Question on DV and FCRA 30 days

With what you've described above, it is unlikely these accounts will be validated or verified per your disputes.

If they are, come back and we'll talk.

I wouldn't worry about it until then. Sounds as if you took the right measures thus far.

 

You can't. If they own the alleged debt, they can sell it.

 

They can't legally if the debt is disputed in writing within the 30 day validation period. To do so would be continued collection activity. That is not to say that they don't sell them but, authority on the subject has stated it is an FDCPA violation.

 

The FDCPA places no restriction on the buying or selling of debts, merely on how they can be collected upon.

Selling the debt is not a collection activity. It can be sold freely. The market determines it's price based on its quality and collectability.

If it is sold on and the new owner attempts to collect, it is a prohibited collection activity if it is under a FDCPA 30-day DV protection provision legitimately invoked against the previous owner.

 

In a round about way, what I said.

 

Here was the question:

This was your answer:

Your statement is flatly incorrect, no matter what qualifiers you place after it.

The debt can be sold over and over again. No legal authority has ever stated that it cannot be.

What the legal authority has said, however, is that the DV follows the debt. Meaning that a timely DV prohibits subsequent assigns from collection activities until the verification is provided.

This is what the consumer needs to know to understand his rights. If he thinks it can't be sold and acts on that mistaken impression, he is in for the rude awakening.

That is VERY DIFFERENT from a flat-out prohibition of the sale of the debt that you contend.

 

Hey Oracle, who in the hell buys a debt without the intention to collect upon it? No one. So, again, it is a violation insofar as it will apply to the seller when the purchaser acts with the intent to collect. And . . . they will.

So, yea, in a round-about way, you're saying what I already said.

 

Now you're into a very different topic area, the stupidity of the JDB who buys debt that is not collectible under the FDCPA.

Distressed debt sells every day, including those with DVs pending against them.

The issue at hand was the purchase and sale of the debt, not the desirability or even the advisability of either buying or selling. It's a caveat emptor world.

Seems that you missed that -- again.

Your statement is still incorrect, shuck and jive notwithstanding.

 

The point I am making is that the sale of a disputed debt is going to give rise to an FDCPA violation. That is to say, that the purchaser is going to take collection activity and at that point, liability under the FDCPA would attach so it is illegal.

You've stated that the sale of a disputed debt isn't illegal. I've stated that it is continued collection activity.

You're correct insofar as technically the sale isn't a violation without some type of novel argument presented. I thought that there was authority in my favor but, I cannot locate it. I'll concede that perhaps there isn't as to making the sale a violation. However, your opinion is misplaced because, again, a debt purchaser is only go to buy debt with the intent to collect. And, they are going to collect. Any other belief is illogical. Thus, it is going to give rise to a violation.

I understand what you're saying and I agree in part. Practically speaking however, this is going to be an illegal action.

 

Thank you for conceding my point. Your error was in not taking your initial statement one tiny step further. But the lack of that tiny step made a most significant difference.

If you had said, "They can't sell the debt with impunity", you would have been correct. Without, it suggested that the account was barred from being sold at all. Big, big difference.

Would that that be the case. But that is not what the law says, and unfortunately, the FDCPA deals only with how a debt can be collected, not with it's ownership.

From a practical stand point, it does mean that the seller has potential exposure to an FDCPA cause of action. But the onus is on the claimant to prove the connection, and that involves litigation or a threat thereof.

Everything drives back to the business decision. A JDB buys worthless debt because he can make money on it, even if he does have to cough up a couple of grand here and there for FDCPA transgressions. There is nothing that the OP can do to prevent the sale, and his only recourse is proactively to try to pin the consequences back on the seller. Is it really worth the effort? That's the way the legal landscape lies these days.

A law suit might establish that the sale of a DVd debt was illegal, and that could then easily be redrawn as a class action with far ranging implications to the JDB industry. That hasn't happened yet, and I would suspect that the initial suit would be a very difficult one to sustain in court. They other side would certainly have something to say.

Suffice it to say, a debt is an asset that can be sold. The FDCPA does not change that fact, only addresses the possible consequences for that sale for the purchaser if he chooses to act.