Ok to send?

"I DON'T HAVE IT (I MISPLACED IT)...I CAN REMEMBER THE NUMBER...SO I DON'T NEED IT"
THEY SAY SMUDGE THE DL #

THEY SAY DON'T SIGN IT...

(SIGN) MARY J SMITH

 

Hey Donna,
Who was this from?

 

Dear Donna,

Is this posted on your cr yet?

Please Advise,

 

OK,

The CA has the right to identify you, here's how;

X-copy of your SS card (clear and readable)

You don't need a copy of my SS Card

X-copy of your drivers license (clear and readable)

You don't need a copy of my DL

X-written letter of dispute including your signature.

Type up your letter and include the last 4 digits of your SS#.

Go ahead and sign it but sign it slightly differently than you normally would. Change something very small about your sig.

Take it to your bank and have them notarize your letter.

By the time you add to your letter their alleged acct #, the alleged amt. and this info. you may assert that this is a properly formulated document.

I would say the following in my letter;

1) This document is properly formulated with a substantiated signature.
2) Nobody in their right mind would waste their time disputing someone elses tradelines so it's obviously me.
3) Your time has already begun upon receipt of my first letter. You may not use ID reasons to delay the start of this process. You now have XXX days to complete this process.
4) If you implying that I must HAND WRITE my letter I will bill you for my time.
5) Enclosed are the last 4 digits of my SS#. If indeed you have an account on me then you already have the entire number.
6) If you do not take immediate action on this demand I shall take legal action against your company.

The main reason the folks on here are against signing something is that they suspect some of these people may photo-image your signature onto a contract, this is unlikely.

I don't think they CAN validate based upon what I see in his response to you. He aslo said "we are required to inform you that any info will be used against you" - so don't give them any more than is necessary.

You might also consider sending a photo copy of a utility bill with ONLY your name and address showing.

Let us know.

 

Donna, after enduring a one-week self-imposed hiatus from Creditnet (just to see if I could do it -- it was hard), I returned to read your very interesting question. Let me take a stab at it.

First, before I write the whole novel of thoughts that are flooding my mind now on your behalf (lol)... let me cut to the chase... What should you do now? You should resend the original nutcase letter as intended, complete with notarized signature. Across the top, type "SECOND NOTICE" in all caps. Then send it via certified mail with return-receipt requested. Then, if that doesn't work, move onto the "Son of Nutcase" letter, etc. That's what I think you should do, since you asked for opinions. Now, I'll move to those flooding thoughts, lol:

1) Many people agree that letters to CAs for UNPAID [alleged] debts should not be signed. I say "many" because not everybody advocates that -- notably followers of John Gliha (proprietor of DueProcess.org, the fellow who basically started the validation craze by publicizing it on the internet -- read his validation discovery story here. Also, Bill Bauer, proprietor of CreditWrench.com (which some people would call the poor person's DueProcess, lol, although Bill would vigorously dispute that since he disagrees with some of Gliha's more far-out theories), also advocates providing solid identifying documentation (driver's license, etc.) when communicating with creditors irrespective of whether they are paid or not. I think it's important that you understand people out there (experts as well as "just folks") do not universally agree that sending unsigned letters is the way to go. There are lots of legal arguments for signing documents, but since I'm not a lawyer I won't even attempt to deepen the discussion any further.

2) That said, MY OPINION (heh, like that matters when bracketed against others who know far more than I do, but since you asked for opinions, here's mine)... Anyway, MY OPINION is that you definitely SHOULD sign letters going to fully-paid creditors. Sorry, I have no opinion about unpaid creditors, since I never had to deal with them (for better or worse, I paid my bills 100%), and the arguments both pro and con regarding signatures and unpaid creditors sound compelling to me. The risk, as I understand the arguments from the "don't sign letters to UNPAID creditors" contingent, is that an unscrupulous unpaid creditor may forge your signature and therefore "prove" the debt. On the other hand, if a debt is FULLY PAID, however, then you obviously don't run a financial risk by signing your letters. That's a pretty major distinction between UNPAID and FULLY PAID creditors.

