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

It doesn't matter who it goes to. What matters is that it is properly credited as payment on the debt, with the remaining owed amount appropriately decreased.

It is between the various CAs how they handle payments among themselves. There are probably provisions in whatever sale contract they agreed to, but that is really none of your business.

What IS your business is insuring that the settlement agreement governs what amount you owe, even after the transfer, and that all payments made are applied and properly credited against that agreed amount.

A statement summarizing all payments, and the remaining balance due, would allow you to determine if the new owner's records correctly account for everything. This payment should be indicated clearly, by date and amount, regardless of whether Asta has remitted it to Collect America, or Collect America has remitted it to Asset.

Whether they have paid each other is not your business. Whether they accurately account for your payments is. Don't step into the middle.

This isn't rocket science. It's just accounting.

 

It is their job to obtain and send validation. Asking you to do their job not meet that obligation.

Did your dispute/validation letter refer to the existing settlement agreement with Astra?

Do you have the names of the people you spoke to at Collect America, Astra, and Asset, who claimed that the existing agreement would be honored?

Can you produce your own accounting for what is remaining due, based on your knowledge of the terms of the settlement agreement, and records of payments made?

 

Do you have the name of someone at Asset who you have talked to that acknowledges that the debt was bought subject to the agreement with Collect America made thru their agent Astra?


Talk to your attorney, and you may want to talk to your state AG.

 

"I have only spoken to the CRS assigned to me. In our conversation she stated that they are honoring the settlement agreement. She didn't state the debt was subject to the agreement with Collect America thru their agent Astra.

She said the settlement is with Astra not them."

Of course it is. But by you settling with Astra, the debt sold by Collect America became subject to that agreement, which is why she said they will honor it. That the settlement was originally with Astra is factually correct.

To imply that by selling it, Astra and Collect America get out of it, and Asset now gets to collect on the full remaining amount, is what may be fraud, breach of contract, FDCPA violatoins, etc. should they fail to honor the agreement. That is what you want to talk to your attorney about, and maybe your state AG.

 

That is the problem with the whole area of consumer debt collection. There is often too little at stake to justify paying consumer attorneys, so knowing this, debt collectors are free to claim anything they want with a high degree of impunity.

That is why you should be talking to your state AG, since this is not just some private breach of contract problem, but also an issue of FDCPA and possibly state law violation for the manner of collecting, by promising a settlement on discounted terms, stringing you along to get payments, and possibly re-negging on that agreement, and it is within the jurisdiction of state AGs to enforce those laws. If they are pulling something here, they have probably done the same to other consumers, as all parties repeated refusal to put anything in writing implies.

What tends to get them in trouble is repeated complaints of the same illegal behavior.

Since you might as well know where you stand, you could consider bringing this to a head by doing as the earlier poster suggested, by including a letter summarizing the terms of your settlement along with your payment check such that accepting your payment reaffirms the existing agreement as outlined in the letter. You might also include in that letter an accounting for all payments made, including the one to Astra, and therefore the amount remaining under the agreement. Their choice may be to either accept payment under those terms, or reject the terms and the payment, in which case you know what the CSR's assurances are worth. Even if they claim they never got Astra's payment, you still have documentation that the payment was made, which you would then use to sue both in small claims court.

Look at the section of the FDCPA about the requirement that payments made to debt collectors must be applied to the accounts designated by the consumer. Since your authorization to Astra was only for payment on this debt, that payment must be applied against that debt. Just keeping money they took from your account would not be legal. Ask your attorney what "conversion" means.

See what your next attorney says.

 

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in the office if the OP would have asked counsel that, lol.

I actually spit out a little Diet Pepsi when I read the above quote.

Seriously, I think it's important to advise the OP that the term conversion, if alleged in a Complaint, essentially equates to the civil litigation verison of criminal larceny; i.e., CA 2 stole your money if they fail to honor the terms of an agreement you reached with CA 1. The are subject to any conditions precedent of an account they purchase. This would not be akin to a bona fide purchaser situation simple by virtue of their line of business.

Anyway, just my theory . . .

 

You are, lmao. It means original poster, lol.