Portfolio Recovery Associates Is Suing Me in Pennsylvania — What Do I Do?

Portfolio Recovery Associates LLC ("PRA") is a wholly owned subsidiary of PRA Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRAA), one of the two largest publicly traded debt buyers in the United States. PRA is headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia, and files thousands of consumer collection lawsuits each year, including a high volume in Pennsylvania.

PRA buys portfolios of charged-off consumer debt — primarily credit cards from Synchrony Bank, Capital One, and various store-card issuers — at deep discounts, then collects through in-house collectors and outside Pennsylvania collection counsel.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has taken two major enforcement actions against PRA. In 2015, the CFPB ordered PRA to pay $19 million in consumer redress plus an $8 million civil money penalty for collecting unverified debts, using false affidavits in court, and filing collection suits without adequate documentation. In 2023, the CFPB took a second action for continued violations, resulting in an additional $24 million settlement.

Why this matters in Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania has two distinctive procedural features that make PRA cases winnable here in unusual ways. The borrowing statute (42 Pa.C.S. § 5521(b)) imports shorter foreign SOLs into Pennsylvania court — turning many PRA cases into 3-year time-bar cases instead of 4-year ones. And the fact-pleading rule (Pa.R.C.P. 1019) requires more specificity than the federal notice-pleading standard, making PRA's documented documentation gaps directly dispositive.

If you were just served with a complaint from PRA in Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas or Magisterial District Court, here is what almost certainly happened. You fell behind on a credit card or other consumer account. The original creditor wrote the account off and sold it as part of a portfolio to PRA at a deep discount. PRA is now suing you in Pennsylvania because a default judgment is the most efficient way to convert that purchase into a full-balance recovery.

In Pennsylvania, a default judgment carries serious consequences. Pennsylvania does not generally allow wage garnishment on consumer debt judgments — except for landlord-tenant judgments and a handful of other categories — but PRA can levy bank accounts and place judgment liens on real property. A Pennsylvania judgment is valid for five years and continues automatically if not satisfied.

Pennsylvania's no-wage-garnishment rule is one of the strongest debtor protections in the country. But PRA still pursues judgments aggressively because bank account levies and property liens have real value. Filing a real Answer flips the case from a near-automatic default into a real lawsuit that PRA must prove under Pennsylvania's fact-pleading rules and the borrowing statute.

Pennsylvania gives you twenty days to file your Answer or other responsive pleading after you were served with the summons and complaint. This deadline is set by Pa.R.C.P. 1026(a) for actions in the Court of Common Pleas. For Magisterial District Court cases (small claims up to $12,000), the procedure is simpler — you typically must appear at a hearing rather than file a written Answer.

You count the twenty days starting the day after service. Weekends count. If the twentieth day falls on a weekend or court holiday, the deadline rolls to the next business day under Pa.R.C.P. 106.

If you miss the twenty-day deadline, PRA will move for default judgment under Pa.R.C.P. 237.1. Once a default is entered, vacating it requires a petition to open the judgment under Pa.R.C.P. 237.3, showing the petition was promptly filed, a meritorious defense, and a reasonable excuse.

There is one important Pennsylvania-specific procedural trap to know about now: under Pa.R.C.P. 1029(b), a general denial of a specific averment is treated as an ADMISSION. You cannot just say "I deny the complaint." You must respond paragraph by paragraph. This is one of the most damaging pro se mistakes in Pennsylvania debt collection cases.

Pennsylvania is a fact-pleading state, not a notice-pleading state. Under Pa.R.C.P. 1019, every essential fact must be pleaded with specificity. This is a higher bar than the federal notice-pleading standard and it gives Pennsylvania defendants a real procedural advantage in PRA cases.

The leading Pennsylvania case is CACH, LLC v. Young, 97 A.3d 1261 (Pa. Super. 2014). The Pennsylvania Superior Court held that bulk-assignment defects support dismissal — a generic block transfer of thousands of accounts without specific identification of the defendant's account is not sufficient under Pa.R.C.P. 1019.

This maps directly onto the CFPB's findings against PRA. The 2015 consent order required PRA to obtain the original cardholder agreement and account-level transfer files before suing — and the 2023 action found PRA still falling short. The exact paperwork PRA was sanctioned for lacking is the same paperwork Pa.R.C.P. 1019 requires it to plead with specificity in every Pennsylvania complaint.

