I recently received a response to a letter and don't know where this lady is coming from? Here is a copy of the letter: Dear Sir, This correspondence shall confirm receipt of your certified boilerplate letter of dispute, dated September 18, 2004 and mailed on September 20, 2004, by JJ Mac Intyre Co, Inc. on September 22, 2004. Your letter contains the following statements: Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 United States Code 1692g, section 809 subparagraph b states: Mpower Communications placed your above-referenced upaid deliquent account with our agency for collection on September 1, 2000 for services rendered and upaid since July 7, 2000. Your September 18, 2004 request for validation is not timely! The Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not require JJ Mac Intyre, or any other collection agency, to respond to untimely requests for validation. Your August 13, 2004 request for validation, received on August 17, 2004, was not timely! The Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not require JJ Mac Intyre, or any other collection agency, to respond to untimely requests for validation. However, on September 10, 2004 as a courtesy to you we sent you an itemization of charges substantiating the underlying debt assigned to this agency for collection. The itemization provided constitutes validation as required by the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Validation of a debt involves nothing more than the debt collector confirming in writing that the debt being demanded is what the creditor is claiming is owed. The debtor collector is not required to keep or provide detailed evidence of the alleged debt. Chaudry v. Gallerizzo 174 F.3d 394 (4th Cir. 1997) You have failed to provide any factual information substantiating your claim that JJ Mac Intyre has violated any of your rights! The Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not require JJ Mac Intyre, or any other collection agency, to respond to untimely requests for validation. The Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not require JJ Mac Intyre, or any other collection agency, to respond to validate a debt more than once. Your failure to properly substantiate your claim leads me to conclude that your claim is without merit. If you believe you have a legitimate claim, provide a detailed written explanation of the alleged accompanied by any supporting documentation you have to substantiate your claim. You have failed to provide any factual information substantiating your claim that JJ Mac Intyre has violated any provision of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Your failure to properly substantiate your claim leads me to conclude that your claim is without merit. If you believe you have a legitimate claim, provide a detailed written explanation of the alleged accompanied by any supporting documentation you have to substantiate your claim. Your September 18, 2004 request for validation of this debt is not timely! The Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not require JJ Mac Intyre, or any other collection agency, to respond to untimely requests for validation. In response to your untimely August 13, 2004 request for validation, we sent you an itemization of charges constituting validation as required by the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act does not require JJ Mac Intyre, or any other collection agency, to validate a debt more than once. Credit reporting agencies require collection agencies to report factual information; to report anything less undermines the value of the credit reporting. Credit reporting agencies prohibit collection agencies from deleting paid collection accounts. Credit reporting agencies require collection agencies to report collection accounts as paid-collection accounts when the account is paid. JJ Mac Intyre has reported that Mpower Communcations has placed your above-referenced upaid delinquent account with our agency for collection, and that JJ Mac Intyre is attemting to collect it. The is a factual statement. In addition, every account reported to the credit reporting agencies by JJ Mac Intyre is reported as a disputed collection account. It is our opinion that every account placed with our agency for collection is disputed, if only as to when payment will be made. JJ Mac Intyre is properly reporting your above-referenced unpaid collection account to the credit reporting agencies, and will continue to do so for the full statutory period allowed by law. JJ Mac Intyre will comply with your request to Cease and Desist; you will receive no further telephone calls or written communication for this agency. However, this is a disputed account and it will continue to be reported to the credit reporting agencies as disputed collection account unless and until you provide documentation upon which we are able to conclude that you do not owe the account, or until you pay the account. If you choose to pay the account, it will be reported as a paid-collection account. For the reasons set forth, your dispute is without merit and there will be no resolution based on this dispute.
What did you request in your letter, and are they reporting the TL on your CR as "disputed", as they claim?
The FDCPA does not limit the consumer to dispute, or requesting validation only within 30 days of the first notification. It says that if you do not dispute within 30 days, they may assume that the debt is valid, but that no court can consider a consumer's failure to dispute within 30 days as an admission of liability. Some CAs are taking the position that if the consumer misses this window, they don't have to do anything. In reality, they don't have to do anything, but if they don't they cannot continue to collect. It is interesting that they claim your request is not timely, based on a date in 2000, yet they don't even claim to have sent you any communication in 2000 that would have established that window, even by their twisted logic, only that the account was place with them then. This lapse in defending their legal position may imply they don't know if they communicated with you or someone else about the debt in 2000, which if they didn't, even their own argument of not timely collapses. Did the first communication you received from them contain the legally required notice of your rights to dispute? Essentially they are saying both that they sent you "validation" recently, (therefore complying with the law), yet that they don't have to send you anything else, since they didn't have to send you even that. You are supposed to accept that as adequate, and they don't have to keep any other records but what is in their system, nor do they have to request anything from the OC. They are covering their a**es by claiming they have posted the TL as disputed. What state is this in, and has the SOL run? What may not be timely is the debt may be past the SOL, they know it, they don't want to disclose that to you since they there is no way you will pay, and they don't want to spend any additional effort other than leaving a collection TL on your report. When was the initial communication from the CA, and did it contain the disclosure below? �§ 809. Validation of debts [15 USC 1692g] (a) Within five days after the initial communication with a consumer in connection with the collection of any debt, a debt collector shall, unless the following information is contained in the initial communication or the consumer has paid the debt, send the consumer a written notice containing -- (1) the amount of the debt; (2) the name of the creditor to whom the debt is owed; (3) a statement that unless the consumer, within thirty days after receipt of the notice, disputes the validity of the debt, or any portion thereof, the debt will be assumed to be valid by the debt collector; (4) a statement that if the consumer notifies the debt collector in writing within the thirty-day period that the debt, or any portion thereof, is disputed, the debt collector will obtain verification of the debt or a copy of a judgment against the consumer and a copy of such verification or judgment will be mailed to the consumer by the debt collector; and (5) a statement that, upon the consumer's written request within the thirty-day period, the debt collector will provide the consumer with the name and address of the original creditor, if different from the current creditor. (b) If the consumer notifies the debt collector in writing within the thirty-day period described in subsection (a) that the debt, or any portion thereof, is disputed, or that the consumer requests the name and address of the original creditor, the debt collector shall cease collection of the debt, or any disputed portion thereof, until the debt collector obtains verification of the debt or any copy of a judgment, or the name and address of the original creditor, and a copy of such verification or judgment, or name and address of the original creditor, is mailed to the consumer by the debt collector. (c) The failure of a consumer to dispute the validity of a debt under this section may not be construed by any court as an admission of liability by the consumer.
