how does this letter sound for 7 paid medical collections...(I merged and modifies from several letters I have found on here....thank you) Re: 2313670, 2978788, 3308984, 3015352, 3015351, 3015348, and 8970759 To Whom It May Concern: I am writing you regarding several notices on my credit report. It seems as though I have paid accounts with your offices and that your company has deemed it necessary to report this listing on my credit file. This letter is to inform you that I paid this account under duress and prior to knowing my rights as provided by the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. I paid this debt because I was afraid of the pending lawsuit you had filed and I was unfamiliar with the FDCPA. In your communications with me you told me that you would update my credit reports as soon as I had paid the debt to you. Quite naturally, I assumed and relied upon your statement to that effect to mean that you would mark the account as "paid as agreed" or even quite possibly remove it entirely When I paid you, I relied upon the belief that you would do the honorable thing and remove your nasty and derogatory comments from my credit bureau files which you not only failed to do but actually changed my listing to paid settlement/Legally paid for half which is a far worse rating in the eyes of any potential future creditors. You have also listed a new account on my report which I have never received notice on that particular account number. In doing so, you obviously failed to realize that the Doctrine of Estoppel directly applies to this type of situation. Here is what the Doctrine of Estoppel is and how it applies to your violations of it. In order for the Doctrine of Estoppel to apply, the party of the first part (you, Mutual Hospital) must make some statement or engage in some conduct upon which I have relied and acted upon which later proved to be to my detriment or prejudice. Now that I am aware of my rights as provided by State and Federal Law, I am now disputing the fact that your agency ever had any legal right to collect on this alleged debt and that your agency has any legal right to report this account on my credit file. I have attached a request for complete validation (not verification) on this alleged account and you are instructed to fill it out, attach copies of all requested documentation and return it to me within 30 days from your receipt of this letter. If you cannot provide complete validation as provided by law, then your offices are instructed to IMMEDIATELY request full deletion of this account from my master credit file and all 3 major credit bureaus. You are also instructed to send me a copy of such request for deletion via US Mail. If you fail to respond at all, I will turn this matter over to my legal counsel for suit, file complaints with the Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission and our State Attorney Generalâ??s Office. I am quite confident that both you and a court of law will agree that such is a perfectly reasonable assumption for an average debtor to make. And so upon that assumption I agreed to pay the debt and in fact did so on whereupon you actually worsened my credit bureau scores for the last two years and that was most definitely to my detriment and prejudice and has provided me with grounds to sue you for the full amount paid plus attorney fees, court costs and whatever additional punitive damages a jury might award. I am quite well aware that you have a contractual agreement with the credit bureaus which covers this problem and supposedly prevents you from compliance with my demands but a contract which is in violation of the law is null and void and of no force and effect whatever and therefore cannot be enforced either by you or upon you. Your so-called contract with the credit bureaus will not protect you for your willful violation of my rights, which are protected by the Doctrine of Estoppel. While you may think that I have no right of private action due to the way FCRA is worded, let me hasten to assure you that such beliefs are quite ungrounded and false. This point has been vividly pointed out by the ruling of the U.S. 9th Cir. Ct. of Appeals in the case of Nelson v Chase, March 3, 2002, in which the court pointed out that Section 1681s-2(b) of the Fair Credit Reporting Act creates a cause of action for a consumer against a furnisher of erroneous credit information. But my pending suit against you will not be about FDCPA nor FCRA but about how you have damaged me after I acted in good faith in dealing with you. Paid in Oct 2000 after they filed a lawsuit and I didnt know any better at the time plus i paid court and attorney fees and interest. These accounts were opened from 1998-99
I understand your frustrations, but I thing there is too much info here. You seem to be giving away the farm. Limit you statements to facts. "I paid the debts under duress....." - good statement. "I was never informed that I was allowed to dispute these debts." "Had I been aware, I most assuredly would have disputed them." "Your statement," -----whatever they said about reporting the payment ----"; led me to believe that your would be reporting this as a favorable resolution. In no way was I made aware that you would further malign my creditworthiness by reporting that this was "settled"! "No such agreement was reached between you and I." etc. You need to start on the premise that these might not be your debts after all, you were denied due process, agreed to pay under duress, that they used deception to get you to agree to pay with the impression that there would be a favorable report." I am concerned with the way this was written, they will simply get a good laugh, say too bad and what are you going to do about it. In my limited experiences, you have to have something powerful to hold over their heads.
Thank you for your opinion...I always tend to ramble and give too much information working on that. I will work on this some more tonight..... I was hoping this would fall under Estoppel since the way it has been reported for 2 years...also since I have been denied credit for this.
Hey, is this an account with mutual hospital services?? I just got two deletions from them because of improper validation when i sent them an intent to sue letter. Let me know and I will give you some hints!
That would be absolutely wonderful because that is exactly who they are and they have been so very kind to list each doctor's visit as a separate account number even though same doctor etc. Any help would be deeply appreciated.
<Bump> Hello Uniondiva.... Hoping you can still give me some tricks...thinking about just KISS, and go with just a validation letter. Do you think two years is enough for them to "lose" my documents since it is paid?? Jenn
<bump> Anyone some advise please...I dont want to mess this one up because they make up over 50% of my collections. I am leaning toward a simple validation form instead of my long rambling one Only question is, when you have seperate accounts with the same CRA would you one send one letter disputing all seven or send seven letters?? Is the validation letter sufficent...or do I try something else. From Uniondiva's previous posts they got them to delete due to violations which leads me to believe they may be difficult to deal with...They were not exactly helpful when I called to let them know they were reporting it as settled instead of paid. The thing that worries me the most is their lawyer pulled my information and confirmed while I was on the phone. I am a little hesitant and uncertain how to go forward...I have found no other posts on Mutual Hospital Services except by myself and the one uniondiva Please help.
