I need help! Any assistance would be appreciated. I received a bill from a company back in August 2005 for about $500. I disputed it and offered to pay $200. The company never accepted the offer. For over 3 and a half years afterwards, I received notices from 5 different collection agencies who attempted to collect on this alleged debt. I disputed the debt with each and every collection agency and, therefore, they never were able to put the alleged debt on my credit report. Although the original company never contacted me after August 2005 when they issued their last bill, and they instead had 5 different collection agencies contact me, now all of a sudden, in July 2009, they sent me the same bill from August 2005! My questions are: 1. Can the original company still pursue this debt given that over a 3 and a half year period, they apparently authorized 5 different collection agencies to pursue this matter? 2. Apparently, in California, the Statute of Limitation for written contracts and open-ended contracts is 4 years. So, I believe the Statute of Limitation on this matter will run out in about a month or so. Should I ignore the company since the Statute of Limitation is about to run out? Or should I respond? I think if I respond that would â??reactivateâ? the dispute, and reset the Statute of Limitation clock plus renew the 7 year period they could possibly put this on my credit report. Am I mistaken about this? Any advice and help would be deeply appreciated! Thank you! Tom
Requesting validation does not reset the SOL or the 7 year reporting clock. I would DV them to preserve my rights.
Thank you, Engima. I had 2 questions. (1) What does "DV" mean? Sorry, I'm new here. (2) Over the past 4 years, this longstanding dispute was followed by collection agencies instead of the original company. The dispute has never been reported to any credit reporting agency thus far. If the matter is eventually placed on my credit report, would it remain there for a period of 7 years? Or would it be placed on my credit report for only 3 years given that almost 4 years have already gone by since the dispute commenced? Any assistance you can provide would be deeply appreciated! Thank you!!!
Was the alleged debt assigned to these companies for purposes of collection or was it assigned as a sold debt? You might look at your records to see who claims to own the debt at each point. if it turns out that the original creditor simply tried numerous collection agencies because none of the ones it had tried had had any success, there is no difficulty there that Dumb Bob knows of. On the other hand, if the debt was sold to these other companies and sold again and again and now the original creditor is just reasserting it without having regained ownership, that isn't within the rules. Even if the original creditor bought back the debt, it should need to provide a valid chain of ownership of your specific account back to itself in order to explain all of this. Often you'll see the real shining examples of integrity waiting until the last minute to sue in order to generate the most interest charges. Who can know? You might wake them up and get sued. You might delay them enough to make suit an FDCPA violation. Legal decisions are yours to make. They are best made with consultation of a lawyer in your jurisdiction.
Thank you very much for your time and assistance Bob! Your info is really helpful! How can I know whether the original company assigned the debt for collection or whether it assigned it as a sold debt? 5 Collection Agencies were involved over the past 3 year and a half period. Iâ??ve looked at their notices and they generally state the following: (a) â??Your delinquent account has been referred to for collections.â? (b) â??This is an attempt to collect a debt.â? (c) â??Your account has been assigned to a collection agency,â? etc. The Collection Agency notices refer to the original company as either the â??Creditor,â? or as the collection agencies â??client.â? Based on this information, I figure that the account was assigned for collection rather than assigned as a sold debt. Would you agree? You mentioned that if I am able to delay matters long enough, then if the original company files a lawsuit, they will have violated the FDCPA. Iâ??m assuming you mean that if I delay the matter long enough for the Statute of Limitation to expire, then the original company is barred from filing a lawsuit under the FDCPA. Is that correct? Thank you once again for your kind assistance! I greatly appreciate it!
The behavior of the original creditor seems to indicate that they claim to still own the debt. The most plausible scenario for that is that they always owned it and never sold it. If you don't have evidence of any sale of the debt, and you don't seem to, taking the claim at face value seems the careful approach. Obviously if you are sued, you might want to use discovery to try to get information to see what really happened. But there's nothing odd or weird that a company retains ownership of its receivables. Generally the FDCPA doesn't apply to the original creditor. Other laws may. This includes various state laws. You'll need to look into that. Likely they wouldn't not file until after the SOL since that gives you a good defense. If they are the OC, they should know when the SOL expires. There is no bar to filing, it's just if you properly provide notice and defend based on SOL, they SHOULD lose. Then if the FDCPA were to apply to them, you'd have to sue under it. But the FDCPA doesn't generally apply to original creditors. Following the SOL applies to everyone. Regarding delay, if they are going to sue, Dumb Bob doubts you can delay them to the point that they can't win, at least assuming they are competent. But if someone had 1000 accounts and planned to sue on 100, the behavior of the alleged debtors could come into play, one way or another. Calling them might encourage them to sue or it might discourage them to sue or it might have no effect at all. That's probably of little help but it's all that Dumb Bob's got.
