The reasoning behind asking the consumer to provide a receipt: *our client already provided us with incorrect info. If the debt was sold they bought it in batches and the creditor sold the batch in an as is manner. And the purchasing client does not research every piece of business. The original creditor isnt our client and cant give us your personal info. The purchaser has the same info we have. how are we to prove if it is paid/settled/or otherwise without cooperation from the alleged debtor? As far as my utility situation that took about a week to clear up, but I had to file a police report and a complaint with the FTC. Then fax a letter of dispute with the confirmation # from the FTC and the police report to the utility company they then give you the fraud alert info. 3-4 days later they called informed me it was fix and out of my name. Of course I know I will have to check back to make sure everything is ok and doesnt show up on my credit report. As far as medical bills...Yes I do give the charity info to debtors and we are encouraged to. And insurance and attorney accounts are 2 different things. Attorney accounts (MVA claims) are not held off your credit pending litigation or settlement because even if the judge files in your favor and you get the settlement you can chose not to take that $ and pay those bills. And people do it. People call give the attorney info we take their info off. Because we dont contact after we are told an atty is retained (of course) work with the atty for the duration of the claim. Request itemized statements and send whatever info they request check the status of the claim with atty then at the end of the whoopa 2 years later call the atty check on status and the atty says "the case was closed and all money was dispursed to their clt" and they never pay the bill. Of course not all people are like this but it happens alot. What i dont understand is why atty's tell you not to pay these bills knowing they are not held off the credit? The only a letter of protection does is stop suit from being filed. But if the account comes to collections and you tell me your insurance was not billed then that is held off your credit pending insurance. you provide insurance info we call and verify coverage for the dos then bill insurance. Both situation can become hairy in different ways because our client determines when and if things list on your credit, if accounts can be settled or just the manner in which the accounts can be handled. For instance some hospitals dont list on the credit report at all unless they sue the accounts so in most cases the information the CA is conveying to the debtor is not our policy but contract with our client! Of course we have client name and address but if you call and say what is their # I cant give that to you! First of all because the collectors are not provided with it and secondly we are not to refer them back to the client. Except for the charity program. I think one of the biggest things that people dont understand about atty and insurance accounts is: You pay your medical insurance and they have a responsibility to you but the hospital provided you a service and you have a responsibility to them. Technically that is 2 separate situatuions. If insurance never pays your bill you still owe it. You guys think dealing with collecyion agencies are bad insurance is worse.
I hear you and I understand what you say, but as a consumer, why do I need to help you do your job and make up for your client's sloppy record keeping? As you say, I'm not your client. In fact, the only reason I have to help you, either by sending money or sending a receipt that you should already have, is under the express or implied threat of you damaging my credit. That's not cooperation, that's extortion. While each [alleged] debtor is different, for the CA, it's still all about the numbers so it's easier to assume everyone owes the debt in front of you and work from there than it is to do the due diligence to see if the records are complete and accurate. I'm sorry, but because it's too hard or too expensive to verify that purchased debts are valid before contacting a consumer seems like a pretty lame excuse. Something else we agree on.
Now there is real food for thought. Details like that are always important because they raise other questions. The first one that comes to mind is regardless of how one pays a debt collector I think that the money order or cashier's check should always be paper clipped to a copy of their invoice. In addition to that I think one should scan the check or money order and their invoice together so a solid paper trail is had.
AHA! I knew you had some valuable information to provide!!! So the law plainly states that if the consumer disputes the debt within the 30 day period immediately following receipt of the collector's initial contact the collector must contact the original creditor, obtain the demanded information and return it to the consumer but here you say you can't do that. How do you resolve that problem and comply with the mandates of FDCPA? Or am I missing something here? Sounds reasonable in situations such as your was. Again you have provided valuable information Thanks. Yes, I'm sure it does happen a lot. I'm sure that attorneys often contribute to that problem by handing the settlement check to their client without telling them that there are outstanding bills that must be paid out of the proceeds. That can happen if the attorney assumes that their client is aware of that so just don't mention it. Sort of an inadvertent mistake on their part. That's understandable. Then as you suggest, some simply don't pay what they owe for other reasons whatever those may be. So hospitals can pull credit reports before treating a patient? That's understandable too but again, if you don't give them the full information about the original creditor then you violate FDCPA in that way. Of course, you are only required to provide that information in your initial contact letter or as a result of having received a demand for validation. If the debtor didn't keep that initial contact letter then that isn't your fault. Absolutely! Good point. Yes, far worse. In some ways that is also very understandable. They don't want to pay $25 for an aspirin that could have been obtained at the local drugstore for a few cents. Profit is one thing but the charges many hospitals put on their bills are so far out of line as to constitute a fraud. The government is now talking about cutting executive pay by as much as 90% for companies who have accepted bailout money but what about $1,000 or more per shift paid to interns at hospitals? Doctors get even more. Maybe there ought to be some limits but what gives government the right to use taxpayer money to bail out banks and insurance companies or tell companies how much they can pay their employees? Sounds like communism regurgitated to me. That's just a comment and I'm sure you don't have the answer to that anymore than I do. Yes, we know the answer but how to resolve it is what we don't know how to accomplish. Again, thanks for your thoughts and insights.
