CREDITOR-SPECIFIC DEFENSE GUIDE
LVNV Funding: How do I make them prove they own the debt?
Here is exactly what to do right now.
You are not the only one. Hundreds of thousands of these get filed every year, mostly against ordinary people who hit a bad stretch. Life gets messy. None of it makes you a bad person. It just makes you human.
They file these by the thousand. You are doing this once. That gap is the only real advantage they have, and it closes the moment you know what they have to prove. Learn it, use it, fight back strong.
The short answer
Ask for the chain from the original bank to LVNV, and then ask who at Resurgent is attesting to it and how they know. The second half is specific to this plaintiff and it is where these files get interesting.
The ordinary chain, same as any debt buyer
For LVNV to collect from you, the right to collect had to travel:
- The original bank charges off the account
- It sells a portfolio, often thousands of accounts
- The portfolio may be resold more than once
- LVNV Funding ends up holding it
- Your individual account has to be identifiable inside that portfolio
Steps 1 to 4 are usually documented, because companies keep records of transactions between themselves. Step 5 depends on records nobody had a commercial reason to keep carefully, and it is where a defended case usually concentrates.
The part that is particular to LVNV
The plaintiff on the papers is typically LVNV Funding. The sworn statement supporting the account, the business records, and the person attesting to them, typically come from Resurgent Capital Services, the servicer.
That raises a question you are entitled to ask plainly: on what basis does the person signing know anything about your account?
Business records generally have to be established by someone with knowledge of how they were made and kept. When the records originated at a bank, passed through one or more portfolio sales, and are now being described by an employee of a servicer who never saw the account opened, that chain of knowledge is a fair subject for questions.
This is not a trick, and it does not mean the answer is unsatisfying. It means it is a real question with a real answer, and the answer tells you what position you are in.
What to request, in writing
| Ask for | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| The bill of sale or assignment for each transfer | Whether any link in the chain is missing |
| The account schedule or data file for the sale | Whether your account is actually named in it |
| The original creditor's records for the account | Whether the balance and dates hold |
| Who is attesting, in what role, and on what basis | Whether a person with knowledge stands behind it |
| The date of the last payment on the account | The limitation question, which for this plaintiff is worth asking first |
Keep copies. Note the dates you sent them. The record of what you asked and what came back is part of the case.
Why the last row is first for this plaintiff
In September 2020 the State of New Mexico sued LVNV Funding, Sherman Financial Group and Resurgent Capital Services in a case concerning the collection of stale debts, as recorded in the FTC's published summary of Operation Corrupt Collector.
An allegation is not a finding, and it concerned one state. But if the age of accounts has been raised as an issue about this operation, then the date of first delinquency on your account is the first thing to establish, not the last. In most states an expired limitation period is a defense you have to raise yourself, and it disappears entirely if nobody responds.
What this does not mean
Chains are sometimes complete and affidavits are sometimes properly founded. Plenty of these cases are fully documented, and asking does not win anything by itself.
What asking does is replace a guess with an answer, and you cannot ask at all if no response was filed before the deadline.