Okay here is what is going on. I went to court on May 6th to get an order to show cause. this prevented a garnishment of my salary. I was unaware that a judgment had been entered against me. the judge granted me my request and all action was stopped against me after the filing of an Answer to the court. I then proceeded to send a debt validation letter to the law firm representing the collection agency Platinum Services. the 30 day period for a response came and went. I recieved in the interim another court date for today July 14th. When i went to court the attorny asked me for the affidavit of fraud that the law firm had sent me. I did not have it and refuse to sign anything. I told the attorney that I had not received the validation of debt papers and she told me that it takes time to get these things. I told her that 30 days was plenty of time and according to the FCRA that is all the time she needed. I then told her that i do not have a contract with her company or platinum services therefore i do not owe them any money and would not make any payments. She told me that i should not contact Platinum services since her law firm represented them. Is this true? i told her that they were both CA's and again said i do not owe them any money. She insisted that she was a law firm. i said I am not disputing that ,but you are still a CA and i do not owe you money. She then requested an adjournment on the case. so back to court on the 20th of August. My question is can i now send a cease and desist request? Do i send a 15 day request for validation and can i send a letter of validation to the first CA Platinum Services, Neither company has reported to the CRA as of january 2004.
Don't C&D, unless it's time barred... Especially since that will not STOP the legal proceedings, it'll probably escalate them because then the only way that they can provide you the validation is to provide it to you in front of the judge. There is no time-limit on providing validation. The only thing is that all collection activity must be ceased until the validation is provided under Section 809(b), and if they're continuing the hearing, they're complying.
They are a CA. Check out Heintz v. Jenkins. You will catch their attention if you cite the Supreme Court case which makes Attorneys practicing Debt Collection, Debt Collectors.
Hi Debra, Keep up the good work. Is this atty. insisting that, since she is an atty., she is therefore NOT a CA? ??? (Jam, is that what you're "hearing" between the lines?) ???
Well ... in principle I agree with you Shanyl. In actuality though, there is no violation for an atty. to insist they are NOT covered by FDCPA, even when they ARE. Weird, I know. I just wanted to know so we could encourage the OP.
I'm relatively new to all of this Butch, but isn't there some type of ruling that says if X% of their business is collections, then they are a CA?
That is definately how I heard it... Please say that that statement was on-the-record in the proceedings... The transcripts of the proceedings would be your ticket to the Cha-Ching... And the judge and everyone else in the room would be a witness to your case against the CRA. That's why I mentioned Heintz. If they're nieve enough (or think that consumers are nieve enough to believe that) to go on-the-record on that, they would be devistated when the little uninformed consumer pulls out Supreme Court precident to show that the lawyer not only was a CA, but by trying to say otherwise, committed a $1,000 violation of the FDCPA.
I am wondering whether this Opinion of the FDCPA by the FTC is out-dated by Heintz v. Jenkins. LoPresti Opinion http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpa/letters/lopresti.htm Wouldn't this fall under the 'catch all' Section 807(10) anyhow?
