I was unaware of this collection acct until I checked my credit reports. I considered that my notification and disputed immediately. I heard nothing from CA. After 30 days I sent a second letter stating they did not respond in a timely manner. This afternoon I just recieved a letter from them stating the following: -We obtained your acct from xxxxxx on xx/xx/xx on that date we sent you a notification letter giving you 30 days to dispute..... -I have requested your file from xxxxxx (OC). This process will take up to and including 90 business days. Once your file is recieved we will be able to validate your debt. Now, I don't recall ever recieving a notification letter from them. It is possible that perhaps they sent it to an old address or perhaps i thought it was junk mail and threw it away, however, i honestly dont remember anything about recieving one. Do I have any recourse here? Can hold them to their lack of a timely response or should I just consider myself lucky they're offering to validate at all? they did give a 90 day time frame, if I don't hear from them in 90 days should I demand they remove it? Additional note. I disputed this with all 3 CRAs and it was deleted from 2 of them....damn experian. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Actually, the CA is saying they will attempt to provide validation, per their line of requesting your file through the OC. They are merely covering themselves with an estimate of receipt time (90 days). It appears that the first line of stating a notification was sent on XX/XX/XXXX was an attempt for them to cover themselves also. If you want a little extra "documentation" in your paper trail, write back and state that you never received this notification, and that your first notice was the entry on your credit report. Make sure to send Certified Mail Return Receipt Requested to cover yourself.
Make sure to include in your letter a statement that you dispute the debt. FCRA and FDCPA allow you to do this at any time. When they next report to a CRA and fail to include the dispute notation, you have an immediate violation which you can sue over, and with litigation pending you have a stronger hand to bargain with.
I think you may be confused about something here insofar as you're stating that the collection agency isn't responding in a "timely" fashion. They don't have a presribed time limit, you do. In fact, they don't have to respond at all. They only must validate the account if the request was sent by you within 30 days from your receipt of their initial communication and if they wish to take additional collection efforts. Therefore, the 30 day window applies only to you. 90 days is the general timeframe most authority has provided. That is too say that if you don't hear anything from them for four months and then, bam, they place a new tradeline or start calling, that may be too remote. There communication to you seems acceptable on its face in light of the above. Now, if you dispute their tradeline and they verify it, it could get hairy insofar as they claim to have sent you an initial communication. You say they did not. It would be hard to say one way or another as to whether verifying the account tradeline would constitute continued collection activity in light of this. One thing harming you is that a business communication is deemed received once sent. It is your burden to show otherwise. That is why they claim this in their communication to you. In any event, I would suggest disputing it through the credit reporting agencies. You may see it deleted.
