I owed on 2 Amex accts totaling $1,800 for both, last paid in 6/2006. Its been awhile but I remember reading Amex never sells their debts, perhaps this has changed? I do remember you could deal directly with them, not CA's that appeared later like so many old debts. Meantime on one credit report Asset is reporting them as 2 new accounts opened 5/2009, with a date of last activity 6/2006. And late/no payment since 2006. Each of them has balance over $2,000. Ironically these "new" accounts are boosting my FICO score. I've never had this happen and am totally in the dark on what to do in this situation. On my other report, they are showing under collection. That they've been hired by Amex to collect for over $2,000 for each card. I had been hoping these were 2 old debts I could maybe salvage/pay in full directly to Amex within the next few months. Asset though...heard nothing but horror stories about dealing with them. Suggestions? Technically the SOl was up 6/09..or 9/09 if you add 3 months as suggested.
As far as I know AmEx still doesn't sell their debts, but they do work with several different CAs to collect old debts. It sounds to me like the CRA is reporting incorrectly on your one report, since your other one shows the accounts as collections. If you DV them, you may come to find out that the debts get sent back to AmEx, and then you'll be able to deal directly with AmEx if you really want to pay these off. That happens quite a bit. Also, if you're certain that the SOL has expired and you can prove it, then you have an absolute defense if you were to ever be sued. Of course, that doesn't mean the negative marks on your credit reports won't continue to live for many more years.
DV them? It would seem to me that a DV would probably be worthless either due to the 30 day window having long since been closed or because they did sell or assign the debt back to Amex or some other entity. If it comes back verified from the credit bureaus I'd call up the collection agency, record the call and ask them what it would take to settle the debt. If they say they no longer have the debt you have proof that they have no permissible purpose to be in your credit reports and if necessary a reason to take them to federal court and make them get rid of it and pay handsomely for the time and trouble of doing it.
True, the DV could be worthless if the 30-day window is long gone, but it never hurts to send it anyway. The CA may still choose to respond or send the account back to AmEx.
FDCPA says that if the consumer fails to respond to the initial contact letter within the 30 day period the debt collector has the right to assume the debt is valid. I've seen the argument that assumptions are only good until rebutted too but I've never been able to figure out what value that argument had because the debt collector has the right to continue any collection activity that would have been taken after receipt of the DV letter if it is received after the 30 day window has passed. The only stopper now in the act is that if the dispute is received within the 30 day window they must cease all activity until the validation is completed. So in any case the question becomes one of what to do if we send a DV letter and the debt collector does not respond and ceases all collection activity. The DC has three possible options. (1.)Return the debt to the original creditor. That isn't likely to happen unless the debt was assigned, not purchased. (2.) Sell or transfer the debt to another debt collector. (3.) Do nothing at all. It is latter which I think is to be dreaded because it can be reported month after month and always verified no matter how many disputes are sent in to the credit bureaus but no other action taken. It sits there on one's credit report until they try to buy a home or maybe a vehicle and they get turned down because of the old debt. Then people have to pay it off in order to get what they want on credit. At that point it becomes a nightmare. Obviously one needs more than just the standard debt validation letter to keep that from happening. The old estoppel letter sent after the end of the 30 day period helped serve that purpose up until the last few years after which time most debt collectors realized that it has no validity whatever. On some occasions it still does work but rarely. Obviously something much better had to be developed. More letters to get them to do something besides sit on the situation. Something that realistically has some real teeth to it. Quite frankly I can't think of anything that will accomplish that feat other than a full blown federal case against them ready to go file. Astonishingly, even that usually gets ignored but they sure do get stirred up when a U.S. Marshall walks through their front door and hands them a summons to federal court. That's when the rubber really meets the road. (LOL). The nice part about that is the fact that one does not need an attorney to do it. By the way, I was over on facebook earlier this evening and noticed that you and your Mrs. are there too. I sent you a friend request. Maybe you already got it. Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and other social networks are getting a great deal of attention from the search engines now that Google came out with social search. Google has several more great products either already in place or in their beta labs. Google Squared is awesome and so are many others. Some of the newer apps are directly aimed at enhancing the social web experience. Twitter is ramping up it's reach as well, trying to keep up with Facebook. The future holds lots of interesting things not yet dreamed of. It took us about 40 years to get to what is now known as Web 2.0 and only about 5 years or so to start talking about Web 3.0 and what it will bring us. Anyway, I see you really have a presence on Facebook and that is good. I've been there for a very long time now, almost since it's inception. Social media is still pretty much in it's infancy compared to what it will become in the future even though millions are using it now.
Thank you for the responses. I have to order paper copies of my reports from the CRA's since my online version doesn't provide contact info. In my particular case, I know my address was updated to my current one on 2 reports but still have never recieved any communication from Asset or Amex. I am guessing that the one report that lists them as a "new" acct was listed incorrectly - I don't understand how else it would be listed as new and opened 4/09 when my Amex closed in 2006. I haven't opened any accts anywhere in over 4 yrs. I have to re-read here to understand better but since I'd want to be sure Asset still owned/is collecting for Amex it seems I'd have to do a DV letter if I wanted to be sure I was paying the correct party.