In practice, PRA complaints filed in Pennsylvania routinely fall short. The chain of assignment is often presented as a generic block transfer. The original cardholder agreement is often not attached. The post-charge-off interest is often unitemized. Each defect supports preliminary objections under Pa.R.C.P. 1028(a)(2) or (a)(4).

For pleading challenges, the standard Pennsylvania approach is to file preliminary objections first; if denied, then file an Answer with the affirmative defenses preserved. If PRA's complaint fails to plead with specificity, the court can sustain preliminary objections and dismiss the case without prejudice — meaning PRA would have to amend, and many do not bother for small balances.

For credit card debt and most consumer accounts in Pennsylvania, the statute of limitations is generally four years under 42 Pa.C.S. § 5525. The clock starts running on the date of your last payment.

But Pennsylvania has a categorical borrowing statute that often shortens this period. Under 42 Pa.C.S. § 5521(b), if a cause of action accrued in a foreign jurisdiction, the SOL is the lesser of Pennsylvania's or the foreign state's.

Many major credit card issuers are headquartered in Delaware: Discover, Barclays, Comenity (Bread Financial), TD Bank, and PNC. Delaware's SOL on debt is three years under 10 Del. C. § 8106. So if your account was issued by any of these Delaware banks, Pennsylvania's borrowing statute imports Delaware's 3-year SOL — one full year shorter than Pennsylvania's default rule.

If you made your last payment on a Discover card in March 2020, the Delaware 3-year clock began on that date and expired in March 2023. A lawsuit filed in 2024 would be filed outside Delaware's limitations period and would be time-barred in Pennsylvania court under § 5521(b). PRA disproportionately purchases Delaware-issued portfolios, so this defense applies to a large fraction of PRA cases in Pennsylvania.

The statute of limitations in Pennsylvania is an affirmative defense that must be raised in your Answer or it is waived. Combined with PRA's twin CFPB consent orders documenting time-barred suits, the borrowing-statute defense is one of the strongest tools available against PRA in Pennsylvania.

Most credit card agreements contain a clause requiring that any dispute be resolved through binding arbitration administered by AAA or JAMS. When PRA bought your account, they bought it subject to whatever terms were in the original cardholder agreement.

This is a powerful defense for Pennsylvania PRA defendants. AAA and JAMS commercial filing fees for a business claimant typically run from $1,500 to $5,000 or more, plus the arbitrator's hourly fees. If the disputed debt is, say, $3,200, the cost of arbitration may exceed the recoverable amount.

This creates the "arbitration fee trap." When a Pennsylvania defendant files a motion to compel arbitration under 42 Pa.C.S. § 7304 — and the court grants it — PRA must choose between paying thousands in arbitration filing fees or abandoning the case. They very often abandon, which can result in a dismissal.

Pennsylvania courts will compel arbitration if the agreement is valid and the dispute falls within its scope. To use this defense, you generally need a copy of the original cardholder agreement showing the arbitration clause. PRA is required to produce that document if you request it during discovery. Pair the arbitration motion with the borrowing-statute SOL defense and a Pa.R.C.P. 1029(b) paragraph-by-paragraph response for maximum leverage.

Your Answer is the most important document you will file in this case. A good Answer in Pennsylvania does three things: it responds to each numbered paragraph specifically (under Pa.R.C.P. 1029(b), a general denial is treated as an admission), it raises every applicable affirmative defense in a "New Matter" section under Pa.R.C.P. 1030, and — where appropriate — it raises a counterclaim.

For the paragraph responses: you must say "Admitted," "Denied," or "Defendant lacks knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of the averment, which is therefore denied." Generic responses fail. This is the most common pro se mistake in Pennsylvania.

The affirmative defenses to consider in a Pennsylvania PRA Answer include lack of standing or chain of title under CACH, LLC v. Young; failure to plead with specificity under Pa.R.C.P. 1019; statute of limitations under 42 Pa.C.S. § 5525, with the borrowing-statute argument under § 5521(b) if applicable; failure to state a claim; account stated cannot be established; and arbitration clause.

