I have recently disputed debts with all three CRAs. I have now received a letter from one of the CAs requesting payment. I don't believe they knew my address until I disputed with the CRAs. Can the CRAs share my information or did they just get it as part of the investigation. Also, does this attempt to collect mean that this particular debt will be verified or is it just a last ditch effort to collect before the debt is removed because they can't verify?
just as we can subscribe to services that watch for account activity, CAs can too. They probably discovered an updated address that way and now are trying to collect. it's an effort to collect and has nothing to do with the CRAs verification process. You can request validation from the CA to stall or stop their efforts.
This has been discussed before. Experience has shown that the CRA's offer a service to CA's that watch your credit file and alert the CA whenever activity occurs. The CA's pay the CRA's for the service, and it allows that CA to wait for things to happen. That is probablly what happened in your case. Your CA has subscribed to this service for your file.
I am not sure there is an actual service for this though I am sure that there could be. I just thought that ca's check your report every now and then and sometimes they get lucky and happen to check after you have updated your address, phone number etc. I could be wrong and probably am.
Look at the CRA's websites under "Business Services". You will see some watered down descriptions of services that CA's can buy. A lot of them are designed to alert them when you "surface". Although I haven't seen any that explicably describe it, I'm sure that alerts can be sent when you start to dispute. It's just too coincidental that collection activity heats up on old stuff when unrelated things are disputed.
There are few secrets anymore. Look at www.teletrack.com. Heck, you sign up for cable and they may find you.
