Excel Acquisitions LLC

You will need to pull your Equifax report to see if the TL was removed. It might have been removed either due to your attorney's letter, or to your dispute thru Equifax. Either way, FICO, and any other scoring systems that uses your reports, should be directly affected by changes to your reports.

Equifax should be responding to your dispute by sending you, in writing, the results of their investigation. That should tell you how the CA responded, or whether they responded at all. Insist on getting that "report".

Since you have high scores, keep track of what you owe and don't owe, and responded agressively to their probably bogus claim, I can assume that it matters to you financially (at your bottom line) what your credit scores are.

You already know the reported information is garbled, and based on the accumulated interest, the debt is old and the original records may not even exist. Yet we live in a world where there are companies who could care less who they damage, since they seldom pay. Who knows what this debt is, or who really owed it? If you have a common last name, they may have just picked you out of a phone number database as a likely candidate.

Although the CA may have caved at this time, they may put it back on at a later date (illegally if they have not sent you validation), or they may sell the "debt" to some other CA, who will repeat the whole game. You may find it necessary to hit them (both this CA, and any they might sell to) legally to force conclusive removal without reselling. Otherwise, they might put it back on your reports at some inopportune time, such as when you are refinancing, or closing on a new home mortgage. The CRAs will happily notify CAs when a mortgage inquiry shows up on your report, for a fee.

Since they probably pulled your reports, if they fail to reply with validation, you might also demand that they remove their inquiry, which also pulls down your scores.

 

I don't see many hits (or any, except for your own postings) on "Excel Acquistions" via google, ripoffreport, consumeraffairs.com, ftc.gov, etc. Do they have any other names?

If Equifax removed the TL quickly, the CA probably agreed to it. The investigation report should give you a clue. Otherwise, Equifax would have just sat on it for 30 days if the CA did not respond.

If the TL shows an original creditor, you might use that to get some assurance of your position, if you need to, should you later decide to play high stakes poker. You might contact the claimed original creditor directly to see if they show any accounts under your name.

 

If it is on your reports, and showing as a recent bad debt so that it has maximum effect (a common tactic), you should pursue it to conclusion, until it is permanently off. You are not dealing with rocket scientists, but that is no excuse. They have a legal obligation under FCRA to report accurately, and whether erroneously posting an old debt as a recent debt, or erroneously posting someone else's debt, they have not done so.

This crap from JDBs collecting on old debt happens all the time. They buy cheap past-SOL debt, with limited access to records, and think they can report the debt as recent and pursue anyone with a similar name with impunity. And most of the time, they can.

If it was yours and from the early 90's, it is probably past SOL in your state (check), and certainly past the 7 year reporting period. Even if it was yours, it might not be accurate, and whoever owned it could have dealt with it long ago. If you have good credit now, you haven't exactly been hiding all these years. If it was not yours, they are wasting your time, and costing you money.

If the case warrants it, extract tribute, and attorney's fees, for their error.

 

JDB = Junk Debt Buyer. They buy old, out of statute debt for pennys on the dollar and try to collect. The growth of this "industry" has caused problems for even people with good credit and no old bad debts, since often they have incomplete data, and hire cheap labor willing to violate laws to collect.

Ignoring the legalities, if you were collecting on cheap bad debt, you could mass mail every "J. Doe" in a region, and pressure anyone who responded, with no knowledge of which consumer actually owed the debt, if it was even legitimate. In fact, an attorney did just that, and sued the person who responded and disputed, from the eleven he mailed. Problem was, being an attorney, he was supposed to know if it was the right party before he sued. If he was mailing collection letters to eleven unrelated people, it kind of undermined his defense. Unlike most consumers being pursued for bad debt, this one had representation.

And for something you bought for a few dollars (because that is all it is worth if you can't legally sue), why would you spend good money "validating"? You are playing a numbers game. In fact, you have a better chance of collecting from any non-debtors you reach. They have money, and credit worth protecting. As long as you make sure you don't know too much, you can even have a clean conscience. Search on "CAMCO", and see what their tactics were before being shut down at the end of 2004. ("That's where the money is." - Willie Sutton)

Anyone buying a house is a sucker for paying a bad debt posted at the last minute, whether it's theirs or not. You have to cut your losses when a few days delay will cost you more than paying an illegitimate debt. The CRAs provide services that can notify debt collectors when certain changes (new addresses, new inquiries) show up on designated credit files. Used legitimately, a debt collector could make sure he was paid off before a consumer's loan closed. But what if the debtor was not correctly identified? Or what if a CA bought a list of consumers who had recent mortgage inquiries? These are marketed by several companies who buy them from the CRAs, and sell them for "mortgage sales purposes", to lenders who make mortgage offers to people likely to be taking out mortgages.

If you are in the process of completing a large commercial loan, and your personal credit was pulled for this purpose, you might fit this "profile". Note that your response to their collection attempt was not what they had expected, and not what most consumers would have typically done.

Are these used deliberately to bushwack a home buyer into paying debt not owed? They could be, and in this industry, sooner or later anything that can be done, probably will be done. There have been anecdotal reports from mortgage brokers and real estate agents for years, but the availability of enhanced CRA notification services adds a new possibility.

Just as you are probably assessing your options and growth opportunities in whatever business you are in, there are people in the JDB business looking for more efficiently and effectively cashing in on the "assets" they bought. An old debt, costing pennys, with only a similar name, may be all the legal protection they need to try. With out-of-statute debt, at some point, it is only a prop in a con game. You are not dealing with the level of people and companies you normally choose to do business with.

 

From one of the BBB reports:
"In Massachusetts, Collection Agencies must be licensed by the Massachusetts Division of Banks. Licenses can be confirmed through the Division of Banks at 800-495-2265 (from within the state) or 617-956-1500."

If they repost their TL on your reports, or take any other collection action (letter, phone calls, etc.) without providing you validation of the debt in response to your dispute, you might file a complaint with the above.

 

I have no idea.

I look at this site as sort of a CRA in reverse. A "Creditor Reporting Agency".