$200 and change is a rather small amount to be going to court over. One angle of approach might be that threat to sue with no intention of doing so is illegal under FDCPA. If I remember correctly, FTC says that making threat with no intention of actually filing suit is "fulfilled" if threat is made without actually having already done so. You may want to poke around the FTC website under FDCPA and see if my memory serves me correctly or not. I would not guarantee that is does in this case. You would have to look it up for yourself and not take my word for it.
Ok, I'm confused. I thought I saw earlier that you need to file in the same county that either you signed the contract or that they do business? Otherwise it needs to go to a higher court?
"Bill, that person is not out on a limb at all. #1) The attorney who contacted her did not properly validate anything. A computer printout screen shot is worthless. #2) Nothing has changed prior to her having sent the validation letter. She has not weakened her position at all be demanding proof. In fact, she has strengthened it because now they are in violation of the FDCPA because they failed to validate the debt." Lizard king, I am not debating the effectiveness of this validation letter at all, it has worked for me also. But, I dont understand what you mean when you say the are breaking the law by sending a computer printout. I keep reading the FDCPA and I dont see anyting under validation that requires them to send you anything but the Name of the creditor, the amount of the debt etc. I do not see where they have to submit all the information that is requested by that great validation letter. How are they not properly validating. Am I missing something under the FCDPA. Please inform me I am dying to know.
Would you pay me 200 dollars just because i sent you a bill ,or would you demand that I validate the bill( I E) furnish you proof that you owe me $200.00? l b 5 9
See! I told you so all along! Junk! Fluff! (LOL) No, just kidding. Seriously, You are absolutely right about the "fluff" angle. If it looks good, "feels" good, ect, it don't matter that it's fluff. You not only can get by with a certain amount of it, but it can make the whole thing look more "scary" to the beholder. And what's wrong with feeding them back some of the same kind of crap they try to shove off at us? Way to go, LK! I do say that if you get too "fluffy", you can do yourself more harm than good. And "fluff" is exactly what demanding validation out of the credit bureaus is too. You know that, you have said it before, and it's exactly true. It's fluff for the credit bureaus because they don't have to abide by it or pay any attention to it, but just like if your fluff works, then so can (and does) mine. Demanding validation out of the Creditor or collection agency is not fluff in any way, shape or form. That's the meat of the whole thing.And it puts them on the run too. There is a whole lot more to this whole process, however, and there are new lessons out there that we haven't even thought of yet. New killer tactics that will help a lot. As I have said before, I belong to a study group of people who study the law in many different areas. Most notable of those are in the area of taxation, IRS and that type of thing, I'm not all that interested in taxes and the IRS, so I'm not out there on the cutting edge of that like some of the people are. I've only been in the tax movement thing since about 1975, so I'm not nearly as familiar as many of them are who have been fighting taxes since long before then. But the tax people are really worth watching because they come up with things that are also common to debtor/creditor issues and can be applied in this area too. Then there are quite a few of us that work with debt and collection and lawsuits. We take people who are having legal problems and go into their cases, study them for court errors, errors in attorney filings, motions, pleadings and what have you. We take a case and we may well spend a month of so just on researching the case, looking over every possible aspect of the case and then go into court and get the case reversed, overturned and then go after the plaintiff for damages. We have done untold numbers of cases and never lost one yet. Of course, what we do is teach the person how to do it on their own and they go in Pro Se. By the time we get them to court, they are pretty knowledgeable to say the least. They have probably spent upwards of 500 to 1000 hours researching their own cases and working on them before they ever hit the the court room door. So there is lots more out there, lots more ways to win, and we probably haven't even begun to get good yet.
This is interesting. I wish I had a business that could add info to D&B reports. Then, when a collection agency comes calling: I could add an account onto their D&B for money they owe me, time and expenses, for dealing with them. Then when they want the info removed from their D&B, I could validate in like manner. Here's a printout of the information you've requested: Original creditor: me Amount owed: 499.00 Date owed: May 2001 Then, once I've "validated" their debt to me, in like manner, the fun could begin. And of course, I would always verify the info back to D&B anytime it was challenged. After all, that's all I have to do for them, right?! Ugh.
Your idea, just like many fine theories sounds good at first glance, but further study reveals the fallacies in the logic very quickly. First of all, you very well can own a business and you very well can become a member of D&B or any of the other credit bureaus. Let's assume that you start a business, and let's say you called it Marie's Iron and Steal. You can register it as a DBA with the Secretary of State where you live. That costs about $25.00 in most states. So now you have a DBA and you then go and join D&B, and the 3 credit bureaus. That would likely cost you somewhere between $500 and $1000. So you need income to pay for that. Well, you already have the source of necessary funds because you iron all day and your hubby steals all night. (hence Marie's Iron and Steal) So the bucks are no problem. And, as you say: I could add an account onto their D&B for money they owe me, time and expenses, for dealing with them. A small detail here would be that you would need to bill them a few times and get them to deny the bill first. You know, refuse to pay. Of course, for an enterprising lady, that should be a small detail. After all, defeats has to go over de fence before details, don't dey??? OH NO!!!! Then when they want the info removed from their D&B, I could validate in like manner. NO! NO! NO! You don't want to sink to their level, now do you?? You want to validate immediately. If you don't, you might get an estoppel. Sheesh! Did I miss something here?? Then, once I've "validated" their debt to me, in like manner, the fun could begin. I thought the fun had already began when you wrote your message!!! Oh Well! (LOL) Have a nice one
