Maybe a dumb question

This may be a dumb question but maybe not. I am finding the information on this forum so interesting and am learning so much about the laws and my rights as a consumer and I thank everyone for that.

My question I have been reading a lot of posts with information dealing with the mini miranda and now wonder if our younger son might have a case that involves a violation of the mini miranda. I will try to give details without getting to long I hope.

In Febuary of 1999 he bought a pickup. At that time he had a job that paid $16.00 per hour and three months after he got the pickup the company had massive layoffs and he lost the job in a layoff. His next job only paid $11.00 an hour and he could no longer afford the payments on the pickup so he voulentarily turned the pick up in.

Four months later he got a letter from the fianace company saying you owe us XX.XX amount. He called them and told them he wanted to know what they sold the pickup for and if the credit life insurance ect. had been taken off . They refused to give him this info he refused to pay without it.

He then in May of 2000 recieved a dun letter from an attorney with a settlement offer that was good for five days and he did not get the offer until after the date had passed.The post mark on the letter is actually past the date of the time to respond to the offer.

On the bottom of this letter and all others from this attorney it says in bold all capital letters "This communication is from a debt collector, in an attempt to collect a debt and any information obtained will be used for that purpose". Not one word about his right to dispute all or part of the debt.

Is this a violation of the mini miranda?

This lawyer went on to pull some pretty tricky crap on my son. In July filed for a judgement which my son went to court and told the judge that he was disputing the amount which made the attorney come unglued. The judge asked my son why he disputing and so my son told the judge what he asked for not only from the original creditor but this attorney as well and the judge agreed that my son had the right to the information he had requested and dismmissed the case ( son had requested via mail CRRR from the attorney and took it to court with him). Really pi**ed this attorney off.

This attorney then refiled and my son was never served so he now has a default judgement against him so if we could cause this creep some discomfort with a suit against him it would be poetic justice so to speak.

gigi

 

Thank You Breeze ahould he begin with a complaint to the FTC? AS far as suing the debt collector should my son sue just the one attorney or the law firm? Even though the debt collector is an attorney can my son sue in small claims court? What about suing the original creditor ( Ford Motor Credit ) I have read somethere that the original creditor can be held responsible for the actions of a hired debt collector. I may be wrong but I feel he has at least two FDCPA violations one for not telling him his right to dispute in writing in 30 days the other for refusing to validate the debt. The pickup was sold according to paper work at a private sell they also got a refund of over $2,100.00 for life and disability insurance so for all we know someone just took over the payments. I really value others who have been there done that thoughts on this so thank you again.

gigi

 

lbrown59, I am not saying that my son does not possibly owe a debt. He was denied his right to have the amount of the debt validated or verified. the original dun letter from the debt collector who in this case just happened to be an attorney did not inform him of his right to dispute any or part of the debt. When he did dispute the debt they rufused to verify or validate the debt in any way. He has no idea what the pickup sold for, if the cancelled insurance was applied to the debt as they agreed. Yes it is possible that if someone took over the payments he would owe nothing and with the insurnace reimbursment that was paid to them they could even owe him money. This pickup was less than 6 months old and he had put down $4,000 plus his trade in which he got $1,000 for I am aware that the value of vehicles drop the minute you drive off in it. The closeset we have gotten to an amount of what the pickup sold for is that it sold for 110% of the blue book value so that means he took way above average care of the vehicle. I feel that he has a case and the only way to find out for sure is via a law suit nothing ventured nothing gained so to speak.

gigi