I have another TL on which the SOL just ran out less than 30 days ago. This one is fairly large ($9500) credit card debt that somehow slipped through the cracks. I do have some other negatives on my credit report, but they're all either paid or small (under $200). All of the negatives are at least 2.5 years old, so I'm going to try to negotiate a pay-for-delete on them. My biggest question is with this big one. Since the SOL just ran out, and this particular institution is one of the ones that recently went under, there's a better-than-average chance that the CRAs won't be able to validate. The debt is currently being held by a law firm who is licensed (and admitted in the bar) in my state. They're currently still chewing on a DV I sent them (CMRR) a long time ago. I'd like to start looking into ramping my score back up, and I'm wondering: My credit report shows that this account went 30 days in March. In reality, the last payment on this account was posted in January several years ago, meaning it went 30 days in Feb. I'm concerned that they might still try to file a lawsuit this month, claiming that they're within the SOL according to my credit report. Is it worth risking waking a possibly-sleeping dog to dispute it and correct my credit report? The way I see it, it's past the SOL (by a few days), so there's no harm. Just wanted to check with the more experienced crowd first.
If the CC debt was still held by the bank at the time that it went under, the debt was acquired by the financial institution that took it over under receivership. If this is the case, you cannot count on their inability to validate. If this debt has been sold-on, then there may be a different expectation. Does the law firm "own" the debt, or are they acting on behalf of the real owner. The SOL having expired for collection of the debt is a plus for you. Don't mistake the SOL for collections for the SOL for reporting, though. SOL for reporting is 7 years from charge-off and charge-off is required 180 days after first delinquency which was never cleared. Drop-off on the credit report is 7 years plus 6 months.
I don't want to name names, since you never know what CAs are keeping a lurking eye on these here forums. But the OC was purchased by another institution, who themselves recently went under and were purchased by someone else. No, I'm not banking on them not validating, but I'd say my odds are better than zero. The lawyer is representing the collection agency holding the alleged debt; the lawyer does not own the debt himself. As for reporting SOL vs court SOL, I'm clear on the difference. This is strictly the court SOL. One thing I did not yet get a clear answer on is whether the court SOL ends three years (in my state) to the DAY after the first missed payment (assuming no further payments were made), or if it's "three years plus six months" or something like that.
SOL for collection purposes runs from the date of the last payment, generally, not the date of charge-off
The question is not only whether the SOL has expired on the debt but whether or not you can prove the date you made your last payment to the original creditor and how you paid it. If it goes to court the judge may very well demand that you prove when you made your last payment. Your credit reports can help prove that but having payment receipts or check stubs, canceled checks that agree with the documented dates also help. If you have a credit report saying your last payment was made on some specific time and you have a canceled check, money order stub, receipt from the store or whatever showing the same month then you have proof of last payment. If not you may have trouble proving the point. If you don't have the documentation to prove your point then you would have to hope you can prove it through proper use of your discovery tools or that the plaintiff may make some statements proving the date of last activity in their pleadings. If you have none of the above your SOL defense might not work. You said that you sent them a DV letter and they have not responded. When did you send them the DV? If it has been more than 30 days since they received your DV letter what have you done since then to prod them? Debt collectors should not be allowed to go more than 30 days at a time without prodding in most cases. Granted that debt collectors have no obligation whatever to respond to your DV under FDCPA but there is also no requirement that the debtor must live forever under the fear that he may be sued at any time. Although the infamous estoppel letter is nothing more or less than legal garbage and has absolutely no legal basis for its existence it can be used as a followup after 30 days has passed with no response from the debt collector. Even though it is nonsense, legally speaking, it does have it's record of success in getting debt collectors to give up the chase voluntarily. While it may do no good, it can't do any harm either. If no response is received within 30 days after they get it then another very different type of letter should be used to prod them yet again. Of course, each letter should contain your full name, address and correct phone number in the hopes that they might violate by calling you or making demand for payment without having complied with your DV letter. Since you are looking to generate violations you should also be prodding them with your credit repair tactics at the same time. Did they mark the account as disputed? Have they reported or continued to report after they received your DV letter? Have they made any illegal inquiries on your credit reports? Are their reports inaccurate in any way? Have they illegally attempted to re-age the debt? If they have done anything illegal you might want to finish up your letter writing campaign with a properly prepared intent to sue document (not a letter), a properly prepared waiver of service of summons and a copy of your already to file federal lawsuit which you will actually file in the event they fail to respond to your intent to sue. Your last letter to them prior to actually filing your federal case will be quite large and will have to be sent in a large brown clasp envelope. It will need to have your intent to sue document, waiver of service of summons, a self addressed stamped envelope, copy of your federal court cover sheet, copy of your proposed federal case alleging at least two causes of action, table of authorities and memorandum of law. The reason I think all of the above should be sent to them is because if you send a letter which simply says you are going to sue them they will ignore it just as they did all the rest but if you have all the rest properly prepared and included then only a fool would ignore it. If you don't know how to properly prepare all the things I have mentioned above then you might want to get busy and learn how to do them all because if you don't then you won't know how to defend if you do get sued and you won't know how to file a federal case against them which is most likely the only way you will ever beat the debt collector and avoid getting a judgment against you. Winning against debt collectors isn't as easy as just sending out a debt validation letter and sitting back hoping for the best. I do hope you haven't messed up by signing whatever they served you with but only time will tell about that.
