I recently received a letter from a CA offering to settle an old debt. I have always ignored these letters in the past since the debt was past the SOL. This time I also received a phone call from the CA. offering to help me "fixup my credit report" He got angry when I told him that I didn't need him to fix anything and that I would fix it myself. I did not give them any useful information, even suggested to them that the debt might not be mine since there are family members with similar names My question is - more than 30 days has passed since they sent the collection letter offering the settlement. (sent by regular mail) Have I given up my right to request validation of this debt? Can I use the date of the first phone call and send validation letter stating "your rep called on bla bla date, and I informed him that there is a possibility that this debt belongs to someone else, and that I would like them to provide validation of this debt (I'd be sure to use form of one of the excellent letters posted here!) Thanks for everyone's help!
You can request validation at any time. You don't need to put any dates in it as far as receiving notification from them. Just use one of the validation letters in the letter section. Also, if this is past the SOL, I wouldn't send a validation, I would send a cease and desist telling them the SOL has passed, and they are out of luck.
I should have added that you need to advise them to immediately remove the listing as well as send you a letter noting such and stating that the file will be closed and no further transfer of the accout will occur. Is that better Bill? Why not just add what I forgot to without the comments? PS - where did he/she mention there was any listing of this account on their report?
OK, LKH. Good point. What you forgot is that advising someone to use cease & desist is about the worst advice you could have possibly given. You advise them to send a cease & desist which would be an open invitation to sue. A cease & desist leaves them with but two options and that is to sue or forget it. It would not be the first time that judgments have been won in cases where the SOL was long past due and the collector, their attorney and the judge all knew that it was yet because the defendant didn't show up to raise the issue in court they got the judgment anyway. The inherent dangers of cease & desist are so great that a debtor should never consider its use. The poster's idea of how the issue should be approached was absolutely correct. He basically had just one simple question which was: You did properly answer his question but then proceeded to steer him off his correct idea of the proper approach and down a path straight into the swamps. Validation is always the way to approach a CA unless they are annoying friends, relatives or neighbors in which case cease & desist is the only correct answer but must come from the person being annoyed and not the debtor. If friends, relatives or neighbors are being annoyed the debtor should prepare the cease & desist and get the annoyed party to sign the letter and then he should drop it in some mail box to be sure it gets mailed. That way he works behind the scenes and incurs no risk of getting sued for it. In making my comment as obtuse as I did I had hoped to avoid actually coming out and stating that your cease & desist idea was about like waving a red flag in front of the bull's nose.
Well Bill, I must completely disagree with you on this one. Being past SOL is an absolute defense. Of course, if the defendant doesn't show up, they will get a default judgment. But if he does show up with his proof of the debt being past SOL, he has a valid defense. I know you are going to tell me about the case where the judge asked if the defendant owed the debt, and then stated he didn't care about the SOL. However, I believe in 99% of the cases a judge will not do that. Someone I know who used to post here just had a similar situation. She sent an intent to sue with a cease and desist. The debt was way past the SOL. They immediately responded with a letter deleting the record and closing the acct.
LKH, I find absolutely nothing in your last post to disgree with. However, the main point that must be considered is that cease & desist can be a very dangerous instrument to the sender and under all normal circumstances should never be used. There are also several variations of cease & desist and that can make a huge difference in what form should or should not be considered depending on the intention of the sender and the situation at hand. It is not just this poster's application that should be considered in providing a potentially dangerous answer but rather the fact that the message will remain for some considerable period of time to be picked up by some newbie who may erroneously imagine that he has suddenly encountered the latest and greatest solution to his problems. For the purposes of this conversation only, let us assume that yours is the best response under the stipulated condition. Even so I tend to thnk that if a blustery response is the most desireable it should be in the form of an "I refuse to pay" statement and let them make the mistake of bringing suit then bring the defense which would win the day. The slim hope here would be that they may wake up and die right. Even so I still tend to think the best answer is, as always, to simply demand validation and at the end of 30 days send a refusal to pay which has the exact same legal property and significance as a cease & desist. The chances would be good that two separate violations would have occurred which could be complained of plus the SOL thereby giving a much stronger defense. 1. Failure to validate. 2. Unlawfully communicating with a consumer after having received cease & desist except to notify that no further communication would be made with the debtor except service of summons 3. SOL is out on the debt therefore filing MSJ is an illegal collection activity. Those points could also be raised in a countersuit against them for damages and a motion to dismiss or stike (depending on RCP in that jurisdiction) lodged with the court. Personally, I think that would make more sense than to just jump up and break bad on them.
Re: Re: 30 Days to Request Validation? I did not mention my reports...I have just begun the process after laying low for many years waiting for things to drop off. I have sent away to the 3 CRA and am awaiting my reports. I will sit down and follow the strategies that everyone here has followed in order to clean them up. I am sure I will have many questions in the future, and I thank everyone here for their input As far as this CA (NCO) I will do nothing until I see my reports and what is on them. I know I havwe the SOL working in my favor here. If they were silly enough to sue I would not ignore suit, but would defend based on SOL.
