Hello, I recently disputed 6 accounts as "not mine" to the CRAs and had 1 removed. I understand the next step is to send request for validation letters usps cmrrr. However, i have read in a few places, that CAs are not obligated to validate a debt unless they have contacted me or sent me a dunning letter within the past 30 days. And then they have to cease all collection activities until they can furnish proof. None of the 5 remaining collection accounts on my credit report have contacted me in years. Most are 4-6 years old. So what other options do I have of getting these removed from my credit report? I have enough money to pay everything off right now, so I could attempt PFD letters....and use a non-disclosure agreement to get around any potential legality excuses/issues. Yet, I would prefer to use the validation method and hopefully not have to pay anything on some of them. Do i have to show proof to the CRAs that the CA had contacted me within 30 days prior to me sending the Validation Letter? If not, should I request validation from all the CAs and if they don't respond within 30 days, then try and get it removed throught the CRAs? And then for the ones that do respond and validate, send PFD letters? I'm ready to go on this!....so any advice is greatly appreciated! Thanks, Tim
That general approach is what I like to call the Caspar Milquetoast method of credit repair. There are not many people around these days who remember Caspar Milquetoast. He made his first appearance in 1924. He only lasted about 10 years or so before passing into the annals history but he certainly made his mark. You can learn about him by doing a google image search. On the other hand his very name should conjure up some idea of what he was like. He would go to great lengths to be certain never to say or do anything that might offend anybody or any sign or any law. One day his hat blew onto a patch of grass which had a sign saying KEEP OFF THE GRASS so he decided to go buy a new hat rather than disobey the sign. One day he was asked what he thought about the chances of the Dodgers to win and rather than take a chance of disagreeing with the other fellow his reply was If you don't mind, I'd rather not say Caspar Milquetoast would always take the easy or proper way out of any situation no matter what the personal cost to him might be. In short, Caspar Milquetoast was an extremely timid person, so timid that he was depicted almost running past a sign which said, NO LOITERING So, to be in keeping with Caspar's personality and how he might have done credit repair we send a demand for validation and if that don't work then pay them off hoping they will take it off our credit reports. I can assure you that is not my concept of effective credit repair. I believe that if our goal is to repair our credit we get down and dirty and force them to take it off instead of our having to do it as well as forcing them to actually pay us instead of the other way around. A student and long time friend of mine told us about his latest federal lawsuit in which he named 36 defendants including Experian, Equifax, Transunion, Innovis and Chex systems. Five of them have already paid up rather than fight. Three of them have failed to respond to the summons on time so Larry filed motion for default judgment on those 3. Two of those didn't respond to that either so Larry got default judgments on them but NCO came back and filed a response and objection so the judge denied Larry's motion for default judgment against NCO. Larry said he plans to add more defendants as time goes on. Even if many (if not most) people would far rather go with the Caspar Milqentoast methods than poke an angry bear with a short stick they should first stop to consider what unforseen events might take place in the near future. The current state of the economy certainly gives rise to the thought that a total collapse may not be all that far off. If it were not imminent then why would Pres. Obama have asked Germany, England and other NATO nations to send troops to the U.S. to stand by in case of national disaster or civil unrest?? Germany has responded with an offer of 18,000 troops but that they would not be allowed to participate in anything but natural disaster relief such as catastrophic floods, earth quakes and the like. Obama says that the foreign troops are needed to prop up U.S. Defenses due to our having committed so many troops to such places as Afganistan but with unemployment and our current economic conditions as they are is he more afraid of a general uprising of the American civilian population than he is of any natural disasters? One thing that should give rise to concern is the now rapid escalation of some food products. Two weeks ago we could buy a head of lettuce for 79 cents but yesterday they wanted $1.49 for the same head of lettuce and some other prices are also increasing rapidly. There are other indicators that our economy is rapidly deteriorating. What would you do in the event things got so bad they declared an extended bank holiday or severely limited the amount of money one could draw out of a bank in one day? If something like that happened what would you do if you had paid all your money out to creditors or debt collectors? If something bad happened or prices continue to escalate rapidly you might easily end up on the streets hungry and unable to buy even the barest necessities of life. Yes, I know that I am talking doom and gloom but if anyone thinks such things can't happen to them just let them take a vacation trip up to Detroit and Flint and other nearby cities and towns where the cities can no longer afford basic protection services and are bulldozing entire areas of the cities which have become vacant due to unemployment, massive foreclosures and the resulting high crime rates. Or maybe certain parts of either coast where huge numbers of families are living in tent cities because they were forced out of their homes due to foreclosures. Back in 1995 Ross Perot proclaimed that if we allowed NAFTA and GATT to become law we would hear a giant sucking sound as all our jobs left the country for parts unknown. He knew what he was talking about and we now have the proof of that. This isn't the time for the Caspar Milquetoast method of credit repair.