Excellent post, cap1sucks. Thanks for all the info. To answer the points you raised: They've been very thorough in not violating the FDCPA. All of their correspondence has contained the required "This is an attempt to collect a debt, you have 30 days to dispute this, etc" language. They have properly marked the debt as "Disputed by consumer" on all 3 reports (still marked as such, has been for almost a year). At worst -- and this is questionable at best -- their first letter came from Joe Schmoe at Schmoe & Smith, and the second letter came from Joe Schmoe at Smith, Schmoe, and Johnson (not real names, obviously), and the second letter did not contain the "30 days" language. I have bank statements and cc statements from the period in question showing my final payment, followed by two months' worth of statements showing no payment. My CR shows I went 30 days late in March, when in reality I went 30 days in Feb. So aside from that discrepancy, the CR matches my documentation. The DV was sent almost a year ago. They responded (several months later) with cc statements, but the balance was way, way off (several thousand dollars, about 40% of the amount of the alleged debt). I responded by saying they have provided no documentation that even comes close to the amount in question, and thus have not validated the debt. Haven't heard from them since. And yes, thanks to lurking here for a very long time, every letter I send in relation to my credit is CMRR. Regarding the legal tactics you mentioned, I may pursue them. The problem is that they've been very well-behaved thus far. Either way, I wanted to make sure I'm in the clear for my 3-year SOL first. If my paperwork got buried on someone's desk and/or forgotten, I wasn't about to give anyone a reason to go digging for it. The whole "let sleeping dogs lie" axiom is sometimes pretty good advice. And finally, I haven't signed anything. Even my letters were unsigned. I haven't been served or anything even resembling service. I've been through enough court proceedings to know how to ensure that I'm being legitimately served. In a related note, it might be time to clean up the sticky posts and/or FAQ. Some of that stuff is quite old; some of the must-read posts are from 2001. And some of the information is just bad (I personally think the "example letters" either need to be simplified or removed).
Thanks. That seems to be what everything I've read says, and I've found a few opinions from my state's higher courts that seem to agree. But I have yet to find anything that actually says "The statute commences on the first day on which the payment was due." The closest I can find is "...commences on the first day on which the matter becomes actionable", which seems to say "the first day on which the account becomes past due". I did find one case (in my state) where a CA argued that the SOL was tolled when they made phone contact with the consumer about the debt. The alleged debtor (as defendant) won, the CA appealed, and the higher court upheld. At issue was not whether or not the consumer admitted liability for the debt (which neither party claimed), but whether or not the simple act of making contact tolled the statute. I would never think it would, and apparently my state agrees. I think my SOL defense is now rock-solid, I just wish I could find some absolute clarity within my state's legal system in case the CA feels like being obnoxious. If he does sue and argues that the SOL begins 6 months after the first missed payment, I have very little to cite in arguing against that, and the wording of our law seems reciprocal.
Sounds to me like they validated the debt well enough to comply with validation requirements under FDCPA. May not be good enough for court room purposes but it would probably be good enough for validation requirements. Yes, indeed it is. That really won't make much difference at this point I would vote for the latter rather than the former.
