Long time no post here. I've actually taken care of my all credit report issues, with the last one settling for 35% of the balance. But this is actually a problem of my fiancee. Oliphant Financial is trying to collect on a supposed debt for a Gateway computer she financed almost a decade ago. Noone even remembers the exact year because it was so long ago. She was under the impression it was paid off a year after. Since I know the debt collection stuff (thanks to Creditnet) I started working on it. After a 3rd set of validation request letters as Oliphant Financial kept sending this to different debt collectors, Oliphant finally sent what they constitute as a validation letter. It has the Current Creditor (them), the Original Creditor (which is Citibank Private Label), the original account number, debt description, amount due and my fiancee's name & address. This may potentially be considered proper validation. I contacted whatever is left of Citibank Private Label, which was Citi's retail brand lending unit that was shut down & resold years ago. After being put to their recovery specialists, I was told that they cannot provide me with any information except when the debt was sold and to whom. They claim the debt was sold in 2008 and to a different debt buyer than the one contacting my fiancee. I kept trying to press for account statements but they refused and claimed I have to get those from the current creditor. Now I'm pretty sure this is a completely false debt, probably due to a mistake while Citibank Private label was restructured. No letters were ever sent nor were any calls made by Citibank Private label regarding nonpayment, and this is almost a decade old. They always had the right address & phone number. I do, however, have two primary concerns: 1) This should be out of SOL (6 years here in NY), but with the debt being sold in 2008, could the SOL be from 2008 and not from when the account should have been hypothetically charged off? 2) This is so old that proving payment on our behalf may be near impossible. Banks only keep records for 7 years. I plan to send a letter back to Oliphant requesting full validation and specifying that they document that they actually own the debt and also send copies of account statements. This whole mess will come down to actual account statements and any proof of payment we may be able to find. Anyone who can shine in on this situation, please do and your help is much appreciated.
What a mess...kudos to you for stepping in and helping out. The SOL generally begins to run when the borrower fails to make payment and breaks the terms of their contract, so it sounds to me like you're well beyond the 6 year mark. The fact that the debt's been resold doesn't reset the SOL either. I would tell anyone trying to collect this debt now that it's too old, the SOL has run, and hopefully they'll leave you alone.
