LVNV Funding LLC v. Lynsey Hankins

Let’s cut straight to the drama: a debt collector is suing a woman in Oklahoma for $1,462.83—about the price of a decent used washer and dryer set—except no one named Lynsey Hankins actually owes Credit One Bank, N.A. anymore. At least, not directly. Because somewhere between her credit card bill and the courtroom, her debt was bought, sold, repackaged, and weaponized by a company that didn’t even exist when she swiped her card. Welcome to the Twilight Zone of American debt collection, where your past-due balance isn’t just a number—it’s a hot potato flung between shadowy financial entities until someone sues you in Pottawatomie County.

So who are we talking about here? On one side: Lynsey Hankins, an ordinary Oklahoma resident who—like roughly 80% of American adults—once had a credit card. Specifically, an account with Credit One Bank, N.A., that ended in 7377. We don’t know what she bought. Maybe it was groceries. Maybe it was car repairs. Maybe it was that inflatable dinosaur costume she needed for a friend’s birthday party (no judgment). What we do know is that at some point, she stopped making payments. That’s not unusual—life happens. Jobs vanish. Medical bills pile up. The economy tanks. But when you default on a credit card, the bank doesn’t just shrug and write it off. Oh no. They sell your debt to the financial equivalent of a vulture at a landfill.

Enter LVNV Funding LLC—the plaintiff in this case, and the star of our tragicomic little courtroom saga. LVNV isn’t a bank. It’s not even a traditional debt collector. It’s a debt buyer, a corporate entity that specializes in purchasing portfolios of delinquent accounts for pennies on the dollar, then suing people to collect the full amount. Think of them as the Netflix of bad debt: they pay $0.10 to buy your $1,000 overdue bill, then send you a strongly worded invoice for the full sum, plus interest and legal fees. And yes, they have lawyers—plural. In fact, LVNV is represented here by six attorneys from the firm Love, Beal & Nixon, P.C., which, let’s be honest, sounds like a law firm from a 1980s legal drama where everyone wears shoulder pads and yells “Objection!” a lot. William L. Nixon, Jr. is the named attorney on this filing, but there are five other lawyers listed, like a legal Avengers lineup ready to descend on a $1,462 dispute. That’s overkill? Or is it just business as usual?

Now, let’s unpack the story they’re telling in court. According to the filing, Lynsey Hankins defaulted on her Credit One Bank credit card. That’s step one. Step two: Credit One sold the debt to someone called Credit Asset Sales LLC—another debt buyer, probably operating out of a windowless office in a strip mall somewhere. Then, on March 21, 2024, that company bundled Hankins’ debt into something called “Portfolio 43322” (which sounds like a rejected sci-fi movie title) and sold it to LVNV Funding or one of its predecessors. From that moment, LVNV claims, they became the rightful owner of the debt and all the legal rights that come with it—like the right to sue Lynsey Hankins for $1,462.83.

But here’s where it gets weird. The affidavit says this amount is “justly and duly owed” and that “all just and lawful offsets, payments and credits” have been accounted for. But… how? LVNV didn’t issue the original credit line. They weren’t there when the card was opened on December 16, 2022. They didn’t process the payments—or lack thereof. They’re relying entirely on records handed to them by someone else, which they claim are “regularly and contemporaneously maintained.” Translation: “We trust the paperwork we were given, even though we weren’t involved in creating it.” That’s like buying a used car from a guy named Darryl who says the engine’s fine, and then suing the previous owner when it breaks down—except you’ve never met the previous owner, and Darryl is now in Belize.

And yet, here we are. LVNV, armed with an affidavit signed by someone named Janet Cortez (who claims to be an “Authorized Representative” but whose actual role is unclear), is asking the court to issue a judgment against Lynsey Hankins. They want the $1,462.83, plus interest from the date of judgment, court costs, and—get this—a “reasonable attorney’s fee.” That last part is the real kicker. They’re not just suing to get their money back. They want us—meaning the legal system, meaning taxpayers, meaning potentially Lynsey herself if she loses—to help pay their legal team for suing her over a debt they bought for maybe $150.

Now, is $1,462.83 a lot of money? In the grand scheme of civil lawsuits, it’s pocket change. You could buy a decent used motorcycle for that. Or a really nice couch. Or, if you’re LVNV Funding, roughly 0.0003% of your quarterly portfolio value. But for an individual? That’s two months of rent in some parts of Oklahoma. That’s a car payment, a phone bill, and half a tank of gas for the next year. It’s not nothing. And yet, the machinery being deployed to collect it is wildly disproportionate. Six lawyers. A notarized affidavit. A formal petition. A court filing. All for a debt that may have been purchased for less than the cost of the paper it’s printed on.

So what’s our take? Look, if Lynsey Hankins ran up a credit card bill and never paid it, sure—she probably owes someone something. But the absurdity here isn’t that she’s being sued. It’s who is suing her and how. This case is a perfect microcosm of America’s debt collection industrial complex: a system where personal financial hardship gets converted into tradable assets, bought and sold like baseball cards, then enforced by legal teams with more attorneys than sense. The fact that LVNV can show up in court, claim full ownership of a debt they had nothing to do with originally, and demand judgment based on secondhand records—that’s the wild part. It’s like if a guy bought your overdue library fine from the city, then sued you for triple the amount because he “assumed” you also damaged the book.

We’re not rooting for anyone to dodge responsibility. But we are rooting for a system that makes sense. One where debt collection isn’t a shell game played by faceless LLCs with armies of lawyers. One where the person being sued can actually see the original contract, challenge the chain of ownership, and not feel like they’re being hunted by a financial ghost. Because right now? Lynsey Hankins isn’t just fighting a bill. She’s fighting a machine—one that profits from confusion, distance, and the quiet assumption that most people won’t show up to defend themselves over $1,462.83.

And honestly? That’s the real crime here. Not the debt. The audacity.