CACH LLC Lawsuit: Proving Ownership, Defenses, and Settlements

If CACH LLC has sued you, you are dealing with a debt buyer that built its business on volume and default judgments, and one whose paperwork has repeatedly failed when consumers push back. A CACH LLC lawsuit is beatable when you answer the complaint on time and force the company to prove, with admissible evidence, that it actually owns the debt it is trying to collect. Courts in Missouri, New York, and Delaware have thrown out CACH cases for exactly that reason.¹²³

CACH is a Denver-based debt buyer that purchased charged-off consumer debts, mostly credit card accounts, in bulk batches of a thousand or more accounts at a time for pennies on the dollar.⁴⁵ The company has no employees of its own; it uses outside collectors and local law firms to file suit for the original balance plus interest, penalties, attorney’s fees, and court costs.⁶ It has also operated under the name Fresh View Funding, LLC.⁷

Answer the Complaint, or Lose by Default

The single most important step when facing a CACH lawsuit is filing a written answer with the court within the deadline, which typically ranges from 20 to 30 days depending on the state.⁸ Failing to respond almost guarantees a default judgment, which gives the collector legal authority to garnish wages, freeze bank accounts, or place liens on property.⁹

That is not a hypothetical risk. By one practitioner’s estimate, roughly eight out of ten CACH lawsuits ended in default judgments, often because of poor service of process or because the consumer had moved.¹⁰ Court filings in Layton v. CACH, LLC alleged that the company achieved default judgments in “the vast majority of cases” and would typically dismiss suits without prejudice when the debtor fought back or requested discovery it could not answer.⁵ Showing up is most of the battle.

Make CACH Prove It Owns the Debt

Because CACH bought debts in bulk and often acquired them from other debt buyers rather than the original creditor, it frequently lacks the original loan agreements, account statements, and clear proof of the chain of ownership needed to prove its case at trial.⁷ Force the company to produce admissible proof of every assignment from the original creditor through each subsequent buyer, and cases have collapsed.

CACH, LLC v. Askew (Missouri, 2012)

The Missouri Supreme Court reversed a judgment for CACH because the company could not prove it had been assigned the debt. Ownership had allegedly moved from Providian National Bank to Washington Mutual to Worldwide Asset Company and then to CACH. The witness who testified was an employee of SquareTwo Financial, CACH’s parent company, not a records custodian for any of the entities that had actually handled the account, and the court found that testimony insufficient to authenticate the business records or establish a valid assignment.¹⁶

CACH, LLC v. Fatima (New York, 2011)

A Nassau County District Court denied CACH’s summary judgment motion because the company failed to produce a witness with sufficient knowledge to introduce evidence in admissible form. The ruling has been widely cited in New York for the principle that conclusory affidavits from debt-buyer custodians who lack personal knowledge of how an account was created are not enough to win a case.²

CACH, LLC v. Taylor (Delaware, 2013)

A Delaware Court of Common Pleas denied CACH’s summary judgment motion in a case riddled with documentation problems. The defendant’s original loan was with an entity identified only as “Beneficial,” but the bill of sale CACH relied on was between HSBC Consumer Lending and “Beneficial Company, LLC,” and the court held that CACH had not established these were the same organization. The spreadsheet CACH offered to prove transfer of the specific account was created in 2011, making it impossible for it to have been attached to the 2010 bill of sale as claimed. The court also found CACH had failed to establish definite contract terms, and that the defendant had raised a viable statute-of-limitations defense.³

Other Defenses That Have Worked

Statute of limitations. The time limit for filing a debt collection suit varies by state, generally three to ten years depending on the type of debt and the jurisdiction. A collector cannot legally sue on a time-barred debt.⁹ Courts have also applied borrowing statutes to enforce the limitations period of the state where the debt originated, which can be shorter than the period in the state where the suit was filed.¹¹ In Taylor, the defendant’s last payment was in 2008, well over three years before CACH filed suit.³

Procedural defects. In New York, CACH cases have been dismissed for failing to attach a certificate of conformity to out-of-state affidavits, as required by CPLR § 2309. In CACH, LLC v. Freeman, a New York City Civil Court dismissed the case on that ground alone after CACH submitted an affidavit signed in North Carolina without the required certification.¹² At least one case was also dismissed because the named plaintiff, “CACH of Colorado, LLC,” was found not to exist as a registered entity authorized to maintain a lawsuit in New York.¹¹

