I recently mailed Validation letters to 3 creditors on my credit report and so far I have received one reply. This account in question is for a utility bill that apparently was opened in 1998. The CA is reporting to all three CRAs for an amount of $396.00 and shows that the first reporting began 4/1/2001. The following is what I received from the "system printout" they sent. Page (1) was a form letter with my return contact info, the account number and an amount owed of $389.25. Basically it stated that they had received my letter and that their client had verified the debt was valid and if I were claiming fraud to provide them with various supporting items of such. Page (2) was a "printout" with contact info, install and disconnect date and a write-off amount of $389.25. It also showed a letter generated on 3/2/01 which would have had to have been a disconnect notice since disconnect was 3/20/01. The account was assigned to the CA on 4/13/01 and written off on 6/20/01. Page (3) again a printout with contact info, SSN and the CA hand wrote that this form was the "original" work-order for service. Page (4) was another printout of what was written as the last billing statement only showing a period of 3/25/01-10/25/01. While I am aware from all the info from this board that this is far from proper validation, my question is on 3 points. Point one is the proper notification of this debt, I was totally unaware of this until I checked my credit report. Though this printout shows a letter generated on 3/2/01, it could not have been a Dunning Letter if the account wasn't assigned to collections until 4/13/01. Second point is that the credit reports show that the initial reporting of this collection began 4/1/01. I thought that a CA could not report this until AFTER the period in which the consumer is allowed to dispute the validity of the debt.(Of course from the Dunning Letter) Final and most important point is the are stating they are collecting on $389.00 while all three credit reports show collection on $396.00. Date of Last report on this amount was 12/05. I am of course going to re-request validation and include the Wollman letter or should I take a different approach given the information in hand?
Yes. I did dispute with the CRAs, that is the reason it was last reported back in Dec '05. It does not appear that they ever tried to do any real collection on this account, before I disputed it it was years since they last reported on it. Also I have never received any type of letters from them before my validation request. The date of last activity is 2001.
i would reply that what they sent is not validation and it is against the law to collect on something they can't prove, etc or you could PFD
Thanks for the reply Jenz. Back in January of this year I sent these guys a PFD letter which they ignored all together. This time I just asked for straight up validation of the account which they have not properly provided. I was in the process of writing my letter to re-request validation as well as a letter to the CRAs when I noticed that the account number does not match. The account number on my Credit reports is no where close to the acct number they sent to me as well as the amount being reported is off from what they say I owe. It looks like these guys could get stuck with some violations to me at this point.
