OC/CA confusion. please help?

I can't answer most of your questions. My OC chargeoffs are new, and I haven't touched them. I don't think the CA can agree to delete the OC tradeline - two separate business entities. But watch out, they will probably tell you they will. Since you know you are going to have to pay this to get into a house, I don't see why it would hurt to dispute the OC TL with the CRA's. Worse case scenario they verify.

The only other thought I have would be to send a C & D to the CA, send a copy to the OC and see if you can "force" them to negotiate with you. Although they wouldn't necessarily settle for less than full balance. Although you will want deletion for your own reasons, most mortgage companies will be satisfied that it is paid.

 

Bump for an answer to this. I am going through the exact same scenario. Trying to refi as we speak. If OC is reporting the tradeline and CA is not but CA can't get OC's TL removed, why bother validating or dealing w/ them?

 

CA's have no authority over the OC. The answer is you don't bother the CA if its not on your reports. You start sending off validation letters and you risk waking the CA up. Let the CA sleep. The longer the better.

 

You may be able to get the money owed to the OC/CA held in escrow. Not for sure how that works so ask your realter.

Another thing is if the OC sold the account off to a CA it should be showing a $0 balance. Once that happense you will have no recourse with the OC just with the CA.

Sure as chit you pay the CA then it will go on your reports.

 

Well, while what you say is quite true if the CA violates the law then the OC becomes or can be made to become liable under the law of agency. The way that works is similiar to the situation that would exist if you hired a tree trimmer to take down a tree that was on or near your property line and in the process he dropped the tree right smack on the neighbors house and then come to find out the hard way he didn't have any insurance to cover such things. You become liable because you hired him. While its not the exact same thing because most CAs do carry what is called O&E insurance(ommissions & errors insurance) and are licensed and boded in states that require it, the OC can be tied in through the law of agency.
On top of that, many contracts OCs have with CAs carry the clause that the CA will hold the OC harmless in the event of any error or violation of law that the CA might commit. So the OC is pretty well protected and would normally be pretty hard to actually nail over the violations of the CA, they would still have to go to the time and trouble and expense to defend and then if the lost they would have to go after the CA in a separate action if the CA refused to honor his contract so even though they might be well protected its still not a fight they really want to get into especially if it is made perfectly clear that all they have to do to get you off their backs is to delete their derogatory info. It costs them next to nothing to do so why would they want to get into lengthy and costly fights when the way out is cheap and easy?

And then turn around and stab you in the back. Best get any agreements in writing if you can.

Best be real, real careful with that. A c&d that is incorrectly used or incorrectly worded leaves them only two recourses. Either forget about ever collecting the debt or sue you. I doubt you want to get sued anytime soon.

Quite true.

 

Re: Re: OC/CA confusion. please help?

While it would appear that the OC is relatively immune from any liability from an action against the CA on FDCPA violations, it is NOT true that they are exempt from direct liability from the consumer.

The principle of vicarious liability could nail them on FCRA violations.

 

Re: Re: OC/CA confusion. please help?

Although I understand that the FTC consent agreements don't carry the same weight as case law, I still find this interesting for the future:

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/predawn/F93/amerfamil4.htm

 

Re: Re: OC/CA confusion. please help?

WOW! That's a great looking site and I'm sure you are quite proud of it as you well should be. You have obviously put a lot of work into it.

I didn't get much of a chance to go through it all, of course as I'm sure you have a lot more on that site I haven't even thought of seeing yet but I will. With your permission I will put a link over to it from my board so others can see what you have as well. Maybe you would be willing to trade links with me. Whatever. Trading links is a great way to build traffic and help others in the process in doing their research.

While you give a link that leads to your page I can't tell from the link discriptions specifically which link leads to the subject matter you are referring to here. That's probably my fault for not clicking on all the links and studying it enough.

 

Re: Re: Re: OC/CA confusion. please help?

I do not mind having my site used for reference, however, I do not wish it linked on a commercial site,so I do not give you permission to do so.

You are free to use the information on my site in any way you wish, however, if you are not going to simply give the site address, I do not wish to have anything from my site used /and or ammended/or abridged and attributed to me.

My site address is in my signature, and was not specifically for the subject under discussion, however, I am adding another letter to my website dealing with this issue for OC health providers.I may consider additional "form" letters dealing with the issue of OC liability, however, it is NOT a simple one size fits all issue as in the case of CAs'.

 

Re: Re: OC/CA confusion. please help?

I'm going to hijack this back from Bill, (heh heh) so Delilah and I can get some answers. . . .So a CA has no authority over the OC's tradeline? Not even w/ settlement offer, etc? I take it they don't work with each other most of the time.

I've been reading and lurking for about a month. I just got advice 2 weeks ago to send the validation letter to the CA to get the ball rolling w/ a dispute. As the CA is currently not reporting TL, did I screw up now that I sent one to them? Does Delilah continue to try to deal w/ the OC? We are in exactly the same boat here.

 

Re: Re: OC/CA confusion. please help?

There are two reasons to send a validation to a CA-

1. To remove the CAs TL from your CR

2. To stop the CA from further collection activities

 

Re: Re: OC/CA confusion. please help?

