My husband and I just recieved a letter from a collections agency who just bought an account that supposably belonged to my husband. In the five years we have been together, we have never once had an account with the original creditor. This is also the very first time we have ever heard of this account. In addition, my husband's last name was misspelled. I've been reading posts and the stickies here and am getting some ideas. But what should be my first move?
Your first move is to request validation from the entity which purchased the account alleged due and owing. Do so Certified Article w/ Return Receipt Requested. Make sure you do so promptly to ensure it gets to the entity within thirty days from your receipt of their communication. If they are reporting on your credit reports, dispute the tradeline through the credit reporting agencies shortly thereafter their receipt of your request for validation.
I just ran both of our credit reports from all three CRA's. This particular collections does not appear on any of the reports. I did, however, find a different one that appears to be reported twice. Yippee. Validation letter...got it.
validation Beware of using any validation letter that demands that the collection agency answer a list of questions under penalty of perjury. There is no requirement in FDCPA which requires them to answer any questions whatever. Many think that the court in Spears vs. Brennan and several other cases require them to answer at least 5 questions but such is really not the case at all. FDCPA requires that there be 5 indices in the INITIAL contact with the consumer and all that the Spears court and other similiar case rulings have ever done is to confirm what FDCPA already required of 3rd party debt collectors. Demanding that they answer a list of questions just makes the sender of such letters commonly found all over the internet look foolish and ignorant. I believe that another common mistake is quoting law to them. While doing so isn't particularly wrong, why attempt to teach the law to those who are supposed to be professionals in their field? I fail to see that anything is really to be gained from quoting law to them. Also, there is absolutely no requirement in law that they acknowledge having received your demand for validation nor do they have to act on it. They can ignore it completely and totally and not violate any law. The only requirement is that once they have received your demand for validation of the debt they have to cease all further collection activity until they have obtained the validation from the original creditor and mailed the results to you. So what is validation? What does it consist of? There is a lot of controversy about that on various forums and I'm only going to add to that with this statement. I believe that in order for them to comply with a consumer's demand for validation they must provide all of the documentation necessary to allow the consumer to dispute the debt or any portion thereof. I know of no court anywhere that ever ruled that way but that is what FDCPA says that there has to be a statement in every INITIAL contact letter which says that you have the right to dispute the debt or any portion thereof and that said right cannot be denied nor waived by the consumer. I think that the logical conclusion to be drawn from that portion of the statement is that the original creditor is the only one who has ALL the information necessary to allow the consumer to avail himself of his right to dispute the debt or any portion thereof and that is the reason for that statement to exist. Logically then, I think that a demand for validation is not a dispute at all but rather a demand for all of the documentation necessary to allow the sender to avail himself of his right to dispute the debt or any portion thereof. As I said, that is just my personal opinion of what a demand for validation is and I don't know of any case law to back that up. I'm not a lawyer either.
It's easy to write your own validation letter. Husband (mis-spelled exactly as they did it) Address City, St ZIP DSDA Collections, Inc. Address City, St ZIP Re: Acct # I have no idea what you are talking about, I've never had an account with DSDA Creditor, Inc. I am asking for you to provide me with documentation for this account. Or see World's Greatest Validation Letter --- And to answer Cap1Suck's question L What Is Validation
Cap1 sucks question. I didn't have a question and that thread would not have addressed it if I did have a question. I only stated what I believe. If what I believe is incorrect then so be it but if had reason to attempt to get the right answer I would ask it of a federal court of law and get the judge's ruling on the matter. In the unlikely event that I ever did that I would not ask the court what it takes to properly validate a debt. I would pose a much more direct question such as Fair Debt Collection Practices Act plainly states that I have the right to dispute the debt or any portion thereof. The act furthermore states that said right cannot be denied nor waived by the consumer. Does a 3rd party debt collector violate FDCPA if he fails to provide all of the information necessary to allow me to dispute the debt or any portion thereof upon receipt of my timely demand for that information? In that way I am merely asking for a declatory judgment on a matter of law. That is a far cry from demanding a monetary judgment against a 3rd party debt collector. If I had reason to sue a debt collector I would ask for a declatory judgment from the court first and then if the court answered with an affirmative reply then and only then would I think about filing a federal case against a debt collector who had failed to properly validate the debt. Again, that is just how I would go about it if the need ever arose.