3) Additionally, FULLY PAID creditors just don't experience the "fire" in their bellies regarding anything you send them. In fact, they make money only when they deal with unpaid debtors -- they're in business to collect those bad debts they purchased from others and would rather not waste their workday dealing with irritating fully-paid debtors who now -- they wish -- should simply go away and not bother them. In short, FULLY PAID creditors just aren't motivated to forge anything. They want to dismiss your letter as quickly as possible and go back to the collections business. Therein lay the origin of the "nutcase" rationale. After being sick and tired of being ignored and dismissed by fully paid creditors (whose old late-pay tradelines were making it impossible to improve my credit score... whether I deserved a credit score increase or not -- another argument for another day)... Anyway, after tiring of being ignored by fully paid creditors, I realized that if I became a big enough pain in their posteriors they might just clean the tradeline to be rid of me and to avoid a possible lawsuit from a litigious-happy irritant. Once I began to understand the psychology of a fully-paid creditor a bit better, I became far more effective in dealing with them.

4) While internet personalities like Gliha and Bauer advocate signing letters, so too do people like Michael Kielsky (the famous author of the Electronic Credit Repair Kit, whose contents are now sorely aging but still found here and discussed on an extremely active Yahoo! discussion group here). The legal arguments for signing your letters aside (they essentially bolster your letter's "standing" etc.), one argument put forth by Gliha, Kielsky, Bauer, and even a few others is something I find pretty compelling: When you don't sign a letter, the recipient can lawfully demand VALIDATION of YOUR LETTER, LOL. Basically, they can stall, just as you discovered, and it weakens the entire impact of your initial presentation. In your case, you sent an unsigned letter that said (if you sent "nutcase") something along the lines of "prove to me those late pay notations were real." Then they responded, "Ok, but first prove to me that you are the person who wrote the letter we received." A classic power struggle.

5) Keep in mind that the nutcase series of letters is aimed at forcing a fully paid creditor to demonstrate that the late-pay notations in your credit file are: a) proveably correct; b) don't violate your civil rights; c) weren't associated with an "encumbered" consumer protection issue, and d) don't reference a transaction that was part of a problematic insurance dispute (with all the laws pertaining to that), among other things. This differs TREMENDOUSLY from a standard validation letter for unpaid [alleged] debts, since that standard validation letter is asking for one thing -- proof that the debt existed. The nutcase series DOESN'T DISPUTE the original debt's validity at all. The nutcase letters dispute the validity of the NEGATIVE TRADELINE REMARKS and do that by hinting at one or more violations of consumer protection laws. It is a perfectly legal letter whose object is not to present as a psychotic (as some people seem to think, lol) but rather to present as a litigious nutcase who is "up to something" and who should be dismissed as cheaply as possible and quickly (by deleting the negative tradeline notations, hopefully, lol).

[continued next post...]

 

[continued from previous post]

Finally, and I'll put this in bold:

6) In the rationale for the original nutcase letter, I specifically advise SIGNING the letter, having it NOTARIZED, and including IDENTIFYING INFORMATION (like a driver's license). Why? Because the "I'm not afraid of you -- this is who I am -- and I just came from my lawyer's office" approach is both off-putting and denies them their classic stall move. Moreover, you're sending it to a FULLY PAID creditor, so no money is at stake. Finally, you're NOT disputing the original debt (so who cares if they forge a contract, which they're not motivated to do anyway in the case of a paid debt); they have to validate the NEGATIVE LATE-PAY REMARKS ON YOUR TRADELINE, something which your signature doesn't PROVE or DISPROVE, lol.

