I just received a new letter stating that the CA has been unable to get in contact with me. The letter was sent to me by Professional Credit Services. I have already received letters from Allied Interstate and PCS about the same collection. I really didn't think about this until I received the most recent letter. My problem: I sent my validation letter to the address from AI, not PCS. I have received 3 calls and this letter since they received the validation letter. I am concerned that they will say they never received the validation letter(I have the green card from AI). The validation response is due on the 5th(30 days). Should I just wait a few more days and then send the estoppel to AI? I am almost sure they won't validate this debt by March 5th. What should I do? Can anyone help? Thanks
Hmmm. I am not sure what you mean by due since a CA is not required to ever validate. Perhaps you mean that is when you are planning on sending the next letter? If so why not go ahead with that to AI and send PCS a letter that they are in violation along with a copy of the first AI letter?
From my understanding a CA must validate a debt they are trying to collect on if I ask them to. They have to prove that I owe what they say I owe. The due date I was referring to was just the standard 30 day rule. It is not written in stone or anything. It's the amount of time I am going to wait before I send the estoppel letter since they can't validate my debt(as of yet). As per your suggestion of sending the letter to AI and PCS that is a good possibility. I just want a little more feedback.
Nope, if they can't/won't validate they have to cease collection. Look at #III http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpa/letters/cass.htm
Your right Jlynn. But so am I. What I said was !QUOT!a CA must validate a debt they are trying to collect !QUOT!. They are trying to collect on a debt so they must validate it. If they decide NOT to try and collect they don't have to validate. In my situation they have tried to collect 4 different times. They have committed 4 separate violation so far. The debt is under $2000. 4 violation = $4000.. hmmmmmmmmmmm they might end up owing me money.
OK. Just so new posters don't get confused. CAs are never required to validate. Not in 30 days, 1 year, or 10 years. However, as you say they must cease collection activities until they do. Each violation is $100 to $1000 up to a maximum of $1000 under federal law. Some states have state laws that might go higher but under federal law it is limited to $1000 total.
I actually forgot that. It was discussed in a different thread with bbauer. I can sue for an unlimited amount if there was pain and suffering involved. The whole thing is I don't want it to get to that point, but I will take it there. I would rather settle and get it off my CR than go through the hassle of litigation. Thanks for you input so far.
Well folks, I don't have one single solitary shred of evidence to back up what I am going to say here so please be advised of the above. But it seems to me that once the "reasonable" time to validate has passed the violation would have been fait accompli and it would no longer make any difference whether they threw up their hands and gave up or not. I'll also forewarn you that some court cases seem to definitely disagree with what I am saying. So I also have to state that if you can get them sued in court before they throw up their hands and refuse to collect then you just might have a chance to stick them with it. The reason I am playing with what might very well be nothing more than a pipe dream is because of a basic feeling I have that somewhere along the line there has to be some point where the collector could not escape his errors so I have to start somewhere and the most reasonable somewhere I can come up with is the end of the reasonable time within which he must validate. And don't come spouting off that I am crazier than a pet coon because we all knew that from the start. (LOL)
Well, let's see if I can come up with anything worthwhile. I believe you should have sent validation demand to both if they are separate entities. If you have the green card then it makes no difference what they claim. No, you should not wait a few more days. If you have not received the perfected validation by the end of the 30 days period then I believe that you should not give them one day more before sending the estoppel. It is my opinion that you should get the validation out to PCS immediately and after the mailman comes March 5th you should immediately go to the post office and send out the estoppel. Were I in your shoes that is what I would do. And at the end of 15 days after they receive estoppel I would lay the next step on them. And at the end of 15 days after they receive the next step I would lay the next step on them. And on the 16th day after they receive that I would file suit on them. Of course, you may choose some other plan of action. That is up to you. All I can tell you is what I would do if it were my choice.
Thanks for your response bbauer. I think I left out a few details when I posted this thread. When I call AI they transfer me to the same person handling my account. It doesn't matter if I call the number from AI or PCS. I am assuming that they are one in the same. I have never received anything stating that PCS is now handling my account. Second, The most recent "collection" letter from PCS had my name spelled wrong. Can I get the CRA to delete the TL with a copy of this letter? If they are both the same company, should I still send out the validation letter to PCS. I will Monday morning. I am going to wait until the 5th before I send out the estoppel letter to AI. Then it will be 30 days. I have a funny feeling that these two companies are owned and operated by the same people. We shall see. Thanks for your response bbauer.