Where FCEUA violations are present — and PRA's twin CFPB consent orders make these unusually likely — consider an FCEUA counterclaim under 73 P.S. § 2270.5 with attorney's fees, plus an FDCPA counterclaim in federal court.

What you should never do: do not admit you owe the debt. Do not call PRA. Do not promise to pay. Do not ignore the lawsuit. The 20-day clock and the Pa.R.C.P. 1029(b) trap are unforgiving.

Pennsylvania has strong consumer protection laws for debt collection defendants — primarily through the Pennsylvania Fair Credit Extension Uniformity Act, codified at 73 P.S. §§ 2270.1–2270.6.

The FCEUA incorporates the federal FDCPA into Pennsylvania law and extends it to creditors collecting their own debts. Section 2270.4 prohibits unfair or deceptive collection practices. Violations support a private right of action for damages plus attorney's fees.

The Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law (73 P.S. §§ 201-1 et seq.) also applies to debt collection in some contexts. Successful claims under the UTPCPL can result in actual damages plus treble damages and attorney's fees.

The federal FDCPA also applies to PRA. The FDCPA prohibits false statements, misrepresentations of the amount or character of the debt, and abusive collection tactics. FDCPA violations entitle you to up to $1,000 in statutory damages plus attorney's fees in federal court. The CFPB findings against PRA are direct evidence of FDCPA-violative conduct.

The combination of FCEUA fee-shifting, FDCPA statutory damages, the borrowing statute imposing Delaware's 3-year SOL on many Pennsylvania cases, the fact-pleading specificity requirement of Pa.R.C.P. 1019, and PRA's twin CFPB consent orders means PRA faces real downside risk in Pennsylvania.

After you file your Answer with the Pennsylvania court clerk and serve a copy on PRA's attorney, the case enters discovery. Discovery in Pennsylvania is governed by Pa.R.C.P. 4001 and following.

In a PRA case, this is where the chain-of-title defense gets tested. You can serve a request for production of documents demanding every assignment document, every bill of sale, the original cardholder agreement, and the complete account history. PRA must respond within thirty days. If they cannot produce a clean chain of title and an authenticated account record, their case is in serious trouble.

What very often happens next is a settlement offer. Pennsylvania practitioners report that PRA commonly settles real-Answer cases for forty to sixty cents on the dollar, sometimes much less.

If the case does not settle, it proceeds to a court date. Cases under $12,000 may be in Magisterial District Court under simplified procedures. Cases above that threshold are in Court of Common Pleas under full Pa.R.C.P.

Answered is a self-help legal platform built specifically for pro se defendants in consumer debt collection lawsuits. The Pennsylvania playbook was reviewed by a Pennsylvania-licensed consumer-rights attorney and is built around the specific statutes and rules that govern PRA cases — Pa.R.C.P. 1019, 1026(a), 1029(b), 1030, 42 Pa.C.S. §§ 5521(b) and 5525, and CACH, LLC v. Young.

When you upload your summons and complaint, Answered does the following: it extracts your service date and your 20-day Answer deadline; it scans for the procedural defects most commonly found in PRA pleadings, including bulk-assignment defects under CACH v. Young and missing fact-pleading specificity under Pa.R.C.P. 1019 (the exact defects the CFPB sanctioned PRA for); it identifies whether your debt may be time-barred under 42 Pa.C.S. § 5525 — and critically, whether the borrowing statute under § 5521(b) imports a shorter foreign SOL because of a Delaware-issuer card; it generates paragraph-by-paragraph responses to avoid the Pa.R.C.P. 1029(b) admission trap; it checks whether an arbitration clause is likely available; and it generates a court-ready Answer with affirmative defenses in a New Matter section under Pa.R.C.P. 1030.

The Answer document is formatted for Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas, includes the proper caption and case style, and contains paragraph-by-paragraph responses, affirmative defenses, and (where applicable) counterclaim language.

Pricing is simple: free to start, and a one-time $99 charge to unlock and download your final documents. There is no subscription. There is no per-document fee. If you also want Answered to print, sign, and mail your Answer to the court via certified mail — Pennsylvania is one of four states where Answered offers full mail filing — that is available for an additional flat fee.