In 6/98, I took my little girl to the emergency room. Evidently there was $75 which our insurance never paid. (My wife swears that she wrote a check to the hospital, but we can't find a bank statement to confirm this.) It appears that this was given to CAC Financial in 12/98, and they never contacted me until I disputed the tradeline a couple months ago. When they did contact me, I sent them a validation request. In response, they have returned to me 4 pages of printouts, looks like from the hospital, which show that my daughter was admitted, the diagnosis, the DR's name, and shows my name as the guarantor. EX reports this as "Paid/Collection Account". EQ says, "Collection Reported 01/1999; Assigned 12/1998 to Cac Finanial (sic) Corp...Amount - $75; Unpaid; Balance - $75 Date of Last Activity 06/1998". (TU deleted it.) SOLs for my state are: Oral Agreements and Open Accounts 3 years, Written Contracts and Promissory Notes 5 years. Which would this fall under? The main thing I want to do is get this off my reports, even if I have to pay. Since most of my bad tradelines are related to my 1999 BK13, I don't have much experience dealing with collection agencies...my issues are almost all with OCs. Can anyone give me any guidance?
Send them a letter stating that in accordance with the Wollman Opinion, that is not proper validation. The Wollman Opinion deals specifically with computer printouts from drs offices. Is there a date on the print out? Does that date, pre-date the validation request? Again, the Wollman Opinion emphasizes that the Validation must come from the CA asking the OC for validation AFTER the validation request was received. Anything which pre-dates the receipt of the validation is not proper validation in accordance with the Wollman Opinion. The Wollman Opinion http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpa/letters/wollman.htm
jam237, thanks for the reply. In looking at the print-outs, there are no dates other than the 6/03 date we visited the hospital, and the 12/03 date it went to the collection agency. Thanks for the link to the Wollman letter. I think this CA has met the requirements...the printouts all say at the top of each page, "XXX Hospital Accounts Receivable Inquiry". As the Wollman letter talks about VERIFICATION of the debt, it looks to me like they have verified. Unless I am not undestanding something about verification/validation, which is VERY possible. I was hopeful that someone could clarify this issue for me from a Statute of Limitations point of view. If the SOL clock began with the June date, then it is beyond the SOL under any definition in my state. If it is the December date, then it may not be if this debt is considered a Written Contract or a Promissory Note. Any help here?
Re: Can anyone help me with this CA The SOL is based on the delinquancy only, no adding days or anything. From the looks of it, approximatly 180 days after you left the hospital without paying, the hospital "Charged Off" the account (180 days is the limit, and June - December is 6 months so that's probably a good estimate) At that point they assigned it to a collection agency. The delinquancy; however, still occured in June, and as such if the SOL is 5 years in your state (even if they try and imply payment due within 30 days, then the delinquancy started in July) you are past SOL. If the CA, in any letter to you, threatens legal action you can respond with an affirmative defense of the debt is past SOL. If they then try and sue you, you have massive violation of the law and you can easily counter sue for $1,000 and you WILL win that. Basically it's past SOL, and a charge off of under $100 wouldn't get a lawsuit anyway under almost any condition. You can keep disputing, or you can try and contact the CA to offer payment for deletion, and since it's so low, I'd probably say offer the full $75 of the original debt for deletion of the CA's tradeline. The hospital isn't showing on your reports anywhere, is it? ChrisB
You say the CA has documentation about what the diagnosis for your daughter is?? Isn't that something they should not have access to? I'd say the hospital violated your privacy by disclosing the nature of ailment of your daughter to a third party ... you can sue the OC for this. Such a suit might prompt recall of your debt and removing the tradeline from your reports.
Re: Can anyone help me with this CA At first glance, it appears as though the above letter may apply exactly to my situation. On further review, however, I'd like to ask for advice. I received a printout similar to what the original poster has described. It appears to be a copy of the OC's computer records. While this does include an itemized list of the charges, including dates & services provided, with my name at the top, I'm curious as to whether I've got grounds to claim this is not propervalidation, as it doesn't prove I was the person who received the services. Anyone? Gai-jin
Re: Can anyone help me with this CA If the print out, or a cover-letter is not on the hospitals letterhead, there is no way to be certain that the validation complies with the Wollman opinion. Remember, even if the copy of the original statements are available on the CA's computer, the CA still has to contact the OC for the statements. In this day and age, the OC could give the CA a PDF of the statements when they give them the account, and the CA could try to just print them off to verify. As a basic part of any validation letter should be something, ANYTHING which bears your signature to prove that you requested the services which they are billing for; in addition to the statements, and invoices. More than likely even if the OC transmitted a copy of the statements, they probably did not transmit anything bearing the signature; and have you ever checked into a hospital when you didn't have to wade through signing dozens of forms in quintruplicate.
