, outstanding bills, etc. aside from my car loan (which is in good standing).
Can I even send a debt validation letter? Initial correspondence was a long long time ago. Would they sue me? I don't think I'm a good candidate for wage garnishment or property seizure. I had a rough couple of years in college and after and have been working on cleaning myself up. It would super suck to get sued or have to pay a lot of money, mostly because I don't have any. Do South Carolina or Virginia laws apply? Thanks so much in advance for any guidance.