On the Afni matter, continued collection (including credit reporting) without validating, following a timely consumer dispute and request for validation, is a FDCPA violation for the manner of collection, separate from any issue under FCRA of whether what they are reporting is accurate. Even though you may have not responded timely to their initial collection letter, that does not give them the right to place erroneous negative information on your reports, particularly against your repeated disputes, with no consequences. Furthermore, even if they have NOT contacted you or sent you a letter, but you only found out about this alleged debt thru your credit reports, you would still dispute and request validation. Your letter may be your initial contact, triggering their initial letter obligation, and your dispute and validation rights, but regardless, you still have rights under FCRA/FACTA. They don't get a free ride on erroneous reporting just by NOT sending you a collection letter. If they did, every JDB out there would post erroneous collection accounts on consumer reports, and just wait for people to have to pay when they try to close mortgages. "John Smith" accounts would be worth lots, since you could put it on every John Smith in the country, and not even waist the postage costs to dun them! Keep in mind that FDCPA specifically states that the consumer's failure to dispute is NOT to be interpretted by and court as consumer's agreement that the alleged debt is valid. The FDCPA dispute process is a CONSUMER right, to resolve disputed debts before more damage is done to consumers from erroneous reporting and collection activity, not some substitute for a court ruling that debt collectors can somehow use to "prove" it is your debt. If they are reporting erroneously, have verified in response to a CRA dispute, and their errors are damaging, you can sue under FCRA, regardless of whether they have sent a recent initial collection letter. You can also sue under the recent FACTA amendments to FCRA, which provide for disputing and requiring investigation of ANY erroneous reporting from any data furnisher reporting to CRAs, without regard to whether such a request is "timely" under the FDCPA initial 30 day terms. At this point, you have them reporting erroneous information ("EZCash"), which having reported in response to your dispute, they "verified". You could sue on that alone, although you probably want to look at 2 possiblities: 1) Could they claim this is a "different" account from the Cingular one, requiring its own dispute, or is there sufficient information to tie this account to the earlier Cingular account (same balance, etc.)? 2) Is there a legitimate Cingular account, perhaps the originally reported one, that they could put back on? Is the Afni collection account, originally allegedly "Cingular", an account you opened, or do you believe it is not your account? If it was your account, do you believe the amount they are demanding is erroneous? Do you believe it was already paid to the OC, or an earlier CA? Is the reported information re-aged? Is it being reported past the allowed 7.5 years from original date of delinquency?
ontrack - Thanks for the response! 1) I have absolutely no idea what EZCash is. I have never had a Cingular account. So, no they can't be tied together. 2) I have never had a Cingular account. Unless Cingular purchased another company, and they are claiming it under "Cingular." This is set to fall off in Dec '07, but I would like this cleared now. What should I state specifically in my letter that they are in violation of? Can I ask them to Validate the EZCash Original Creditor and then use that to delete the tradeline with all 3 CRA's? I have never had or opened an EZCash account in my life. EZCash sounds like a loan advancement place. What a joke.
