I am about to send out some validation letters to some collection charge offs on my CR for medical bills. There are 3 by two different CAs. The last time they were reported was in 2001, and early 2002. They will be on the report CR until 2005 and 2008. Get this, one of the collections has an account opened date (2002) a year after the date last reported (2001). I haven't been hearing anything from them...does anyone think sending the validation letters will "Wake the Beast"?
I believe validation letters almost always 'wake the beast'. If you just dispute the accounts with the CRA's you have less of a chance of waking them. HTH, Brett
I agree. And don't send letters to the cra when disputing because that is a paper trail. Just call them and dispute over the phone. You will get the same results.
Thanks for the replies, I tried just disputing with the CRA in 2000, on a medical bill for $86, and it came back verified.....it's still on my CR until 2005. So I thought by maybe sending the validation letters to the CAs, I might could get them to delete the TL and then the CRA would have to delete......but was wondering what my chances of having them come after me again for payment might be. $86 is not much $$$, but the other two COs are around $500. I am in Arkansas, and I read somewhere that we have a 2 year sol on collecting medical debts.
Wow. They verified a $86 medical bill? That could not have been Equifax. I know for a fact I had a $130 medical bill that I disputed - even though I owed the bill - and it was deleted by Equifax. I know they didn't bother to investigate even though they said they did. Did you call them and dispute over the telephone or did you dispute by letter? I'm telling you that makes a diffeence. Here in Georgia, medical bills are not considered by most creditors when deciding to extend you credit.
It was TU, I did the dispute by mail...the old fashion way, with pen and paper.......the CR says it was placed for collection 02/1998 and verified on 06/2000. I have never called the CRA out of fear they might try to get me to admit something that I don't want to admit. Have you had any luck disputing online? Or do you mainly just use the phone?
Do you think I will have difficulty disputing something that is already showing verified on my CR. I don't even know if they verified it or not, I don't even remember what it was for.......I've slept since then.....lol
Re: Re: Inactive collection accounts on CR Never dispute by letter. That leaves a paper trail. If you dispute by phone you get the same results but they don't have anything from you with your signature on it. I had the worst credit you could ever imagine. I allowed time to fix my credit problems. I simply waited the 7 years for all my derogs to fall off. In the meantime I did not apply for new credit and I did nothing to "wake the beast." When I disputed the few accounts left on the report after 7 years - I did it by phone and I only called Equifax. The derogs were deleted within a few weeks and I was mailed a squeaky clean report. Trust me, the other CRA's will fall in line when they compare their information on you with Equifax's. Plus Equifax has the 'true' FICO score and the others are FAKO scores.
Re: Re: Inactive collection accounts on CR No. I had that problem 2 months ago. I have paid my auto loan on time for 3 years but 2 months ago my report said I was 3 times 30 days late. I disputed - over the phone - and Equifax verified it. So I disputed again - over the phone and last month the error was deleted and my score jumped about 80 points. =)
Re: Re: Inactive collection accounts on CR That's good sound advice. I have heard and read lots of people sending out letters for this or that.....I thought that was how to do it, just follow the procedures of what letter goes first, 2nd and so on. Then if you wind up in court, then you have your proof of the FDCPA violations if there are any. When they mailed you that squeaky clean report.....did you have any trouble re-establishing credit.....just wondering because my husband can't get a CC but we have a mortgage, and the only thing on his CR is our mortgage which has never been late a closed mortgage that we refinanced, and one collection CO for $157.00 that was paid when we closed our mortgage, but he can't get a damn CC at all....they always turn him down with excuses of too short of a credit history, not enough revolving account credit history.....blah, blah, blah. We got our first mortgage in 2000, and refinanced in 2002. I don't understand why they wont give him a cc because we have never been late on our mortgage payments.
Re: Re: Re: Inactive collection accounts on CR That is excellent advice form the members of this board. Send letters - if you have a leg to stand on and you know your rights have been violated. But if you know you owe the debts and you are trying to clean up your report by any means necessary (except paying them off) then you don't send letters - you call. The day I received that squeaky clean report, I started on my road to recovery. I still had a score in the mid 400's but that doesn't stop lenders from giving you a car or a credit card. You have to understand your scores mean you are 'Subprime' and there is an entire Subprime industry out there waiting to give you loans. I was approved for a brand new car 3 years ago at a high subprime interest rate. It's not fair but they were taking a chance on me. I also received a subprime Capital One credit card with a credit limit of $500 secured with $99. I paid my bills on time, left a zero balance on the card every month and now I can apply for Prime credit cards with much lower interest rates.
Re: Re: Re: Inactive collection accounts on CR I get what your saying about the differences in debts and different procedures to go about it. I may call them and try it that way. My husband has a score of 648 on one of his reports, but I don't know the other scores. Isn't it odd that we could get a mortgage three years ago, but he can't get a CC?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Inactive collection accounts on CR No. There are examples of people on this board with average credit buying homes. You can't take the home and run off with it. Your husband doesn't qualify for a Prime CC with his scores. He should apply for a Subprime CC he will be more successful/ Just click on Credit Cards at the top of this page and then click on Subprime.
If you only dispute thru the CRA's the CA's are free to check your name, adress, and/or ss# and verify the account is yours without impunity. If you do everything by phone, and the CRA drops the ball and does not complete the dispute in 30 days (happens all the time), you have no paper trail to stake your claim. If you are 100% sure the SOL in AR is two years for medical debts, then the 2005 account is out of SOL, and the 2008 account is out sometime this year. Once the SOL is up, although they can try to collect, if they sue you they cannot collect. According to the SOL site at cardreport.com AR has the following SOL's. Which one is for medical accounts? Promissory notes? Oral Agreements - 3 Written Contracts - 5 Promissory Notes - 6 Open Accounts - 3
I got that medical sol for AR on this link. http://fair-debt-collection.com/statue-limitations.html You have to hover over the state (Arkansas) and a window pops up, you can use your arrow keys to view the whole window, but it doesn't let you copy and paste. The window disappears once you try to right click. I hope that is the correct sol on medical debts, this is the only website that I have seen it on.
Iamworried, Please spend some serious time with the FAQ and reading. You are getting some really irresponsible and just plain bad advice; you'll one day regret following any of it -- EXCEPT jlynn's posts. Please do yourself that favor before proceeding. Sassy
Re: Re: Inactive collection accounts on CR I agree do NOT listen to SoParkDiva that is BAD advice that he/she was giving you!
