Asking for advice.....................

If you have hired an attorney, you may want your attorney to send this request, including that he represents you and all contact should be thru him. That would make any additional collection contact with you constitute additional FDCPA violations.

If you do a little searching on Asset Acceptance, you may find that they have a poor FDCPA compliance record.

 

If you want. Keep in mind, I am NOT an attorney.

 

That may be a question for your attorney.

At this point, you want on record, and verifiably delivered timely, your dispute/validation request referring to your existing agreement. Unless your existing letter does not clearly accomplish that, you might not want to muddy things with a second letter, unless it is for the purpose of having your attorney take over handling the matter. How they respond may determine what your next action is.

If they proceed to obtain and forward documentation of the account from the first CA with an amount remaining due in accordance with your agreement, presumably you would complete the payments as agreed, obtain a final statement showing the debt was paid in full, and make sure any credit reports accurately portray the debt.

Other actions short of this will need an appropriate response.

 

If Collect America is the one you have an agreement with, and they sold it to Asset, then Asset would have to obtain at least part of the validation from Collect America. In particular, Asset better provide a remaining account balance consistent with your agreement and payments to Collect America.

What is the role of Astra Business Services in this saga?

 

So was Astra a CA collecting on the debt, that was actually owned at the time by Collect America?

Who, of the three: Collect America, Astra, and Asset, currently acknowledge the existence of the settlement agreement?

 

When the playing field is tilted, you have to use any opportunity you have to level it.


Astra probably lost some of their cut. Really not your business whether Collect America sells it or not.

What is your concern is that it be sold subject to your settlement agreement, and with all payments properly credited. Your position is that by reaching a settlement agreement with you, Astra acted as agent for Collect America, so your agreement thru them is binding on Collect America, and therefore also binding on the buyer, Asset. You therefore intend to hold all parties to it.

Any other claim to the contrary is evidence of fraud, use of deception to collect a debt, or whatever else is appropriate.

What does your attorney say?

 

"Asset does say the settlement is with Astra not them, they have agreed to the settlement but of course woln't send anything in writting about it."

Rather irrelevant. If you dispute/request validation, they must respond in writing to collect. If they send validation contrary to the agreement, deceptive collection, misrepresenting the legal status of a debt, or what have you, and in writing where they can't deny it. If they claim that was the validation from Collect America, they finger Collect America.

All three acknowledge it verbally, but the one who repudiates it in writing gets nailed if even one other holds to the agreement. Prisoners dilema. Their safest move is to validate in accordance with the agreement.

 

Yes. By both, I assume you mean referring to the existing agreement reached thru Astro with Collect America. You want it clear that there is an existing settlement agreement binding on both sides, and you don't want to go around in circles with replies about "We didn't know there was any agreement" after some lame erroneous validation that ignores it.

Your goal it to force this agreement into writing, and you start by establishing in writing that you have been, and still are, acting in accordance with the agreement, and that your payments were made under that agreement.

 

Ontrack has given you some very solid advice. However, I think you are getting the aforesaid advice a tad mixed up in terms of details.

The way I understand your situation is that you reached a verbal agreement with CA 1 who sold the account to CA 2. You are now apprehensive that CA 2 will not honor your agreement with CA 1 as well you should be. Please correct me if I am remiss.

Without going into contract assignment principles, all you need to do is send your payment to CA 2 via any mean you elect but at the same time and for the same amount as you sent it to CA 1. As others have stated, YOU will need to attach (physically if you'd like) a stipulation that you had reached an agreement with CA 1 and should CA 2 negotiate your instrument, they are bound by those same terms. In the stipulation, clearly spell out the agreement with CA 1 and again, literally staple it to the check/money order or whatever means you're using to pay. Of course, send it CMRRR and put the Certified Article Number on the correspondence itself.

YOU do not need an AGREEMENT from THEM in order to bind them.

Additionally, I wouldn't worry about CA 1 hitting your checking account if it is closed and has not funds (which a closed account cannot have).

Hope that helps.