Hi. This is a wonderful site. I learned a lot of helpful information from searching, but I have a specific question that I could not find the answer to. I'm in grad school right now and I applied for a Direct PLUS loan, but was denied due to adverse credit (specific reason: accounts in collection). And for accounts in collection, here is the specific reason they give for the denial: Any account (open or closed) listed as an unpaid collection with a balance greater than zero in the past 5 years preceding the date of the credit report. There's account #1 for $300 and account #2 $2,000. But for account #2, it says "Date Assigned: 08/2012" and "Date of 1 st Delinquency: 02/2008". I was thinking to myself that if I went delinquent 2/08, then 5 years would have been 2/13. So I call the loan people, and they tell me that they went by the date assigned item. I had no idea what that meant, but I learned from here that the date assigned item is when the account was sold to a collections agency. (I was wondering why the date was so recent when the account went delinquent 5 years ago). So technically, they could just continue to resale my account and it will always look like that I have a recent account in collections. Is there anything I can do? Can I have them change it to when it was originally turned over to collections? Or anything at all? Thanks in advance for any and all help.
Welcome! I am under the impression that the DOFD is the date that actually matters. They very well could have recently assigned the debt to another debt collector, but that doesn't mean you should pay it. However, I think once you hit your SOL for your state, they can't collect the debt anymore. In that case, you should be able to just dispute it off saying it's irrelevant/old/past the SOL. Hopefully someone else will jump in here and confirm for sure!
The debt is still valid and they can still collect on it, but they can no longer sue you for the debt owed once the SOL has passed. And yes, DOFD is the date affected by SOL. It won't fall off for another 2 years, so if you want to get it removed from your account, I think your best bet would be a Pay for Delete to expedite the process. Unfortunately that's sort of costly, but it's the best way to get it off there.
Actually, I would write a letter to the loan people and explain to them that they are reading the credit report incorrectly, and that account #2 is not within the 5 year period, therefore their denial was improper. I would find someone who is above the level of the person who would normally answer the phone by calling and asking who the supervisor is, or researching who is their president/ceo and sending the request directly to their level.
jmc: they can attempt to collect, but they can't sue, so most people say, "pound sand" and if you communicate with me anymore, I will sue you, and BTW, reporting on my credit report *IS* communicating with me, as defined by the FDCPA.
Not exactly. At the 7YR mark, they can no longer report the debt. So no matter how many times the debt gets resold through the JDB's, no one but you will know anything about it. And like jam said, they're looking at the wrong date to begin with. Date assigned means nothing, it in no way means you have a recent account in collections. If the SOL has passed in your state (check here: Statutes of Limitations in All 50 States | Nolo.com ) then in addition to trying to get reconsideration, I would also send a DVL to the CA. It's old, the OC may be OOB, documents get lost, etc. and the CA may just delete or not even respond once you dispute with the CRA.
And if you interlock the DV and the CRA dispute, they CAN'T respond to the CRA dispute without violating the FDCPA. Once they've received the DV letter, send the CRA dispute to the CRA, responding to the dispute is collection activity, so they can't reply until after they've provided validation.
A major problem for many consumers is the way the credit reports are listed. These two should be clearly listed: Date of First Delinquency and Date Entry Will Fall Off Report: **My free annual Experian report did show the fall off date. However, when I purchased a report from them a few months later, it was a different format without that date. I have yet to read one that displays the DOFD, which is crucial to determining if the listing is accurate. When I was clearing old, re-aged items off my three reports, I had to contact two original creditors directly to find out when the accounts were first charged off or sent to collections, so I could calculate the 7 year period.
