I diputed a citibank acct that was on my reports (equ and exp, haven't looked at my trans report yet) that was turned over to Gulfstate. It was a total surprise to me, I have never heard of the;m before, ofr ahda n acct w/ citibank. well, I disputed the equfax one in august and it was removed...they didn't verify. THe same story in september with exreian. Well today I get a letter in the mail from osi funding, the envelope says gulf state and the letter reads. "Dear XX, This letter is in respinse to your recetn received correspondance. We ahve verified your accoutn and forwarded your request to our dispute dept for processing. we will handle your request as expedioustly as possible. Portfolio supprot dept. " I have never contacted them!?!?!? I guess I should be prepared for this to pop back up on my report now huh? What should I do now?
You demanded validation from Gulf State and you got a reply from OSI which carried no notice or word of Gulf State? That's nice of them indeed. Wait the 30 days and send Gulf State an estoppel letter which says they can't collect because they didn't validate. Gulf State dinged you and if Gulf State don't come back with a validation in the 30 days, then you got them on a violation. Don't make no difference what OSI says if it don't come from Gulf State on their letterhead. Did OSI make a demand on you for payment? Did the letter they sent you have a mini-miranda on it? All these things and a lot more are extremely important. There are over 350 different ways to hang these birds out to dry. No wonder it's so easy to do with that many problems they can get themselves into.
The envelope that the letter was in said gulf state on the return addres, but the letter is from OSI funding. This is the first letter, phone call, anything from OSI, or gulf state for that matter. At the bottom of the lettter is says. "this communication is a forma debt collector for the purpose of cresolving a dispute or to collect a debt. Ant info obtained will be used for that purpsoe. That's it. I want it to stop. I disputed the equifax one on August 11 th and it was removed September 11th. The experian was disputed September 14th and removed October 13. This is the first I have heard from them.
Allright, if that is the first letter you have received from them be sure that you send them a good validation letter before 30 days after the date on the letter have passed. This is extremely important. Do not miss that 30 day window before sending them a validation letter and do it by Certified Mail, return receipt requested. That way you can prove that you sent it and when. The reason this is important is that if you send them a demand for proof of the debt, they must notify the credit bureaus that you have disputed the debt and they cannot proceed with any collection efforts until they have validated the debt which I can almost guarantee that they will not properly do. You also want to send a demand for validation to Gulf State if you have not already done so, if you have then you need to send them an Estoppel a bit later on when the time is proper for you to do that. Don't be too worried about all this. Just do it right and you can come outa big winner.
