I closed a Verizon account at about the end of September. I received my deposit check back from them. They did not close the account. I made phone calls when I received the statement each month after that thinking that the account had been taken care of. The account was finally closed in November or December some time. I had thought they took care of the balance also. On about 2/25/07 I received a statement from a CA stating that I owed $122.17. I sent out a validation letter on 3/1/07. I see an inquiry from the same CA on 2/20/07. On 3/03/07 and 3/04/07 the OC reported this to two CRA's. On 3/28/07 I sent a validation letter to the OC. On 4/19/07 I sent the second letter to the CA. On 4/20/07 I received a response from the CA for the first letter that I had sent to them on 3/1/07. They included the last two monthly statements from the OC (Verizon) with another statement stating that I owed $122.17. The last monthly statement showed the balance was only $93.xx. I was just trying to get an opinion on what I should do next regarding this. Thank you in advance.
Phone companies and their collection agencies are notorious for this sort of thing. A couple of basics: OPT OUT at (888) 5 OPT OUT Delete any old addresses from your three credit reports, if applicable Dispute with each CRA as " inaccurate, please delete " BTW, OC's are not required to " validate ", but only to verify. This distinction makes a difference in the wording of the letter. Depending on the quality of your communication with each company and your documentation, you might be able to use Federal Law to gain compensation for the CA's violations of Federal Law. Next, after the above is done, send a second DV letter to the CA, certified with the US Mail.
I did send the second DV letter to the CA but it looks like it crossed in the mail with their first reply to me six weeks after my first DV letter. All old addresses are gone from TU and Equifax. I have already sent another letter again to remove addresses from Experian. I also disputed the TL at TU and Experian. The OC is still supposed to mark the account as disputed or something aren't they? I was also able to get the inquiry removed right away with a phone call to TU.
Receiving a deposit check back confirms that they had received, and should have processed, your account termination. Have you filed regulatory complaints, such as with your state public utilities commission, on Verizon's failure to close your account and continuing to charge you?