I am a debt collector, and I registered to this site just to say how ridiculous the original post is. D: Most people with credit/collection issues simply need to educate themselves on the entire situation (ie...credit report, future issues with obtaining credit, anxiety with collectors) before making such irrational statements. USB is a collection agency for Chrissakes! Of course people are going to complain. lol. EDIT: if you as a consumer allow a debt to escalate to a debt collector, you no longer have the ability to represent yourself as a "consumer". You had that opportunity for 3-6 months while ignoring the bill. Now, you are a debtor...which falls into a different category. While there are legitimate disputes, and also a very cut and dry way to go about disputing, more than 99% of people that get into collection situations have had ample opportunity to clear it up with the creditor. They provided a service, now you must provide payment. We ALL owe debt. Some people CHOOSE to not pay them. /rant
Ahh, the simple world of a CA. -- your name is in front of me, therefore... -- you are a debtor and owe the amount in front of me, therefore... -- pay what you owe, NOW. Sometimes it's that simple, sometimes it's not, but that's not the CA's problem, because, your name is in front of them...
Did you find out? Stick around a while. It just might get worse! LOL Complaining don't do any good. Might relieve the stress to blow off steam but that's about all but it takes a lot more than that to get them to back off. In your mind, maybe but not in the eyes of the law. People can be both at the same time. Consumer and debtor are just phrases that people attach to describe somewhat different circumstance but that's not very accurate. For instance, if you stop to think about it consumers become debtors the second they sign any contract or use any credit card, rent a home, use their utilities or do any of a great variety of things. If they owe anybody anything they have consumed goods or services and owe money whether that debt has come due and payable or not. So the distinctions you have made is not all that accurate by any means. Cut and dried? Well, that statement is open to discussion as well. If you stick around and keep an open mind you just might learn that and much more Those who choose not to pay them are usually few and far between but sadly those numbers are growing as more and more people get silly ideas about money and credit from various web sites,discussion groups and conference calls. I was on a conference call last night where one man was talking about how can it be that he owes money on his home when the lender has sold the note and now he owes the lender nothing at all because the lender has been paid. He isn't behind on his mortgage payments so he isn't in danger of foreclosure at all but if he keeps on hanging out with the wrong people who espouse those kinds of theories he just might get the idea that he don't have to pay for his house and then he will be in deep trouble. Silly ideas that sound like hot stuff abound all over the internet and even out in the real world as people attend various fruitcake seminars and meetings. But the idea that consumers and debtors are two different animals is just as ludicrous as the idea that people don't have to pay their debts once it is turned over to a 3rd party debt collector. What they fail to realize is that their unpaid debt is an asset to their creditors and creditors have the right to do whatever they want with their assets including selling or assigning them to someone else to collect. It is when that 3rd party debt collector violates the law that the rub comes in. Even though they may owe a debt, once their rights have been violated they become a creditor in net effect and the 3rd party debt collector becomes a debtor to the consumer/debtor. If you don't believe that then just go to Pacer and see what happens to debt collectors who fail to realize that fact. They are guilty of civil rights violations and often even more than that. They owe money to the person whose civil rights they violated and if they aren't careful those violations can escalate into hundreds of thousands of dollars. So if you are trying to collect (let's say) $1,000 and you commit civil rights violations amounting to (let's say)$10,000, what are you going to do then? Cry a lot? Try to tell the judge that you were only doing your job or that the debtor owes you money? If so, please rest assured that your pleas will probably fall on deaf ears and you may end up with a huge judgment against you. But for the purposes of conversation let us say that you are a perfect angel and never violate any law or the rights of anyone but you hire a lawyer to help collect the money via judgment and garnishment. That lawyer will probably do your violating for you and you become liable because you hired the clown so your lawyer gets sued in federal or state court or both and you get named as a co-defendant. I'll bet that would really trip your trigger, now wouldn't it?