Validation of a debt involves nothing more than the debt collector confirming in writing that the debt being demanded is what the creditor is claiming is owed. The debtor collector is not required to keep or provide detailed evidence of the alleged debt. Chaudry v. Gallerizzo 174 F.3d 394 (4th Cir. 1997) I believe this has been discussed before and is faulty logic as the case does not deal with that issue. Do some lookups here and at ArtofCredit for those discussions. I'd write back, disputing that, and demanding again detailed accounting and that if they refuse to provide that information, then to just kiss your you know what.
From past CN, Chaudhry vs. Gallerizzo: "In the present case, Gallerizzo, after receiving assurances from NationsBank that the sums were owed, verified the debt amounts in his January 18th letter to Plaintiffs' counsel and forwarded a copy of the bank's computerized summary of the Chaudhrys' loan transactions. The summary included a running account of the debt amount, a description of every transaction, and the date on which the transaction occurred. " The "validation" provided by Gallerizzo included an accounting of the calculation of the amount due, and was obtained and forwarded from the original creditor. It was NOT just a printout from a CA's computer system. This CA claims they don't even have any obligation to provide the validation or verification provided by Gallerizzo in the case they cited.
The request for validation is not "untimely" if the CA is still "collecting", by maintaining a CA TL on the CR, and verifying when investigated by the CRA. Have you disputed with the CRA?
What was the origin of the debt? Did you do business with mPower? Did they breach any contract terms, fail to terminate your account when requested? Was this a consumer account or a business account?
Question about current VoD... Is it best to dispute an item on your credit report prior to submitting a VoD to the CA? Kinda making the CRA flag the account as being in dispute when you request the VoD from the CA... so the CA can't just update the account on your Credit report?... If that made any sense...
Here is a copy of the VOD I sent: --------> To Whom It May Concern: You continue to report to the credit bureaus claiming that I owe your company for a debt to Mpower Communications Corporation. I have never had an account with Mpower and believe you to be reporting this information incorrectly. According to the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, I have a right to have the alleged debt validated. I have to date, received no proof that I owe your company a debt and am requesting that you forward all proper documentation to me proving this alleged debt. As per the FDCPA, it is a violation for any debt collector to pursue collection activity on an account without notifying the debtor in writing within 5 days after any communication. Additionally I am allowed 30 days to dispute the validity of the debt. If you are unable to provide me with proper proof then you must stop attempting to collect this alleged debt. If you continue to claim I owe a debt that you cannot confirm then you will be in direct violation of the FDCPA. Additionally, any attempt on your part to report this alleged debt to my credit reports will be a violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Please forward your documentation to me upon receipt of this certified letter. Please note that proper documentation is not a print out or bill from you but rather actual proof of the debt's existence. Please provide me with the following: What the money you say I owe is for; Explain and show me how you calculated what you say I owe; Provide me with copies of any papers that show I agreed to pay what you say I owe; Provide a verification or copy of any judgment if applicable; Identify the original creditor; Prove the statute of Limitations has not expired on this account; Show me that you are licensed to collect in my state; Provide me with your license numbers and Registered Agent. ---------> Yes the account is labeled "disputed." Nevada, no I believe it has not. Not sure when, at the time was throwing all collection letters away to not deal with it. The funny thing is, this is really not my debt. I have never had service with Mpower or any affiliates. This truly is not my debt and I if I could just get them to produce an agreement or contract they would see the error. I have disputed with all three, exp and trans deleted and equi came back and said the debt was verified. Never have done business with Mpower. Not my account, I wish I could prove this somehow. Thanks,
I also think he has a case, but I also think that this is a reason to keep the initial validation letter short and sweet and not start citing law right away. The CA now knows that you know something about the law, and by mentioning "boilerplate" probably knows it came from this or a similar board. Next time, just write something, in your own words, that says something like "I've just become aware that you are reporting this debt" or "I just received a letter from you for the first time." Then say you don't know anything about it and that you're asking for proof that it's your debt and that the amount is correct. You can escalate from there.
I second Hedwig... It's one of the reasons I don't post my complete letter, maybe a sentence or paragraph here or there, but after the CA receives the same letter more than a few times (unless its from the same consumer) they smell a form letter. My letter is a little bit more legalistic than Hedwig suggested, but its still my own, and I when possible make it undisputable that it is not a boilerplate letter, by customizing it as much as possible.