Don't dispute derogatory tradelines as not mine. It is too easy to verify and frankly, bush league. The credit reporting agencies see this all the time and be advised that a furnisher only need verify two pieces of data for the credit reporting agencies to allow it to stay. Dispute the date of last activity, account type, account status; i.e., particular data fields. However, before doing so, remove all addresses but, your current one as well as all name variations expect your legal name. The above will lead to higher deletion rates.
Thank you so much for the replies. So i may have messed up already by disputing to the CRAs as not mine without first deleting my old addresses. I read somewhere that I should initially dispute as "not mine" as to not waste that option by disputing something else first. After Apex informed me about E OSCAR and ACDVs, I now realize I should have taken a different route. So my next step now will be to remove all my old addresses. I have 8 old addresses on my CR.....some which I haven't lived at in 7 years and 1 that I have never lived at. How should I go about getting those removed? Should I call the CRAs and speak with a customer service rep?...or is it better to do it in writing? Once I get those removed, what should I dispute to the CRAs? I feel that the information they reported is all accurate. I received the results of my initial "not mine" dispute on October 20th 2009....so I'm not sure I should do that one again even though removing all my old addresses would probably have made it much more effective. Apex, What I got from billbauer's post about Caspar Milquetoast is that I should try and send a DV letter to the CAs even though they haven't contacted me in the past 30 days. Do you think I should try it? Is there a chance it would be effective? Thank you so much, Tim
No. I think you should delete the addresses. Ignore the DV requests insofar as that only puts you on the radar and has no legal efficacy now. Once the addresses are gone, target data fields that aren't reported. While the collection tradelines may be accurate, the FCRA prescribes that they also must be complete.
Sounds like good advice to me. I must agree with that as well. Apex and I are talking about two different things here. DV is for debt collectors only, not credit bureaus There is a big difference between debt validation demands and verification requests to credit bureaus. Debt validation requires a much higher standard of proof than verification requires of credit bureaus. We need to know and understand those differences so that we know what we are talking about. Even judges don't seem to understand the difference except at the federal level where the differences are understood very well. I believe that Apex is quite correct in what he says as it applies to credit bureaus and credit reports in this instance.
The federal court system must be leaps and bounds better in your jurisdiction than in mine. Trying to put on a case as to the aforesaid differences here is quite difficult when a judge keeps interrupting my direct and cross with "huh, I don't get that." I'd rather have the clerks hearing the cases. At least they know the facts and can apply the law to it.
One of the FTC opinion letters goes into the differences between validation and verification quite well. Don't remember which one right now.
Apex, What is the method for removing old addresses please? Be as detailed as possible, because I want to start this off the right way. Thank you, Tony
Dispute them as obsolete and moreover, that you fear that pre-approved credit card offers may be sent to addresses which you no longer live. Works everytime and it is a valid concern. I would also suggest "opting-out" insofar as many debt collectors buy skip-tracing tools through the credit reporting agencies.
