I am in a dilemma and I need some opinions on my situation. As with every other posting I have made on this board, this situation is happening to another family member but, to make it easier, I will post it as a first person story (since I am writing and sending out all the letters anyway). On 1/14/03, a letter was sent to my parent's house regarding a debt of $100. Now, I could bore you with all the details regarding why it went there but just know, it did. On 1/27/03, I sent them a validation request and it was signed for on 1/30/03. In that letter, I purposely excluded my account number. The reason being is, I remember reading an old Bill Bauer post, in which he stated you should never include any account numbers with your validation request. The reason being is, the harder you make it for them to investigate your letter, the more likely they are to violate more FDCPA provisions by contacting you again. However, now that I think about it, that also may work against you because, in court, they may attempt to defend themselves by stating they simply couldn't find your account. So, I did not include a file number or anything like that. Just my full name and my CURRENT address (not the address they sent the collection letter to...my parent's address...but my REAL current address). They never responded to my validation request. Instead, on 2/17/03, they sent me a new collection notice. They obviously violated the FDCPA by contacting me without providing validation. I sent them a new letter on 3/3/03 (an intent to sue) informing them of their violation and once again requesting validation. I also told them that, if they did not have any documents to validate the debt, I wanted a settlement check of $1000 for contacting me during validation. In this letter, I included both collection notices as proof of my claim. I again never received a response. I sent them one final letter (and I intended to follow through on this one) stating that I am filing suit for $1000 and you can settle for $500. They immediately responded to this letter and stated that, the second letter they sent out was an automatically generated computer print out. The reason they state it was sent out was because they were unable to locate my account from my letters since the name and address I used did not match any name + address combos in their records. They stated, after receiving my second letter which included the collection notices, they immediately closed my account and removed this debt from their records because they finally figured out my account number. Here is where I need your opinion. Should I pursue this? Am I just being petty and letting my litigious mind over run me or should I move ahead? I do truly believe that, if I did include my account number in my first letter, they probably would have closed the account. But, there is nothing which states in the FDCPA that I must include my account number. So I'm wondering, should I be a stickler and pursue this or should I let this one go. I am thinking, if I did move ahead, they will either settle in order to prevent flying representation across the country to be in court OR they will appear and simply state that they couldn't find my account but as soon as they could, they stopped contacting me. In which case, the judge may see that it was accidental and find in their favor or in my favor for the minimum of $100. Let me know what you think.
Sunhawk, I think they would likely skate under this provision without any actual damages: § 813. Civil liability [15 USC 1692k] b) In determining the amount of liability in any action under subsection (a), the court shall consider, among other relevant factors -- (1) in any individual action under subsection (a)(2)(A), the frequency and persistence of noncompliance by the debt collector, the nature of such noncompliance, and the extent to which such noncompliance was intentional; or AND (c) A debt collector may not be held liable in any action brought under this title if the debt collector shows by a preponderance of evidence that the violation was not intentional and resulted from a bona fide error notwithstanding the maintenance of procedures reasonably adapted to avoid any such error. Sassy
Good points...I'll let this one go. Maybe they are actually one of the good guys...well, relatively speaking!
