I’m surprised they’d wait so long to demand payment. The chain I work at hands shoplifters a bill on their way out the door.
May be a difference in state law.
Volume, volume, volume. I’m virtually certain that you hear a string of “Judgement on the affidavit, you honor,” only seldom interrupted by the presence of an actual defendant. And even then all that’s done is setting a trial date, then working backwards for a Bill of Particulars and then an Answer/Grounds of Defense.
Yes?
So done right, he can get twenty done in an hour, and his hourly rate starts to look good.
For that hour, anyway.
Seventy dollars might be cheap to make the problem go away. But it’s possible seventy dollars will just make the problem worse.
Nothing stops the collection company from making up lists of people who pay off when threatened and then selling that list to other companies. If you pay off the first one, you might end up getting two or three more letters like it every month.
Sure. But there’s only one underlying claim. You’d have to be pretty stupid to pay it again. If Mr. Asen’s call center was actually scamming people by repeatedly claiming payment, he’d have been disbarred by now.
This is completely wrong. One of the few universal features of the law of evidence in US jurisdictions is that an offer or agreement to settle a claim may not be used to prove liability.
Did you ever pay for the civil demand letter? If so, what happened after??
There was never any payment. A third letter more than a couple of months ago, and then nothing.
So legal opinion no longer required, and IANAL anyway, but if the person wanted to pay the $70 just to get rid of the nuisance but not have it construed as evidence of guilt, isn’t there a standard legal condition wherein payment is submitted and clearly labeled as “without prejudice”? Meaning “here’s the money to get you off my back, but I admit nothing”?
On an unrelated tangent, I’m kind of amused by Target getting all hot and bothered over this trivial incident to the point of enlisting a lawyer – not that there’s ever an excuse for shoplifting, which is lowlife scumbaggery. It’s just that they have more important things to worry about. A few years ago they decided to expand into Canada, because Walmart is doing so well in Canada. They were given advice by Canadian retail specialists about retail strategies, the problem with their approach to taking over certain existing retail spaces, and other things they didn’t seem to understand about local markets. They listened to none of it. In their minds they were a retail giant, and they weren’t about to have a bunch of locals tell them what to do.
Two years later, they closed up shop after tallying up $5.4 billion in losses, and slunk back to the US leaving behind the most disastrous retail launch in history.
Meanwhile, BTW, Walmart Canada – which did listen to retailers’ advice – is doing great and still expanding. So my theory is, the $69.96 is Target’s attempt to recoup some of that $5.4 billion. 
I don’t know the legal details but my perception of prior discussion is that no magic words are necessary. You pay the money as settlement of a civil matter that is allowed by state law. It has nothing to do with criminal charges.
I suspect that the lawyer has a deal with Target where he does a huge volume of these things nationwide. It’s not like Target called a lawyer after my contact’s incident. They probably upload a file once a month with all these records. This lawyer just sends out hundreds of form letters and sits back to wait for the checks to pour in, and gives Target a cut when they do. For Target it’s free money.