Thank you, Bob. I think my case is a pretty complicated one and I greatly appreciate your helpful feedback and kind assistance. I think I'm going to write to the original creditor right away. I'm not going to ask for any debt validation since the original creditor sent me a copy of the original bill and invoice. (Oddly enough, they didn't send any cover letter or any letter/notice asking for payment or else. They just a copy of the original bill). And I'm going to offer them what I offered back in August 2005. Out of the $500 they claim I owe, I'm going to offer $200, which is the amount I offered in Aug. 2005 since I truly believe that is the amount I owe. And I'm going to say that my offer is valid for 30 days. They can take it or leave it. If they don't respond within 30 days, then the statute of limitations will kick in by then. I just hope that they don't take legal action within the 30 day period. Once again, thank you for your kind help!
What is complicated about it? Either they have broken the law or they have not. If it is the original creditor asking for money then it is a question of what the law says in your state. If it is a debt collector then it is a question of whether or not they have provided proper validation of the debt. If not they have broken the law then they should be sued in federal court for their violations. If it is a debt collector then another thing you should look out for is the type of miranda notice they have provided. If they sent you a full miranda then you should demand validation again in order to help extend the time before they can legally take further action and start the SOL all over again for you to file a lawsuit against them for another year. If the notice is only a mini-miranda and you demanded validation which has not been provided then you now have a new violation for which you can sue. There is nothing complicated here at all. Why would you write them at all? If they didn't ask for money then they must be attempting to provide validation because one of the debt collectors requested it but they didn't say which one it is. So, obviously some one of the 5 debt collectors will have violated the law because they didn't provide you with any validation. According to FDCPA the OC should have sent the validation to them and not to you. So if I were ever to be in your situation I would immediately prepare my federal case and send it to the next debt collector that contacted me along with a federal cover sheet and a properly filled out notice of intent to sue. If that don't get their attention then I would simply file it and let them pay me. That would just add fuel to your federal case because a copy of the original bill does not satisfy the requirements of a validation demand. I think that is an excellent idea. If they accept and you pay them then you could easily create yet another cause of action against any debt collector who tried to collect on the debt in the future and it is likely that all 5 would keep on trying because the original creditor didn't pay them after having accepted payment in full for the debt. And that is one of the reasons the OC is unlikely to accept money from you because if they do then they owe more than the $200 to their 5 debt collectors. So if they write back and refuse they are also likely to tell you that you have to pay the debt collector and tell you who you have to pay. Then you know who to sue for the violation next time you get a demand letter from that company. Either way you will most likely gain valuable information. If they don't tell you who you have to pay then you should write back and ask them so you know who to sue. It makes no real difference whether they do or don't sue within the 30 day time frame. You still have a laches defense and you can still sue in federal court and then start collecting evidence against the lawyer and once the local case is over sue the lawyer and name the debt collector as a co-defendant. What I can't understand is why you haven't already sued the 5 of them long ago.