I agree with pretty much everything you said. All collectors should stick to the FDCPA 100% always. There are collectors (in Buffalo, NY for example) that make it nearly impossible for a debtor to look at the situation as objectively as they should when dealing with collectors. I have a family to feed, and I have collectors calling me as well. But, my job consists on me collecting money for my client. I can tell you 110% that UCB follows the law to the T. Now...their employees occaisionally may say or do something they shouldn't. They pay the cost of doing this sort of business. They get sued all the time...but I can tell anyone with a doubt about UCB that they would rather collect a debt legally than bully debtors around and collect a few more bucks.
Seems you don't understand. It makes no difference whether collectors obey the law 100% or not. If the individual collector never breaks any law or bullies any consumer and is always as sweet to all as can be, others will do it for them and even if nobody in the chain breaks any laws they can be either tricked or forced into breaking the law and then hauled into federal court for violations they or somebody else unwittingly committed. The problem is that there are so many consumer protection laws out there that it is nearly impossible to collect a debt without breaking one or another of them. To make matters even worse there are more and more on the way. Sooner or later legislators will pass more restrictive laws against debt collectors. That too is inevitable for the simple reason that legislators have nothing more to do than to sit around dreaming up new and ever more inventive ways to earn their pay and hoodwink the voting public into believing they are worth re-electing. For instance, the New York Attorney General just threw 12 debt collectors into jail for what they did while just doing their jobs. That paved the way for consumers to sue collections employees individually. They always could, but it was much easier to sue the companies than individual employees. New regulations are now being promoted in Congress to force all debt collection employees be registered with the FTC and if they use any alias names while on the phones those will have to be registered as well if the new proposals do become law. That will also include those working in overseas call centers. Those are proposals working their way through the legislative halls right now. How much of it will actually ever get passed into law remains to be seen. Many of the proposals will get tossed out so what will be left is impossible to tell. Maybe none of it will ever make it's way into law, who knows. But that is all beside the point. If you don't break the law somebody else will probably break it for you.
While I respect people's desire to follow the law, it seems this is where people could start making stereotypes. The lady already said she knew the debt was hers. Some of us are here on the forums to actually improve our credit and try to be decent people and pay back what we owe. I asked a question about accepting a settlement and paying the difference to the OC, and got jumped on and told I should sue to CA. Some of us don't make excuses for not paying bills when we were young and stupid. This whole business of "right to collect" and so on gets a bit old.
I think you might be taking things out of context. The "right to collect" in this context simply means that the person/CA you are talking to is legitimately authorized to collect a debt. No one is advocating not paying if you can and should. But, at the same time, they are (or at least I am) not saying you should just turn over your money to the first person who calls you on the phone because you want to assuage your guilt as expediently as possible. It's not unheard of around here for people to complain that they paid their debt to a CA over the phone, only to get a letter from another CA that says the person still owes the same debt. Like many people who come here, I'm not out to be a deadbeat and I'm not advocating that others be deadbeats (i.e. people who run up debts and then look for reasons to not pay them). But I'm saying that before I send anyone any money (no matter how guilty or embarrased I feel about falling behind), I want to know that: 1) I owe the debt they are talking about 2) The person I'm talking to has the right to collect on that debt (and they aren't trying to defraud me). 3) We'll transact this with a paper trail that proves 1 & 2 above and will prove to anyone else that the debt has been satisfied once paid. 4) Finally, throughout all this, the CA had better follow the letter of the law or I'll take them to task (i.e. court), however, I'll still pay the debt if 1-3 have been satisfied. That they violate the law trying to collect doesn't alter my obligation to repay my debts. (It might, however, give me a little spending money).
That's the way to look at it. For example, I owe ABZ bank $1,000 and they sell it to some junk debt collector for $10 who tries to collect $2500 from me and violates my rights a few times in the process and then turns it over to a lawyer to sue me for $3995 I'll sue the debt buyer, pick up at least $4 to $5K then when the lawyer gets done violating my rights even more I'll sue the both of them for at least the $5K or more and then pay them what I owed the bank. Heck ya! I'll do that any old time.