No, not really. You have to find a way to tie the OC to the CA he hired through the law of agency. The "employer" is responsible for the actions of his "employee" and the fact that most OC-CA contracts calls for the CA to hold the OC harmless from any illegal acts of the CA plus the fact that most CAs have O&E insurance further makes law of agency not a hard leap to make.

Oh yes they do in so far as its to their convenience to do so or in their best interests to do so but they don't really want you to know that.

Well, maybe yes and maybe no. After all, you either have to do something positive or just live with the status quo and if that is not acceptable to you then you may have to rattle the lion's cage even if he bites you. Sometimes it boils down to whatever you consider to be the lesser of two evils.

Never try to evade the collector to get back to the OC where you have almost no protection under the law.

 

Back to this question of Delilah's. And along with this one if the CA is not reporting to the CRA and you have sent them a validation to stop them from collecting further and thus stop them from reporting, then if they do not validate do you need to worry about them any more?

It's the OC's tradeline you need to worry about. So do you dispute with the CRA. If someone knows the answer to this I think it will help Delilah, Me and a few others who seem to be in a similar situation here.

Thanks

 

First of all a validation will not stop them from collecting further by any stretch of the imagination. Might slow them down but it won't be likely to stop them completely in most circumstances. I have seen the CA get a demand for validation and decide he don't want to fool with it or knows he can't meet the demand for some reason such as the creditor having gone out of business, but other than it being some kind of a fluke you cannot expect a validation letter to stop a CA from collecting. Same thing with an estoppel letter. It does happen sometimes even fairly often in fact but you cannot expect that it will happen except for it being some circumstance such as the above. I do suppose that with estoppel they sometimes see that you are out to cause them a lot of grief so they just give up rather than take chances with you. They work on commissions most of the time so messing with someone who obviously plans on giving them more trouble than they figure its worth migh cause them to just give up and move on to more profitable things. But don't count on it.

On top of that, neither the validation nor the estoppel will stop them from reporting unless they throw up their hands and refuse to collect then they must remove any adverse lines they might have put on your credit.

As to your last question, do you dispute with the CRA? Lots of folks do and are successful around 40 to 50 percent of the time on average. Of course, that means that some will have 100% success and some will have zero success and others anywhere in between. Thats the way averages work as I'm sure you are well aware. That means a lot of uncertainty which I don't like at all. So I work to tie the OC into the CA through the law of agency which is perfectly valid and applicable and make the CA take theirs off and the OC as well. Of course, if part of the agreement is that the CA pays the debt he was trying to collect the OC usually isn't all that unwilling to cooperate because he is going to end up getting off the hook and getting paid too. By that time he is probably so angry with the collector that he may well feel like you do that if they can't do business in a professional manner and obey the law then they got what they deserved.

Does it work? Most of the time it does, although it might very well end up that the collector just gives up and returns the debt to the creditor who then has to decide what he wants to do about it. That might end up that he just forgets about it or he turns it over to another collector and the fight starts all over again.

All of the possible outcomes are not the perfect answer that one might have been looking for but then there is nothing out there that is perfect and will always get the job done.

There aren't any magic bullets that will work 100% of the time for everybody and under all circumstances. I doubt that's ever going to happen.

 

It's an important point that the validation/estoppel won't work for 100% of people. It does seem to be very effective against smaller or older accounts. It may also put a person in much better negotiation position to settle other accounts.

If a tl can't be removed by validation to a CA or OC LKH's and LizzardKings strategy seems mighty successful.

 

That's basically just about the size of it. But such a letter is actually pretty tricky for many reasons, not the least of which failure to validate is no where near sufficient to hang either one of them. Takes a lot more than just that.

They almost always can. It isn't a matter of whether they can or cannot do so but rather a matter of did they do so in a reasonable amount of time.

To give one of my "funny" answers, the farmer believed that his hen would lay eggs too but into the boiling pot she goes if she don't actually do it. I've seen them deleted for exactly the same reasons although they were only 5 months past the time the debtor failed or refused to pay the bill. I even had the proof in my own hands and before my very eyes that they could validate yet the collector ran like a whipped puppy because he didn't do it timely and had committed other violations as well and the proof was also in my hands that it was the very estoppel I rail against that did the trick. The collector even returned the estoppel letter to the debtor when he threw up his hands. How much more proof does one need? (LOL)

How is he MAKING you talk to them? And yes, I know that may seem a facetious question but I know he isn't holding a gun to your head so what is he doing that is strong enough to actually MAKE you talk to them? And even if he is MAKING you talk to them he don't have any control over what you say to them.

I say, "So what![/quote]And the bottom line on all of this is I have to get it RESOLVED within two months -- whether it be "paid as agreed" (read=settled) or deleted, it has to be dealt with for the home.[/quote]Ah Ha! Now we know how he is MAKING you talk to the collector. In that case, all the tricks such as validation or estoppel are not going to work for you. Here is where the Westcap endorsement can possibly get the job done.

Quite so. But the westcap endorsement can make that later fight a whole lot easier.

Nothing really. You got all the concepts down pat and you see the problem clearly. The Westcap endorsement can pull the fat out of the fire for you. And it might even end up getting the job done without actually having paid either one of them if you play the cards right. There is a slim chance of it coming out that way.