Our accounts went into default in 2004 while my husband was unemployed. In Feb 2005, we contacted our original creditors to try and begin repaying back our debts only to be sent to collection agencies. We quickly decided to use CCCS to mediate between us and the collection agencies because our first calls to them did nothing but open us up to humiliation, not to mention threats and harassment. Okay, so we entered into a payment plan with CCCS and began making monthly payments, only to find out within the past few months that most of the agencies we are paying may not legally have the right to be collecting this money. Worse yet, not all of them are even collecting fairly such as Cambece Law Firm which actually has established two accounts for one of my husbands accounts and is playing a shell game with us on this account. It's gotten crazy and we are wondering have we lost all our rights to demand legal validation?
This one is a little tricky, but I'm sure an expert will chime in soon. As far as I've been told, you can DV anytime. However, I've been told that you can't hold a CA liable if they don't validate...they simply can't collect while the debt is in dispute, but they never have to validate, unless the dispute is within 30 days of the initial communication. It won't look too good that you've been paying all along and then decide that you want to question validity. Again, let an expert explaing that. I disputed an account with a JDB long after initial communication, but that was after they assigned the alleged debt to another CA. I disputed within 30 days of that contact.
By the way, you said you were threatened and harassed. Were they actual threats (e.g. criminal)? Read the FDCPA and compare your situation to it. Might wanna check credit reports often too.
Depends on what you mean by they have no rights to collect. Please explain further the connection between the CA and the original deptor. Previous posts do make a point, when you start making payments, or agree to make payments, depending on the state it consitutes a contract. Like when your credit card changes banks or policies, but using the credit card you accept the changes made. At least that's what i've come to find, i could be wrong. CC companies have the right to sell off dept and their contracts. Most companies include this "rights reserved" in their original contract. I've heard somewhere though most CC companies only keep contracts for 2 years before destroying the paperwork. If you could explain further why you think the CA doesnt have the right to collect I might be able to be of some more help. Right now it's simply not enough information to be too useful.
We are embarrassed to say, we thought demanding validation on a debt meant disputing the validity of the debt itself, in other words "this is not our debt, we did NOT create this please correct your records". And in our defense most people I've showed a validation clauses to, interpret it to mean the same thing. Nor did any of us know you had the right to refuse to pay your debts through a third party collection agency and could opt to pay the original creditor. Not knowing that though has put us in a bit of a bind. I entered into payments in good faith that those who are attempting to collect money from me on a debt really have been assigned that debt and are collecting on behalf of our creditors. Eleven months later I'm just now finding out that most of the $20,000 we have paid out in the past 11 months lined the pockets of the collectors themselves and never ever went towards the balance on our accounts with original creditors. If the CA is not collecting on behalf of my original creditor as I was led to believe, and is in all essence just taking my payments and pocketing them....do I have now have to pay them off first and go back and start again with my original creditor? I refuse to be forced into bankruptcy but I also refuse to throw my money out the window because the law isn't very clear to those who have never been here. So are there any options for us?
If the CA is pocketing your money as oppose to paying it to the amount owed then that sounds like violations that to way beyond FDCPA. That's soliciting funds under false pretenses, fraud and other felony offenses. When you ask a CA to validate a dept, you demand "validation" as oppose to verification. Verification means they provide you with the original name and contact information for the original debtor. Validation means they need to provide not only creditor and contact, but history and proof of obligation. If they are claiming they are collecting on your debtor's behalf, and are not putting the money towards that, it is a serious crime. FDCPA violations are for the most part non criminal where they may be civilly liable, but not criminally. However, if you suspect and perhaps even have evidence that they are not doing what they claim to be doing, or represent whom they claim to represent then you have a serious fraud case against them. Also, i forget where I read, but it is your right to specify where your payments apply to. For example, if you have 3k in credit card debt, and on top of that $ 800 in interest, and lets say you send a check for 600 bucks. If you dont specify what you want to pay they will apply that to the interest first, so your balance doesnt reduce, and they can keep charging you higher interest rates. So you can specify that those 600 bucks apply to principle and therefore your interest rates will go down and you will pay off your debt faster. This is one of the reasons why they just passed that new minimum payment on Credit Card laws.