Improper service. If you were never properly served with the lawsuit, a default judgment can be vacated for lack of personal jurisdiction. In New York, this can be raised by Order to Show Cause with no time limit for filing.¹³

Debt validation. You have the right to request debt validation within 30 days of a collector’s first written notice. Once you make that request, the collector must pause collection activity until it provides written verification.⁹

If a Default Judgment Was Already Entered

Many consumers discover a CACH judgment only when a paycheck is garnished or a bank account is frozen, sometimes years after the fact.¹⁴¹⁵

In New York, a default judgment can be vacated through an Order to Show Cause on two main grounds. The first is excusable default: a reasonable excuse for missing the court date plus a meritorious defense to the underlying debt, generally filed within one year of learning about the judgment. The second is lack of personal jurisdiction due to improper service, which has no time limit but requires proving defective service at a hearing.¹³

Vacating the judgment creates real leverage. In one reported case, a $41,000 judgment was settled for $3,000 after the consumer successfully challenged the default, a reduction of roughly 93%.¹⁵ In another, a 2009 default judgment that had ballooned past $10,500 was vacated and dismissed entirely on grounds of improper service and CACH’s inability to prove assignment of the debt.¹⁴

What Settlements Have Looked Like

When consumers contest cases or get default judgments vacated, CACH and its successors have frequently settled for substantially less than the claimed balance. Reported outcomes suggest reductions in the range of 40% to 75%. In one set of cases, debts of $4,900, $9,700, and $3,800 were settled for $1,500, $4,800, and $1,200, respectively.¹⁶ Other reported results include a $7,600 debt reduced to $3,200, a $5,000 debt reduced to $2,000, and a $3,800 debt reduced to $1,500.¹⁷

Does the SquareTwo Bankruptcy Change Anything for You?

No. CACH’s parent, SquareTwo Financial, filed Chapter 11 in the Southern District of New York on March 19, 2017, and sold substantially all of its portfolio assets to Resurgent Holdings LLC, an affiliate of Sherman Financial Group.¹⁸¹⁹ But debts originally acquired by CACH have continued to be pursued in court. In New York, the law firm Kirschenbaum and Phillips, P.C., based in Farmingdale, filed roughly 630 debt collection lawsuits in 2025, primarily on behalf of CACH, Credit Corp Solutions, and PCA Acquisitions V.²⁰ And in February 2024, the Seventh Circuit decided an FDCPA case involving CACH, confirming the entity is still in active litigation.²¹ If you have been served, treat the case as live and respond on time.

1
Leagle. CACH, LLC v. Askew, 358 S.W.3d 58
2
Nahoum Law. Debt Buyer CACH LLC Denied Summary Judgment for Lack of Evidence in Debt Collection Case
3
NCLC. CACH, LLC v. Taylor, No. CPUU4-12-003000
4
Weston Legal. CACH Is Suing Me
5
GovInfo. Layton v. CACH, LLC, Case No. 4:15CV00752 AGF
6
Boone County Bar Association. Debt Collection Outline
7
Ohio Debt Help. CACH, LLC
8
SoloSuit. Stop Calls From 866-420-7158
9
FTC. Debt Collection FAQs
10
NYC Debt Lawyers. CACH LLC Collection Lawsuits and Judgments With Kirschenbaum and Phillips
11
NY Courts. CACH of Colo., LLC v. Lazarovwsky, 2014 NY Slip Op 51759(U)
12
The Langel Firm. The Langel Firm Secures Dismissal of CACH LLC Case
13
New Economy Project. Vacating a Default Judgment Order to Show Cause
14
NYC Debt Lawyers. CACH LLC Default Judgment Vacated and Dismissed
15
NYC Debt Lawyers. CACH LLC Wage Garnishment Judgment Stopped
16
Goldenberg Firm. CACH, LLC
17
NYC Debt Lawyers. CACH LLC
18
Kroll. SquareTwo Financial Services Corporation Bankruptcy
19
PR Newswire. SquareTwo Financial Announces Portfolio Asset Sale to Resurgent Holdings and Court Supervised Business Restructuring
20
Nahoum Law. Kirschenbaum Phillips Filed Approximately 630 NY Debt Cases in 2025
21
FindLaw. Brown v. CACH, LLC, No. 23-1308