I would appreciate the advice of any gurus on this situation. I sent a validation letter to a CA BEFORE they had placed any entry on my CRA profile. I found out about them from the bank that had charged off my credit card. I have never received any written communication from this CA. After they received my dispute, they added their tradeline to all 3 bureaus; but DID NOT note the account as disputed. My understanding is that adding the account AFTER disputed and not noting the dispute are both violations of FDCPA. On my report, they stated reported since 9/00; but I have monthly print-outs showing the account wasn't added until Sep. 2001. They did not respond to validation. After 30 days, I sent ESTOPPEL. They did not respond. After another 30 days, I sent demand for removal with notice that they had violated FDCPA. Today, agent calls me and states "we did everything right" but we'll remove the tradelines. Refuses to fax me a notice stating that and says "of course, when we get the proof, we'll just put it back on." It looks to me like there are at least 8 FDCPA violations here. Am I right? How would the experts in the group proceed at this point? Thanks for your suggestions.
Indygreg: The answer should be obvious. Sue them. In a court of law it will make no difference if they admit their guilt or not. You may even be able to sue them in civil court and then file federal criminal charges on them as well. If they are adjudged guilty in civil court, then the Federal Criminal charges should stick pretty well. The charge would be certification of false information across state lines. That falls under the federal fraud statutes. It is a criminal offense to certify information that is false to be true and transmit it across state lines. This is a tactic that is being researched at the present time for use against IRS agents who certifiy false information and then transmit false information of any kind to a citizen which the agent certifies is true. If indeed such can actually be applied to IRS agents who overstep their authority then why can it not be applied to those who certify false information to a credit bureau or to a credit bureau who certifies that they have verified information when it is proveably false? How good that idea is, I have no idea as of yet, but at least it sounds good on the surface of it. At the very least, it might make a good threat until we have the research completed. Even if it can be done, the problem might very well be getting a prosecuting attorney to take the case. That can be tough indeed. But even prosecutors can be forced to perform their oath of office. We have done that here in Oklahoma before. We have made police complaint about criminal activity by public officials, had the police investigate and kick it up to county sheriff level where it was agreed we had more than sufficient evidence of wrong doing by a government official. But nothing was done about it so we took it to the county attorney who agreed that we had more than sufficient evidence to convict. Several months later no charges had been filed. So we bumped it up and filed charges against the prosecuting attorney for failure to perform his duties under his oath of office. At the State Attorney General's office, we found that he refused to file charges against either of the two other public officials. So we filed charges with the U.S. District Attorney's office. Well, they wouldn't file charges either, but it wasn't but about a week later that the two lower officials were removed from office and new ones appointed and we were contacted by the Governor's office and asked if we would be so kind as to drop the charges against the State Attorney General since the State had acted against the two lower officials. Our option was to refuse and take out the State attorney general and the US District attorney too. At about that time, we decided that it might be better to let well enough alone before it somehow turned around and bit us. There are times when cowardice is the better part of valor.
