Help with Credit Repair

well, since apparently none of your accounts have been placed with collection agencies the first thing we really need to know is what state you reside in. That can make a huge difference.

 

Well then you can't sue them if they violate FDCPA as you can in California and some other states. That don't mean you can't act like you think they are liable under FDCPA and hope that they will send it to a 3rd party collector where the FDCPA is applicable. One thing you can to is to send them a refusal to pay letter.

Sending a refusal to pay letter is exactly the same thing as sending them a cease & desist letter. No different at all because they have to decide what to do after that. The limitations are the same. They can only send you a letter stating that they won't contact you again except to notify you of what actions they intend to take such as a summons to court or they are sending it to a 3rd party collector or whatever. And of course what you hope to accomplish is getting them to send it to a 3rd party collector where you have protection under FDCPA and hope they don't take the alternative which would be filing a motion for summary judgment.

Refusal to pay would set the stage for filing suit against them if they failed to recognize that there is no legal difference between that and C&D. And it would be far more likely to get them to send the account to a 3rd party collector. Nice thing about it is that it don't take some long verbose flowery letter to get the job done. One simple sentence "I refuse to pay" is just about all it should take to get the job done. Let them dig through all the "weeds" in their offices to figure out what it is that you refuse to pay and what account you are talking about.

As a matter of fact, I would not even say what it is that you refuse to pay. And yes, that sounds "crazy" but if a "refuse to pay" carries exactly the same legal connotation as a C&D then they are supposed to write you a letter stating they won't contact you again except to inform you what they intend to do about your account. So a letter demanding to know what the heck you are talking about hardly meets that requirement now does it? (LOL)

 

IF FNB did indeed sell it to NCO (rather than assign), it should be reading balance -0- sold or transferred.

If you sent NCO a cease and desist, then about the only thing they can do now is sue you, or sell it to another collection agency.

 

Seems to me like jlynn just about said it all

Obviously you are trying to learn methods that are better than what you have done in the past. That is indeed commendable.

 

You can handle it one of two ways I guess.
1. Wait for them to take whatever action they will and deal with it at that time or send them a refuse to pay letter and see what happens.

Either way the results should be the same. You end up dealing with a 3rd party collector which gives you a lot more power to deal with the situation.

 

Basically it has to boil down to a personal decision and that is going to depend on circumstances.

Your choices are basically the following.

1. Just ignore them and hope they will go away which they might very well do for a while but probably not for too long. Sooner or later they will come after you and usually with a 3rd party collector. Once they turn it over to a 3rd party collector they then become liable under FDCPA and the OC also can become liable for the transgressions of the 3rd party collector.

2. Send them a simple letter saying "I refuse to pay" and see what happens then. I would word it exactly that way and I would say absolutely nothing more than that. Send it certified and that will put the ball in their court and they will almost certainly have to come back and at least ask what the heck it is that you refuse to pay. Once they do that you have opened up a dialog of some sorts and have gotten some kind of reaction out of them. If they ask you what it is that you refuse to pay I would then send them a photocopy of one of their old bills if available and a demand for validation at the same time. They might answer that way but the point is that you cannot sue them for violation of FDCPA almost no matter what they do.

Try it and see what happens. It is at least a bit better than sending them a flat out Cease & Desist letter because it may get the job done without getting sued in the process.