I have a collection agency sending me bills for a past employer. I worked as a captive insurance agent and was advanced commisions for sales. When I left them at the end of 2007, the insurance companies marketing group claimed I owed them $800 plus for advances, even though they would still owe me bonuses and future commisions on business I had written while with them. Then they claimed it was more after I didn't pay them back. Anyway, I let it drop and so did they until I received a letter dated: December 22, 2008. It stated "unless you notify this office within 30 days after receiving this notice that you dispute the validity of this debt or any portion therof, this office will assume this debt is valid. If you notify this office in writing within 30 days from receiving this notice that you dispute the validity of this debt or any portion therof, this office will obtain verification of the debt or obatin a copy of a judgment and mail you a copy of such judgment or verification. If you request o this office in writing within 30 days after receiving this notice, this office will provide you with name and address of the the original creditor, if different from the current creditor." So, I made a copy of this letter and wrote on it: 12/29/08 Dear Sir: I dispute this debt. signed by me. I sent it back certified mail return receipt requested. I now received another letter dated: Feb 5, 2009 It says: " We have made previous attempts to contact you, yet the account remains unpaid. This requires you immediate attention. To avoid futher collection efforts full payment must be sent to this office." The amount they want is $1055.68 But I have not received any verification, what do I do next? Thanks Dave
Yes, it arrived back to me. It was signed by an Ann Caillet, but didn't date it. So, I know they received it. The address is a P.O. Box in Fort Worth Tx. (CreditWatch is the collection agency)
Can you say "sue them in federal court"? I would not get too jumpy however since you have a year from the time you got this last letter to do that. Maybe you can get some more violations to use against them before the year runs out.
Yeah, you've got a pretty blatant violation of the FDCPA on your hands here. I say sit and wait. Let them rack up violations. I can't speak from experience, but I would certainly think you have a stronger case if they've sent you multiple letters and called you several times than if they've sent you one letter. Do not remind them of your dispute -- at least not yet. I believe -- and someone else can correct me if I'm wrong -- that if they ultimately decide to sue you in court, that counts as a second violation. One for attempting to collect without validation, and one for threatening (and ultimately commencing) improper / prohibited acts in the name of collection. Suddenly you'd be into them for $2000 plus expenses.
Where can I see the "rules" that they should be following? Since I asked for validation and didn't get it, I would like to see what else they should be doing.
Fair Credit Reporting Act: http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/031224fcra.pdf Fair Debt Collection Practices Act: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre27.pdf Note that these are federal rules. Unless you're very comfortable with yourself in a federal lawsuit, you'll probably want to hire a lawyer to do this for you. It is possible -- and people here have done it -- to go it yourself, but since you can also recover legal costs and court fees (the only caveat being that you need to pay them up-front yourself, and they can easily run several thousand dollars), I'd say hire an attorney. IMHO, the most likely thing would be that once the CA sees that you're serious and have either filed the suit or have had your lawyer send appropriate paperwork (remember, they get lawsuit threats every day), they'll PROBABLY settle pretty quick.
I'm assuming since no one actually answered my question directly, that I shouldn't reply to the second letter that I received at this point. Am I correct??? Thanks for your help!
If you decide to reply to the second letter I would use the estoppel letter to be found elsewhere on this forum. Now then, before you do that you should be aware that the estoppel letter's threats of legal action are baseless and totally without merit but even so it can serve as a sort of reminder that they have not complied with the law. Its nowhere near as effective as those letters once were but still work once in a while. But another thing you need to think about before you send any letter at all is that there is a great probability that they will ignore that as well and keep on trying to collect. If that ends up being true what are you going to do for an encore? If you don't have a well thought out plan of action and more letters ready to go out that consecutively tighten the screws on them then there is no point in sending the second letter either. You would soon enough be back here asking what to do next just as countless others have done in the past. They never got any answers to that question yet so they either give up and take their lumps or go off to some other forum looking for answers only to meet with the same failure there. The ultimate answer is that you either end up getting sued, getting a judgment against you followed by garnishment of wages or other assets or you go into it with the understanding that you will end up filing a winning case against them in federal court. Of course, you will also probably waste most if not all your time looking for a competent lawyer who will take your case but you might as well be looking for a live Tyrannosaurus Rex for all the good it will do you. If you want to win then you need to get started studying now. So should you send out that second letter? I think I would just for kicks even if it didn't do me any good.
Of course. Hundreds if not more have sued debt collectors and their attorneys successfully. Nothing new about that.
You can go to USPS - The United States Postal Service (U.S. Postal Service) and enter the certified mail number in the tracking box. It will probably give you the date delivered. Print it out for your records. Now, I know the CA is in Texas - are you?
No, I'm in Iowa. The company I worked for has offices in TX as well as a couple of other states. They don't have the best reputation... that's why I left them so quickly.(once I found out).
I just gave this a quick read. 1st, did you ask for verification pursuant to the FDCPA in the first letter? If not, I would respond to the 2nd letter thusly; As I said in my letter, dated XX/XX/XX, I continue to dispute this debt and request verification pursuant to the FDCPA. 2nd, I've gone done this path and I got the impression that any letter that didn't have either a check or a summons in it was ignored (for all practical purposes). A lot of these letters are sent automatically by a computer on a scheduled (0-days, 30-days, 60-days, etc. after adding the account). So, until someone goes in and does something to your account (i.e. marks it as paid or in-court) these will likely just keep coming. READ the FDCPA! It's a bit wordy (as with any government regulation), but it describes (after a fashion) what rights a consumer has in a 3rd-party collection, what the consumer must do retain those rights, and what a 3rd-party collector must do when trying to collect. Then, compare those rights against what you and the CA have done to see if everything is in order. If you've not done what you need to do, then do it. If they've not done what they need to do, you'll have to take them to court. Unfortunately, there's no effective 3rd-party "Collection Agency Police" to call.
Yes, I read the FDCPA from the link above and did as it stated. I reply to the original notice within 30 days and requested verification. But, they have not sent it and have sent the second notice (which they shouldn't have done). I will probably send a letter as you said in reply to the second notice. Anything else I should do?
