united-states
Do Credit card companies actually sue over large debts? California
<p>I have 100k of CC debt I haven't paid for months. Would cc companies actually sue? The way I see it-</p>

<ul>
<li>They have no way to find me. Would have to be service by publication.</li>
<li>A normal civil suit takes a year. 2000 hours on a 400/hr lawyer is 800k.</li>
<li>Cc company is not going to do something that massively unprofitable.</li>
</ul>

<p>Is there a realistic chance of me being sued?</p>

<h2>You will almost certainly be sued</h2>

<p>For a small amount like this they would use junior lawyers and while the suit may take a while I’d be surprised if a lawyer spent a week all up on such a simple case. Say 40h at $200 = $8,000 which, when they win, you have to pay. Bargain.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>They have no way to find me. </p>
</blockquote>

<p>Really? How do you know? Are you completely off the grid?</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>A normal civil suit takes a year.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I think you're falling prey to availability bias. The type of cases that tend to get a lot of publicity also tend to be the ones that take a while. That doesn't mean that <em>your</em> case is going to take a long time. What exactly is there to litigate about? Is there some colorable legal argument for why you shouldn't pay? Is there any factual basis for why you don't owe the money? Courts don't spend a year litigating an issue just because there's a lawsuit. There have to be actual issues to dispute. Otherwise, it can over in months. They might even be able to get a summary judgment if your defense consists of nothing but "nuh-uh".</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>2000 hours on a 400/hr lawyer is 800k.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>You seem to have gotten the 2000 as being the amount of hours that is the typical amount worked in a year. But even when a case drags on for years, that doesn't necessarily mean that lawyers are constantly working on it. Those long times come from continuances, where the parties show up to court every few weeks or even months, one of the party asks for more time, and the case gets put off until the next court date. If there's a large team of lawyers working on a big case, they could be racking up several times your 2000 hour/year figure. But this probably isn't going to be a big case. This is quite likely going to be a few dozen hours, a hundred at the most, of billable hours. And they probably have in-house counsel, so probably not $400/hr.</p>

<p>Also, if by "credit card company", you mean the network, you don't owe them any money. You owe the bank, and banks are really, really good at getting money from people. That's kinda what they do. If you owed only a few hundred dollars, the bank would probably just ruin your credit and move on. But they're not going to let a six figure sum go.</p>

<p>Is this all on one credit card? If yes, you will probably be sued, given the firm doesn’t drag their feet and miss the statute of limitations. Even if the debt is spread across multiple cards, the cutoff point for a firm to decide whether or not to pursue a debt could be as low as a few hundred dollars.</p>

<p>It sounds like you won’t be going to court either, so default judgment will be entered against you. Since you wouldn’t be contesting the matter, it would take no more than a few months to obtain judgment. In addition, much of this work would be done by a paralegal if not almost exclusively by a paralegal (except for the trial part), whose billable hourly rate is much less than that of an attorney. The real question is will they be able to collect on the judgment.</p>

<p>For what it is worth, service by publication is not allowed in a lawsuit to collect a credit card debt, although certain kinds of substituted service reasonably calculated to give you notice (e.g. via text message or a facebook direct message) can be authorized by a court in a suitable case. But, skip trace firms and private investigators are very good at finding people, especially with this kind of debt at issue. Unless you go completely off the grid and grow your own food, somebody can usually find you.</p>

<p>Also even if you can't be served, the credit card company could, if it could locate assets belonging to you, bring a lawsuit and attach the assets, tying them up until you could be served with process, possibly by substituted means.</p>

<p>Now, if you simply don't have any assets or income, the credit card company knows that it can't get blood out of a turnip and may not bother. But, usually, people with no assets or income aren't permitted to run up $100,000 of credit card debt in the first place.</p>

<p>In addition, it wouldn't be uncommon for a credit card company to sue to get a judgment on a large debt even if you don't have a current ability to pay because who knows when your circumstances might change in the future for the better, for example, if you win the lottery, or receive in inheritance, or get a better job. A money judgment often lasts twenty years and sometimes can be renewed if it is not collected by then.</p>

<p>Your estimate of the cost of a credit card debt collection lawsuit is wildly exaggerated. A lot of the work is done by paralegals and the total litigation cost would exceed $5,000 only in rare cases. Also, the credit card agreement almost certainly provides that any attorneys' fees and litigation costs incurred are added to the principal balance of the credit card debt, so it is always cost effective to sue.</p>