Also, you say you didnt know the meaning of validation and other rights you could exercise in terms of debt collection. There is a clause in either the FDCPA or the FCRA which states that protects the "less sophisticated" (their words) of the two parties. Meaning if you where unaware of your rights and other aspects of the law then the party involved with better knowledge (ei the CA) has the responsibility to inform them of their rights. That's why by law they have to include the little mini-maranda with every letter they send you. So again, if these guys arent applying your money to the debt they are ripping you off. If you havent done so yet, read the Fair Dept Collection Practises Act and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. These are powerful weapons against abusive CA's. yourself) and they bother you alot less.
I'm not sure if they have broken the law or not, all I know is something isn't right...unbeknown to us until this week, this CA created two collection accounts for my Chase debt, set up an agreement with me to pay "account A" through CCCS. Then had CCCS change the account number after a few payments claiming the other was causing problems when posting my payments. The new account number wasn't really a "new" account number, it was actually "account B" which they had all along for this same debt which has a balance on it that is double the default amount (without any interest or fees attached) It's kind of a shell game, they demand me to pay on one account while they have CCCS paying on the other? The balance on my statements reflect "Account Number A" yet CCCS is still paying on "Account Number B"....if it was an accounting error then why claim you are assigning this account a NEW account number when it really is attached to another account for this same debt????
Well, investigate further. If they made a mistake and then lied about it it's stilll FDCPA violations. If they lied triying to steal your money then it's fraud. Just dont pay a cent more then you have to. And certainly dont do what one CA tried to do to me which was say "give us the money and we'll investigate, and if it turns out you dont owe we will return you the money" I laughed
oooh no that sucks...I already fell for that when I paid off a car and the bank sent me another payment for an amount that made zero ssense. I called them and they said go ahead and send the payment and we'll investigate it....then reported it on my credit report that it was never paid...took an act of Congress but I finally proved I'd paid it but no one ever told me what it was for... btw I sorry for all the rewrites....it was hard to write clearly about it....
Don't have much time Collection agencies/lawfirms generally start the clock running shortly after sending the initial demand letter. They'll wait maybe 3-5 days and then start the proverbial clock ticking. From there, the debtor technically has 30 days from the date of that demand letter to request debt verification documents. Some places (probably Cambece as well) will give like 60 days just to be fair, but from that point on, they don't have any legal obligation to oblige any request for debt verification because your time to dispute the debt will have come and gone in the eyes of the law. Then again, a lot of places these days will, in good faith, collect the appropriate docs anyway and send them if they think it'll help speed the process of collecting the money along.
The ca's lie all the time you never trust what they say or do,been there done that they flat out lie to you, to the cra's,you are alway's told we'll tell you when it's paid in full.so don't say to be fair their doing because they have to,because after 30 day's you can send them a 15 day letter.you wouldn't work for a creditor would .anyway welcome to the forum
Technically it is THIRTY DAYS from when YOU receive the letter, not the date of the letter and or when it was sent. I am sensing that YOU are a collector, eh? Never dealt with ANY FAIR COLLECTORS, and if you have put their names right here <...........> Woofer
I don't ''smile and dial'', I locate assets and attach to them according to state law. I work for a law firm in Kansas, we don't purchase the accounts, they are forwarded directly from the client/creditor for suit purposes.
I would like to say i'm sorry i got a little out of control didn't mine to offend anyone(yes i can be an idiot at times)
I don't know if i would brag about the type of work your involved in collectman.I am sure when you were younger you never dreamed you would be doing what your doing now.Sometimes life does not turn out the way we hoped it would. I am sorry you had to settle for less than you expected.
