How do we know they report dispute?

If when you get a verification report back from the CRA, and the account is UPDATED, without a dispute notation, they've violated for reporting false credit information, including whether the account is disputed.

Remember, you DON'T want them to update it, that's why you do the CRA dispute at the same time as the validation request, so they CAN'T verify, so they must let it be deleted.

If the account is verified, then it is a sue them both, and let the judge sort out whether the CA reported it as disputed, and the CRA didn't include the notation, or vice-versa.

 

Basically, when a 623(b) dispute is pending, they can't do a 623(a) update until after they've responded to the 623(b) dispute, and they can't respond to the 623(b) dispute, until AFTER they've validated, unless they want to violate.

 

So, let me get this right.

You request a VoD to the creditor and at the same time you file a Dispute with the Credit Reporting Agency, so they can't update the credit report without clearing the dispute first.

Is that right?

 

Yes...

There is some dispute as to whether the cease of collection activities survives after the 30-day time-limit. But in the great majority of my personal cases, the CAs don't want to find out the hard way that it does survive after the 30-day time-limit, if the consumer sues them, if they do validate, and the CA loses. It's a precident that most of them would rather not risk getting to a judge.

The important thing to remember is that according to the FTC. Updating under 623(a), which is designed to be a 100% completely automatic task, is not considered collection activity, because it is designed to be done without the collectors personal involvement. Verifying under 623(b), because the collector must perform activities which involves manual interaction with the CRA (reading the *cough* documentation supplied to the CA by the CRA which was supplied by the consumer, reading the dispute, and manually checking their records to verify that what the CRA is reporting matches what the CA is showing on their records, and clicking the option on their system to verify that that information is correct, or updating it so that it is correct), and since the FTC views reporting to CRAs to be a tool for collection, those activities of manual interaction are collection activities prohibited by 809(b) of the FDCPA, after they've received a validation letter, but before they have provided the validation demanded of them.

You'll want to read the FTC's Cass Opinion available in their FDCPA section so you can understand the difference as collection activity goes.

But which is better for us, a disputed collection account, or a deleted collection account...

 

If they add a dispute notation it usually is a comment such as "Account information disputed by consumer reported by furnisher." or something to that effect, it depends based on the CRA, and also based on what exactly the furnisher told the CRA.