Instead of adopting the "I'm not afraid of you -- I just came from my lawyer's office" approach, by not signing the letter you instead have adopted the "I'm too scared of you to even sign my letter -- hence I must not be too confident in my legal standing" approach. With the nutcase letter series, you want the fully paid creditor to understand that you ARE up to something, that your lawful requests (and they are lawful) must be respected, and that you aren't afraid of them because they may have violated the law already.

Now, if you've read all the way down to here, you may as well reread the original nutcase rationale here. Moreover, take note that there are follow-up letters (betacredit and others worked hard on extending the approach into a pretty powerful series) here.

Finally, although many people (including me) have used the nutcase series with success, there ARE other terrific approaches for dealing with fully paid creditors. Probably the smartest and best approach I've seen is what DanceRat described here on Creditnet. (Keep in mind, though, that DanceRat is contesting the validity of the underlying debt, even though it's already paid. That's a very different approach, so you shouldn't switch gears from nutcase and move over to the DanceRat method with the SAME tradeline. Remember that the nutcase series simply challenges the veracity of the late-pay tradeline remarks only.) For future reference, here are a couple of links to the apparently very effective method DanceRat references: link and link. Finally, I understand quite a few people have used an approach advocated by Bill Bauer of CreditWrench.com for paid chargeoffs which he has distributed on the net for free here, something he calls the "Knockout Letter" which again uses a different emphasis yet again. Oops, how can I forget that Marci's original unmodified goodwill letter (she didn't call it that at that time) was aimed at fully-paid creditors as well (link). Thankfully there are now quite a few sharp tools in the toolbox for disputing fully-paid creditors. Just a year ago, the prevailing theory (even among the Gliha and Bauer crowd) was that one won't stand a chance dealing with paid creditors because "you've lost your leverage." Of course we now know that's dead wrong.

Good luck with this, and keep us posted!

Doc

P.S. Ok, I am attempting with great difficulty to deal with my acknowledged Creditnet addiction. I will now endeavor to stay away from this board for another whole solid week. Wish me luck, lol.

 

We knew you'd return quickly...One of us...One of us...

LOL

-Peace, Dave

 

Let me guess. STERLING JEWELERS INC!

 

Hey Doc,

Welcome Home

 

We are required by certain states' law to tell you that (A) this is an attempt to collect a debt and any information received will be used for that purpose, (B) under Iowa law we are a debt collector, and (C) a negative credit report reflecting on your credit record may be submitted to a credit reporting agency if you fail to fulfill the terms of your credit obligation.
What do you guys think about that one?
Donna
==========================
They're gonna collect a debt that they have already collected and report it again when they are still reporting it if you don't pay it again.
Sounds like they are one log short of a cord.

 

Hi PsychDoc,

I read your post here on dealing with charge offs after consulting the unofficial FAQ. I have a question for you regarding strategy for a dispute I have over an unpaid charge off.

I had a lease agreement with American Honda Finance from 1997-1999 (2-year lease) for which I made all of my payments on time and turned the vehicle in on time at the end of the lease. (I subsequently went into a new Accord lease through Honda Finance.)

Recently, after trying to refinance my mortgage, my lender informed me that the account was charged off for $2300 in September of 2001, more than 2 years after the lease was up and I returned the vehicle.

AHFC is claiming that I had excess mileage on the car and excess wear and tear. They total those to $2300. What's worse is that we were never informed of this alleged debt. I know a lot of people probably say that, but we really weren't. When I called them, they told me they had an address on file that was 5-years old, so it's no wonder their mail and calls never got to us.

Anyway, here are a few questions:

1. What do you recommend regarding strategy to dispute their claims? I called them today and the person on the phone was very beligerant (sp?) to me. When I asked how I could dispute this, he told me "you can't, you owe us the money, now pay us."

2. Does it seem odd that they wouldn't charge it off for 2 years after the lease matured? I've read here that they usually do these things within 180 days.

Thanks for your help,

LM

 

<bump>

 

Logicman,
If you're still around, whatever became of this situation? I'm in a similar situation.
Your experiance would be greatly appreciated!
Bruce