That is quite often the case on message boards. Well, just one call should have alerted you to the fact that you had a solid violation on them. What they are doing is illegal. I would tend to agree with that after what you have said. WOW! First you say you never got anything stating they were handling your account and then you say you got a collection letter from them. That just don't make no sense to me. Either they are handling your account or they are not. If they send a collection letter then they need to validate the account. Simple as that. I would not have the foggiest idea what you can get a CRA to do. I never mess with them. I hate to stand by and get what little intelligence I have insulted. And from my standpoint a CRA is little more than an insult to human intelligence and fiddling with them is little more than an exercise in futility. Just my personal opinion. That is exactly what I would do if I were in your position. Good! Good! And then what do you plan to do after that? I think you have already proved that.
Thanks for the quick response. I'll respond to a few of your questions. quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have never received anything stating that PCS is now handling my account. Second, The most recent "collection" letter from PCS had my name spelled wrong. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What I meant by this was, I had not received anything from PCS stating that they had bought my account or were taking it over from AI. I don't know if that makes any difference or not, just thought I would mention it. quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am going to wait until the 5th before I send out the estoppel letter to AI. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Good! And then what do you plan to do after that? Thats a good question. I know there are a few more letters to send but I am leaning toward suing for the violations so far. The estoppel says just that. As far as getting the CRA to delete the TL, its worth a try. I have already disputed it as not mine. I'll just send a copy of the letter as proof its not mine.
If you got any kind of letter from them demanding money they they must be handling your account whether they said so or not. Never try to educate the enemy. If they sent you a letter with the wrong spelling then you make them prove that person owes the debt. If they send a letter and and you got it then they must think it is you. So if they think your name is Joey Smythe and your name is Joseph Smith then make them prove Joey Smythe owes the debt or take it off or Joey Smythe just might sue the hell out of them for whatever reason. I got sued many years ago by someone who knew me personally and he spelled my name wrong on the summons and in the suit itself. I went to court and fought under the wrong name and lost. Then he tried to collect and found out his mistake and then he couldn't do anything about it. Oh, he could have but he just didn't want to mess with it anymore. So the judgment never got collected and it never showed up on my credit reports either. But if I had taught him his mistake before or at trial I would have been dead meat. If he had pursued the issue I could have filed motion to vacate void judgment and made him go do it all over again. For the few bucks he was after it would have cost him more than it was worth. No, it don't make any difference. Just use their mistakes to confuse them more but don't let it confuse you. OK. But how many violations do you have on them now? If you only have one or two then that isn't likely to get you anywhere. They have the right to claim it was just a simple clerical error and they have taken steps to insure that it will never happen again and get away scott free. You have got to have a minimum of 3 to 5 or more to be sure that don't happen and they can't be stupid stuff either. I can show you a recent case filed by a pro se against Wolpoff & Abramson where he argued all kinds of violations about how they violated FDCPA and FCRA but his arguments had no merit so the lower court dismissed them all. He appealed to higher court and got shot out of the saddle on all of his arguments except one even though he did have two solid complaints and the apellate court admitted that W&A had committed a very grevious violation of rules. Problem with that was that the court had no jurisdiction to rule on that issue since it was over fee splitting with a non-attorney firm. It might be illegal but this wasn't the proper venue nor did the apellant have standing to argue the issue since he wasn't harmed by it. So there was only one issue that the court could rule on at the time and that was some picky little error the court had made and so they denied him on all his "solid" and remanded on that one picky little issue so the lower could remedy it's error which wasn't going to help him one little bit. The lesson to be learned is that you can't go running off to court every time somebody steps on your widdle tootsies. That's not what courts are for and most especially apellate courts. You have to have solid violations and to get those you have to know the law and you have to build your case carefully step by step and you got to have a carefully laid out plan. Just because they didn't validate in precisely 30 days and not one day more isn't going to win any cases in court and I don't care what the estoppel letter says. I say George Bush can't go fight Iraq unless he gets permission from Congress and the UN and the concensus of the American People are with him. Do you think George is going to stop for any of that if he wants to go fight Iraq? If so, think again. Past experience with other presidents proves that if he wants to go he will go do it to it regardless and if he has to pay the consequences later, so be it. What I say George Bush can or cannot do is worth every bit of what that stupid estoppel letter is worth. Just exactly nothing, maybe less. But don't let that cause you to think the estoppel letter is worthless and should not be used. Au Contrare. It does work sometimes and sometimes it accomplishes things that are not readily apparent. I suppose so. And it got you nowhere as usual. OH SURE! And it's got the account numbers right and the amount right and I have no idea what else is right except the spelling is wrong so instead of getting a deletion you get another false spelling of your name tacked on your credit report so it looks like you not only don't pay your bills but you use false names to help in your mad schemes to defraud your creditors. Credit bureaus just love to figure out more ways to add false crap on your credit report and so you want to take a chance they will grab that up and use it against you instead of doing what you thought they would do? Wake up and smell the coffee. You are dealing with a den of snakes who will bite you at every opportunity. Anything you say can and probably will be used against you if at all possible.
