If you owe the debt pay for it. I have learned the hard way. These validation letters are not going to get you out of your past debt. If you are trying to do that FORGET IT. If you want to make your credit better pay your bills. I learned the hard way. If you don't have the money to pay your past accounts, just leave them alone then. Let them drop off in 7 years. Sending out validation letters will open old wounds. CA start calling,skiptracing etc.... all over again. If the debts are not yours then validate and call the CRA for help. In the end you will win. Just my .2 , I am paying dearly now for my validation letters. I received a Summons and Complaint today from Arrow. All this was triggred by a simple validation letter. I guess when I go to court I can bring the validation letters and see what the judge says. But when he says do you owe the bill I will say YES. Because I do. There is no getting around that........Then I lose.
No one said validation is to avoid paying debt you owe. It is to verify if you owe the debt and the accuracy of the records. If you started your credit repair efforts with the intention of not paying your debts, you made a grave mistake. The other issue here besides validation is that there is no difference between having a paid debt and an unpaid debt on your credit report. They carry the same negative weight. Therefore, as part of the credit repair process, those need to be turned into a positive thing. Otherwise, there's no incentive to attempt to fix credit, is there? Especially since paying down debt doesn't improve the situation. Given all this pressure on the debtor, there are certain rules and regulations that the debt collector has to abide by. Most of them break them on a daily basis. You already know this. It's all here on the board.
Yes, I agree . Settlements are great for people that can afford them. I am just talking about the validation process not anything else. Paying a chargeoff should include deleting the tradeline. (Tradeline) I am starting to talk like those SOB Collectors now!!! I will get secured cards, and start rebuilding. Thats all I can do for now.
When I started my credit repair. I first spoke to a worker in the Banking and Finance Dept for the state of FL. He was the one that told me to have them validate first. He said you may not have to pay it since it's been so long 4 years but be prepared in case you do. Luckily, I haven't had to because the ca would rather delete than validate. Even Asset Acceptance. But it took along time and alof of letters. In fact, my first offer was to pay and delete. I didn't start to get any responses until I sent validation letters. I just depends. It's very unfortunate what has happened to you. It's not the norm but I knew eventually the collection agencies would start to get their act together. Because they have been lax too long. Too bad it had to be you. But, it will be a lesson to others, the ca may validate just be prepared. I talked to my sister who has terrible credit about doing credit repair. She said "no" she already has a judgement for a repo. and she'll just wait until it's drops off. It is a choice.
Pulse... There are MANY (I'm one of them) on this board who have had great success with the validation process. It is a legal tactic that you must follow though with. Otherwise, it doesn't work. If you request validation and the CA cannot vaidate, you MUST be willing to take the next step and send estoppel. Once you get to that satge, you must be willing to take the next step - filing a lawsuit. You can't do this hal-a$$ed - it won't work. It sounds like you aren't willing to follow through with the whole process. If you aren't willing to go the whole 9 yards, the process breaks down.
Out of curiosity, what was the amount of the debt you were requesting validation on? How old was the account? There are certain cases where requesting validation is a bad idea.
I started with the process and continued , should I continue this process while they have sent me a Summons and Complaint. I sent the validation letters, they validated to the TEE. Followed the FDCPA etc... at least Arrow did. Like I said before VALIDATION is for people that are willing to take that chance of a judgement. I believe this board should tell the good results along with the bad.. I followed the boards advice on validation and it did not work for me. Great it worked for you and you did not have to pay the debt you owed. You should take that money you saved and DONATE it to charity instead.
We have. You just need to read a little more. Who are you to tell tmitchell what to do with their money? And who said they actually owed anything?
When I first started alot of people said be careful. If it's within the SOL then they MAY sue you. They are not necessarily going to get a judgment against right away. You do have a chance to plead your case in court. There could be migating factors, etc. It's not that easy if you show up and defend yourself to the judge. All is not lost yet. They know you are scared and they are using that to their advantage. Like some else said from the other post, tell your husband and deal with it. Try to get some help from your family members, friends, etc.
If had $40k in debt, I wouldn't rock the boat. Total for me amt was around $3k that's what the ca said I owe. I wanted to provide accounting and all documentation within my rights. That's all it's about protecting your rights.
tmitchell if you did not owe the debts then I am sorry. If you did owe the debts and validation worked for you then I am still sorry.......
OUCH... Before I tok the Validation route I had to really look into how much they say I owe and made sure I was prepared for the worst senerio... for me it is about 4K total with 8 CAs 40K is nothing to shake a stick at.
You obviously didn't take all of the boards advice. There has been plenty of discussion about validating big debts....especially if you owe them! You should have spent some more time pouring through posts. No Way should you have sent a valy letter on 40k in owed debt. Did you ever ask anyone in a post about this???? If you did, my guess would be that you were warned. If you didn't............not to smart. I used validation to a tee, and cleared my reports clean. Biggest debt was $1000 though, and I think I will take you up on the idea of giving it to my favorite charity........oh wait a sec, my favorite charity is me. Good luck in court.
People are misunderstanding. She did not validate a $40,000 debt. She validated a $7300 debt with Arrow that came back with a summons. The $40,000 is the total amount of CC debt she owes.
I guess 1k is not a big deal with CA, my debts are 40 times that. When reading thru the threads everyone was talking about this great process of validation and sticking it to the CA. Well I did not know these were little debts like 1k.
Pulse- I am in the process of validation with a CA. I recognize the creditor, but the amount seems EXTREMELY far fetched. If I do owe the amount they say I do, then I will pay it (to the origianl creditor), HOWEVER, I requested validation for the purpose of determining how they came to that amount. Secondly if I remember correctly I saw this dentist 11/00, they have it as 12/01. I had insurance 11/00, but did not 12/01, so I am entitled to know if the insurance paid it off or not. You can not send out validation letters thinking that "ok send this letter out and be done with them". When I started my credit repair journey, I went through all the baddies and determined what I remembered owing and to whom. I paid off the ones that weren't exaggerating the balances (like adding millions in interest), then I contacted the ones that wanted my first born and negotiated with them. ALL of my debts were within the SOL, BUT weren't worth suing for (mind you I am only 25). If the first negotiation round didn't work, I would skip that creditor and go to the other creditors and made deals with them, then went back to the stubborn ones. You need to sit down and evaluate your situation. What do you want to achieve? Start small, validation is like going from pee-wee baseball to the major leagues. Figure out where the SOL is on your bad debts. If it's past the SOL, attack them, if it's within the SOL offer them a very small settlement, if they say no you might want to drop hints of Bankruptcy. Leave them alone and go back in a few weeks. This way, if they DO sue you, it looks like you made a valid effort to "fix" the problem. Having the paper in hand knowing they only paid $150 for a large debt may also give you more bargaining power. just my thoughts
