Newbie question re: Verizon

Discussion in 'Credit Talk' started by mireland, Sep 9, 2003.

  1. mireland

    mireland Well-Known Member

    I recently became aware of an entry on all three reports for Verizon, showing as a charge off.

    The account is mine, and the amount in dispute ($150) is a matter of he said/she said. (I cancelled service, they claim I cancelled it one month, I claim I cancelled a month earlier...cancelled by phone, so no proof.)

    I contacted Verizon's Recovery Team (internal), where a very nice man offered to remove the entry from my credit report if I just paid the amount outstanding to RMA. He dodged the question, but it appears that RMA is servicing but does not own the debt.

    I asked for this in writing, he refused. I know this is a bad sign.

    My questions are as follows:

    1) He's lying, right? Has anyone actually had them delete under these circumstances?

    2) If they won't put anything in writing, and won't sign a delete for payment letter I send them, then is there any benefit/harm to paying anyway? I lose my leverage, but do I really have any? Is a paid charge off better than unpaid? Will they sue, if I ignore this?

    Thanks in advance for any help/direction you can provide. I really want this as "gone" from my reports as I can, but I don't want to do any inadvertant damage.
     
  2. chrisb

    chrisb Well-Known Member

    It is obvious that he is lying. If you don't have it in writing, you can't force them to delete it if they don't after you pay. Can you afford to pay this $150? If so, write up an offer to pay them for deletion, send it CRRR, and in the offer make them sign and return to you if the offer is acceptable. Upon reciept of their signed copy of the offer letter, send them the payment in full. Since it's payment in full, not partial payment to be considered payment in full, I would suggest paying it by check, so you can get a copy of the cashed check.

    After the check has been cashed, check periodically to see if the item has been deleted. Now the CRA's will post a derog 2.8 seconds after you've commited the act that led to the derog, but they some times (which should be illegal) take 2-3 months to update and correct something. So you can speed it up a little (and put cash in your pocket) if you dispute it with the CRA's as not mine after you've confirmed the check was cashed. There is no way that Verizon can validate that which they agreed to delete. If the CRA's validate, you have a $1,000 violation from either the CRA for not actually checking, or from Verizon for validating it after the contract for pay for deletion was in effect.

    And it would be really easy to go into a small claims court and win $$$ with a contract agreeing to delete for payment, a cashed check for payment, and a hard copy of your credit report dated a month after they cashed it with the item still on.

    Worst case, they don't agree to the offer you send them, so then I would suggest one of the $40 Radio Shack recording things and tape the call to Verizon's internal recovery department and get a rep to agree over the phone for deletion for payment (knowing that they are being recorded) OK here's the scoop on that. If you call up most businesses, you hear the spiel that "This phone call may be recorded for quality purposes" or something like that. They just gave permission to you for recording the call, because the other party knows that it will be recorded by their company. If you don't get that spiel, then you, after getting a rep and giving them your account information and everything, tell them "For my own record, I am going to start recording this conversation" Some may hang up, but since most collections people are working on commission, if he thinks you're pretty likely to want to pay, he may just stay on. You need to be sure that you record your telling him that you will be recording it, and his agreeing (you've informed him that you are recording it, by not hanging up he is consenting) Then if you get another agree to delete for payment, recorded is as good as in writing. Then after you've paid, if they haven't deleted, send a letter with a transcript of the conversation starting at when you informed of it being recorded, using the name that the rep gave you (which you will have on tape too) going through the agreement of deletion, and in your letter demand that they fax the deletion request to the CRA's upon reciept (the fax numbers can be found here on the board, supply the fax numbers for them) and tell them they have 5 days to comply before you take all actions that the law allows based on them not honoring their verbal contract.

    Just a thought.

    ChrisB
     

Share This Page