Can a collection agency continue to pull your credit reports after the SOL has passed on the debt they are trying to collect? The debt is no longer legal so I'm thinking they would have no permissable purpose after the SOL but this is an unchartered area. If I'm wrong, that means the CA and pull your credit reports forever. Let me know what you guys think.
It seems to me that you may be getting your sols mixed up. One sol is when they can no longer sue you to collect the debt and that is different from state to state and type of debt. The other and more popular sol is the 7 year reporting period which is an entirely different thing. Am I wrong here in what I perceive your thinking to be or what? They try that sometimes by reageing the debt but that is highly illegal and they can be sued for that and the win should be very profitable indeed.
Bill, What I mean is State 'A' SOL = 3 years. Can the CA pull your reports after those 3 years are up for "collection purposes" since the debt is no longer legal ? I'm thinking since the debt is no longer legal, then the collection agency has no PP.
Bill told you right about the SOL's. Just because it has passed your state's SOL doesn't mean it is "no longer legal" as you put it. They can't sue you in court any more is all it is. It is still a LEGAL debt foreverand they can try to collect by other means. And yes, they can pull inq's on you after the SOL and even after the FCRA 7 years. Just because they can't or don't report a debt to the CRA's I see as no reason to prohibit them from doing inq's. 0
I understand that "SOL expired" is an affirmative defense. The way I understand it, you have to raise that as an argument in court. So, a creditor could sue you for the debt, but if you don't bring up that as a defense, they could conceivably be awarded a judgment? Would someone please explain this?
jlynn, Yep they sure can. The Judges won't do that for you. You have to claim that defense in your answer. I know first hand .
Re: Re: interesting question A SOL defense is NOT an "absolute" defense, as would be something like proof of payment,or proof that it is not your debt. The reason is that the SOL may be "tolled" that is the time period put into suspension for various reasons, depending on your State's laws. So when you raise the SOL defense you must also be able to counter any claims from the plaintiff that any portion of the time was tolled. That is why it is not "automatic"
Re: Re: interesting question Bill told you right about the SOL's. Just because it has passed your state's SOL doesn't mean it is "no longer legal" as you put it. They can't sue you in court any more is all it is. 1* It is still a LEGAL debt forever and they can try to collect by other means. 2*And yes, they can pull inq's on you after the SOL and even after the FCRA 7 years. 3*Just because they can't or don't report a debt to the CRA's I see as no reason to prohibit them from doing inq's. zerodown ================ 1*A debt that can not be legally collected isn't legal 2*in other words they can harass you forever and there is no escape 3*So they can do this with out regards to the fact they legally you don't have to ever pay them. The END ************************* LB 59
Re: Re: Re: interesting question Now that could be scary! I'm sure a lot of people will be wondering - so I'll ask; what kinds of things could toll an SOL? I'm wondering about RMA's putting "unable to locate consumer" on everyones' collection items. 0
OK, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't play one on TV But I would think if they put "unable to locate consumer" on everyone's report they'd soon be in trouble. For example, I've lived at the same address for almost 20 years. So how could they locate me? I would think that if I went to court and showed proof that I've lived at the same address the entire time, they couldn't toll the SOL. Even if they found another address on my CR (there is one, but it's wrong), they would still have to prove that they tried to contact me at ALL my addresses. At least that's my thought. Any lawyers out there with some insight?
Re: Re: interesting question In general, if your State provides alternate service (and all do) by publication, or by mail to he last known address, or by pasting it on the door of your last known ddress(2 States I have found so far allow this), then there can be NO tolling for being unavailable due to moving. The most common LEGAL tolling situtions are, active military service (due to the Soldiers and Sailors Act), mental,or physical incompetancy,(confined to a mental institution or in an intensive care unit), incarcerated for a felony conviction, (some States exclude this from tolling) a filed BK, that has been dismissed, and a few others I can't think of right now. Unless someone has fraudulently evaded service by changing their name and ss#, or is in a witness protection program, just moving around and being unavailable or unlocatable is NOT grounds for tolling.
Re: Re: interesting question Thanks for the clarification. It only made sense to me that they couldn't do that, I just didn't know why. But I knew there was a wealth of information out there!
