I have a $1K charged off Ann Taylor account and collection letters are coming from World Financial Network National Bank. Are they considered the OC or a CA? (They include the mini-miranda on correspondence.) I'm debating whether or not to validate...They are now calling me leaving very carefully-worded voice mails that would leave one to believe they are going to be sued w/o actually saying it...
I believe it is an OC - have you looked up the website? I think they are the lender on our Restoration Hardware acct - they may be a retail charge card bank.
WFNNB is the OC, Ann Taylor is the store, basically they are the 'bank' behind a large number of store branded cards.
I have WFNNB on my credit report for a Lane Bryant department store card so I think it is considered the OC.
So, how do I handle them vis a vis validation? They called tonight telling me they were filing a civil suit. What do I do?
As an OC, they can tell you pretty much anything they want, AS FAR AS FEDERAL LAW GOES... That is the caveat. Where you need to look is your STATE'S Consumer Protection Laws. If you're states CPL's aren't listed online, PA's aren't... You may want to try snooping the Attorney General's web site to see if you can find any lawsuits filed by the AG's offices against an OC under the CPL... Thanks to PA's suit against CCB being openly available, I was able to find out that PA's CPL's can bind a creditor to FDCPA violations in a round-about way. Basically how it is structured is similar to this... * Creditor violation defined as if it was a FDCPA violation. * Since a violation of the FDCPA is a violation of the STATE CPL, it is also a violation of the STATE CPL at cite. * IF it is determined by the court that CREDITOR is a CREDITOR as defined by the STATE CPL, then it is a violation of the STATE CPL at secondary cite. At least that gives you a reference point to start tracking down possible cites, so you have an idea of where to go from there.
Jam, thank you. I found out if they represent themselves as a third party as far as Colorado is concerned they fall under FDCPA rules. I'm now wondering if that is the case, they are not registered in CO...I'll do some more reading...