Wow Cap1sucks, you certainly are knowledgeable!!! Thank you very much for the information you provided and for your time. In reviewing what I posted, I think I didn't explain my situation clearly. The original creditor did not violate the law, I don't think. They simply assigned the case to 5 different collection agencies over the past 3 to 4 years. Every collection agency (except one) sent me a letter listing the amount owed and the fact that I had 30 days to dispute the validity of the debt and to ask for a copy of the debt. My response to all of the collection agencies was basically that I was aware of what the original creditor (and the collection agencies) claimed I owed (around $500) but that I was disputing the debt since I owed only about $200. I mentioned to the collection agencies that I was still willing to pay the $200. I never heard back from any of the collection agencies so none of them accepted my offer of $250. I therefore never asked for and did not receive any debt validation. So I donâ??t think any of the collection agencies that contacted me violated the law. Now, all of a sudden after almost 3 years and 11 months, the original creditor has sent me a copy of the original bill for $500. They did not include any letter asking for payment or anything. Just a copy of the bill. I do think I may have a case against the last (the 5th) collection agency. This last collection agency contacted me by phone in December 2008, and left a message requesting that I call them back. I never called them back since I assumed the call must have been from a collection agency and I thought that they would eventually send me a letter like the other 4 collection agencies. However, the collection agency never called me again and they did not send any letter. Around March 2009, I requested a copy of my credit report. I was surprised to find that this item was on my credit report and that it had been placed there by the last (the 5th) collection agency. I sent a letter to all 3 credit reporting agencies in April asking that this item be removed. I also sent a letter to the 5th collection agency telling them that they had unfairly placed this item on my credit report without contacting me in writing. I mentioned that if the collection agency had contacted me in writing, I would have disputed the $500 bill and offered to pay $200 like I had with the other collection agencies. Around May 2009, I was able to get the item removed from my credit report by all 3 credit reporting agencies. The Statute of Limitation on this matter should run out in about a month. But the original creditor after almost 4 years of not contacting me at all - only the collection agencies were contacting me - sent me a copy of the original bill (without any letter requesting payment). Should I write to the original creditor? Or should I just ignore their bill? My fear is that they may sue at the last minute. Do I have a case against the 5th collection agency that did not contact me in writing and placed the item on my credit report? What type of cause of action do I have and what sort of damages could I claim? If I do have a case, it appears from what you told me it would be a federal matter. Iâ??m in California but some of the collection agencies are located in other states. Can you refer me to any books, articles, etc. I could read regarding this issue? Thank you very much for all your help!!!
Of course the original creditor did not violate the law. They are not subject to FDCPA so cannot violate under most circumstances. Your statement that you disputed the debt in a timely manner was also a demand for validation. OH? And I suppose they just did that out of the blue because they just figured you would like to know even though you may actually owe them exactly nothing? Don't make sense to me. And why would I say that you may actually owe them exactly nothing? Because they may very well have sold the debt to one of the collection agencies who now want to move forward with collection before the SOL runs out. Of course, it might have already run out but they hope you don't know that and that you wouldn't defend or wouldn't know how to defend even if you did know that the SOL had already ran out on them. My guess is that they are probably right. No, the creditor didn't just send you that validation out of the blue. They sent it because one of the collection agencies asked for it. In the process they automatically created a violation if the debt collector now attempts to move forward without having provided you with the validation directly themselves. FDCPA is very clear on that point. Who told you that was a violation? What law says it is a violation if they do that? What court has ever ruled that what they did was a violation? I mentioned that if the collection agency had contacted me in writing, I would have disputed the $500 bill and offered to pay $200 like I had with the other collection agencies.[/quote]And then you could have sat back and enjoyed the nice thank you note they placed on your credit reports saying that you paid them which would have lowered your score even more. OK. Then if you had paid one of them it would most likely get put right back on again as a paid collection. So what is the statute of limitations you are referring to? I don't think so. Bill? What bill? They didn't ask for money. They only sent you information. So what? What difference does it make? Why do you fear that? You would have to ask one of the credit repair experts about that. California has much stronger laws than FDCPA. You need to be familiar wth both. Seems to me that you have not been paying any attention to my signature line below or following the RSS feeds. If you had been you would already know that the feeds change very rapidly, almost constantly as a matter of fact and that they contain articles from prominent lawyers from all over the nation, court cases from courts at all levels and many states including United States Supreme Court decisions, articles, research and links to web sites and other sources of such information. It comes in so fast that you need a good feed reader such as Thunderbird to even start to keep up with it all. Start with my signature lines and when you find a feed you would like to follow then simply copy the URL and paste it into Thunderbird and then you get it the same way I do.
Thanks, Cap1sucks! I learned a lot! I wanted to ask you more questions, but maybe I should first start reading some of the material you referred me to rather than bombard you with more questions. Thank you once again for your time and kind assistance!!!