Looking for advice here. I just had UCB post a negative to my credit report for a $150 collection. It dropped my score 60 points. I have no idea what it is nor have I had any correspondence with these people regarding any unpaid bills. I'm not late on any of my bills. I truly don't know what it could be. I need this off my credit report asap as I will be house shopping this spring. If these people have ruined my chances of getting a loan, I will be taking whatever legal action I can to make them miserable. What kind of a company does that to somebody for $150 without contacting them??? Pretty bad business ethics if you ask me. I'll be calling them tonight to find out what this is about. Anyway, suppose to do actually owe somebody something and I pay them, when/how does my score get restored and who do I actually have to pay to make that happen? Thanks!
If it dropped your score below about 680 you can probably forget about buying a house this spring or any other time in the near future. Even if you can find a lender who will lend with a lower score than that they will probably make you pay it off before they will loan money. I'm sure that $150 isn't going to put any huge dent in your wallet so that isn't the problem. The real problem is that with that on there most lenders will charge you more points thereby raising your monthly payments and the total price you pay for the home by thousands of dollars. They may or may not have kept you from getting a home but at a bare minimum will most likely have raised the total price you pay greatly. So I wouldn't wait for spring to do something about it and paying them is the last thing I would do even if the bill were only $1.50 let alone $150. The damage is now done and paying them will only cement the damage. So what to do about it becomes the question. First of all look for violations of federal law. Have they ever contacted you by letter or phone? They had 5 days from the time the report appeared on your credit report to have a demand letter in your hands. If that didn't happen then you already have your first cause of action against them. when was the first time they appeared on your credit report? How many months ago? How many reports does it show up on and how many months on each report? Each report their listing shows up on is a new $1,000 violation times the number of months on the report times the number of CRA reports they put it on. So each month times 3 is $3,000 a month (if in all 3 reports). That amount, whatever it might end up being is your statutory damages. Now let's look at your actual damages. Start lender hunting now so you find out how much your loan would have cost without their listing and how much it is going to cost because of it. The difference in total end cost of the home is your actual damages. How much do both your statutory and actual damages amount to? And that is just your FCRA damages. That don't count statutory damages under FDCPA. Those can add up to several thousand more. You have a year from the time you discovered their violations to file under FDCPA so I wouldn't be in any hurry to buy a house this year because the longer you wait the more damages you have. So their first violation of FDCPA has already happened. Have they contacted you by phone or by letter? If not, wait until they do and start racking up another few violations and you can end up with a nice fat settlement check you can use to make the down payment and get them off your credit reports and your score back up so you get better interest rates. Maybe you will get lucky like a friend I have RI. who sued a bank for $90,000 over FCRA violations. They have been fighting bitterly and my friend demanded a deposition hearing. He scheduled deposition of two of the bank's lawyers for yesterday afternoon. They didn't show so he called me wanting to know what to do about it. The answer I gave him was simple. File a motion against each attorney to show cause why they should not be sanctioned by the court and file another motion against the bank itself to show cause why it should not be sanctioned by the court for acting in bad faith. They have shown bad faith in many other ways as well but this one is the corker or should be. He should now be able to escalate those damages to well over $100K. Bet you could use that kind of money to make a nice down payment on your new home now couldn't you? And of course he is doing it pro se so he gets the lawyer fees on top of that. The more they fight the more lawyer fees he can tack on top of the settlement price. You can do the same. The kind I'd just love to do business with. (LOL) So much the better for you. Here you are crying about it when you should be preparing to cry all the way to the bank with their money in your pocket. What for? Let them sit there a while. I'd be very happy to wait 11 months to see if they wake up and die right. (LOL). Anyway, suppose to do actually owe somebody something and I pay them, when/how does my score get restored [/quote]When? If you pay them it will be about 7 years from now. I'm sure that all you have to do is what you have already thought of doing will work just fine. Call them up and offer to pay them off. Cut them a check and sit there fat, dumb and happy waiting for your receipt which you will never get from them no matter what you do. Then start hunting for your house next spring and let the lender tell you all about the mistake you made and may very well also make you pay it again in order to get a very high priced loan if you can qualify at all.
