I received a letter for AFNI about a Verizon account that they said I owed $144 on, last September. I immediately sent them a DV letter and warned them not to report to the credit agencies, as stated in the FCRA. I do not believe that this was my debt as I still had and used an active Verizon account during the time AFNI was trying to collect and they said that I had no outstanding balances. I sent AFNI the letter Certified Return Receipt and it was signed for within the 30 day window I had to dispute the claim. AFNI never sent me any type of validation and I never received any further correspondence from them. Recently I pulled a copy of my credit report and found that AFNI reported the collection in October of '08. This was the month after they had received my request for validation and my dispute of the claim. Isn't reporting this, what I believe to be, false information a violation of the FCRA? They never tried to follow up with me and provide any information. They apparently ignored my DV letter and they reported information on my credit report that was disputed and therefore false until they could prove that the debt is mine. What is my next step in getting this rectified?
They don't have to respond, but if they don't, they can't continue collection activity. If they sent this to the CRA when they sent you the letter, they are not in violation. If you disputed the tradeline through the CRA and they verified it before sending you the validation information, that is a violation. Dispute the tradeline through the CRA and it should go away. If it comes bac as verified, then you have a violation (something that is not exactly foreign to AFNI).