Unsigned letters carry no credibility whatever. A letter such as you suggest gets no violations and getting violations is the only useful purpose a DV letter has to a debtor. No violation, no cigar. Account number? Why would you include an account number? Like to type? Like the feel of your fingers bouncing merrily around the keyboard or do you just like the clacking of the keys as you type? Use your copier/printer and staple a copy of their letter to your letter. If it gets torn off, too bad. That's their problem. And what are you going to use for an encore when you get no response, send another equally unproductive DV letter? Or will you just go back to where you got the letter and complain that it didn't work and ask what you should do next? Or maybe you plan to send off an equally ineffective estoppel letter and when that don't work either go back to where you got that and complain that neither letter worked and beg everybody to tell you what to do next? Just suppose that you do follow this last suggestion, send off the DV and the estoppel then go back to where you got them, be it here or some other board what do you imagine you will get back as responses? What advice do you think they will have when the first two failed? Please understand that my questions are not for the purpose of being silly, harsh or degrading to any person or any message board. It is a real problem one will see on most message boards at one time or another and usually multiple times. In fact, I'm willing to bet that if I had the time to do enough searching I could come up with many examples of that happening right here on this board. So what is the answer to that age old problem?
they don't care Sometimes the problem is the person who open's the letter just don't care what it says so it's updated.It depends on what that person want's to do that day,screw you or save you.Remember thay don't give a crap how your credit is.
No, I disagree. I'm aware of no language in the FDCPA that claims the letter must be signed. And in addition to gathering violations, the DV has the benefit of stopping or slowing down collection. In my case, it appears to have pushed collection efforts past the expiration of the SOL, which changes the circumstances considerably. As far as an encore, nothing. Remember that the CA is under no obligation to do anything other than halt collection efforts after the DV is received within the 30-day window. If they halt collections and fail to validate, so what? I'm not about to "helpfully" remind them by sending them a second (or third) letter. The whole "CA must remove from the CR if they can't validate within 30 days" is another myth that needs to be seriously killed off. Maybe my account fell to the bottom of someone's pile. Maybe someone made a mistake keying my data into their collection management software. Frankly, if they fail to collect, the "why" is irrelevant. And if they don't forget -- if they DO remember and they DO validate the debt -- then sending a second letter is wasteful anyway. Now, there are those who subscribe to the whole "trolling" mentality. Dangle your personal information in front of the CA and hope they make a mistake by calling you after receiving the DV but before validation. Then the consumer would go to federal court and file a lawsuit. If this is your cup of tea, then great -- more power to you. Personally, I think it's a bit too risky for most people in most circumstances. I subscribe to the "let sleeping dogs lie" mentality. Having lurked here and elsewhere for many years, I think the best approach is to keep accurate records (including CMRR), send the minimum amount of paperwork to trigger and/or protect your legal rights, and stay as far below the radar as possible. Odds are great that a CA won't forget a debtor, especially as most records are computerized. But then again, why do anything to help them remember?
I think you have underestimated the scope of the problem. It is not only that they don't give a crap how your credit is but rather that the Holier than thou types who work as debt collectors are almost universally of the opinion that the debtor deserves every lick they get and more. Quite by accident I've met a few of them over the years and I have yet to meet one who didn't think that the people they contact are somehow sub-human and deadbeats who deliberately go about running up debts they have no intention of paying. People who think so little of their fellow man are the ones who deserve whatever punishment that can be handed out to them. Quite frankly I think that our lawsuits should be directed at the employees instead of at their employers. And yes, that can be done. Sue them as John and Jane Does with an AKA of whatever name they used when they called you. Then subpoena the employer to make them reveal who the targeted defendant(s) really are. The way it is done now the law firm or the debt collection firm are the ones who get sued but I tend to think that it would be very difficult for the firm to defend the employee because doing so would expose them to a lawsuit as well.
Oh no i understand them very well i have worked around them.I've dealt with them,be blunt their a slug among slugs,there the people you hated in high school.And really hate now.
I take some degree of satisfaction knowing that said slugs are the same slugs who rejected my 50% settlement offer many years ago (an additional year past the SOL, prior to the last payment). They were snotty towards me while I was trying to make a reasonable and amiable effort to resolve things -- without even requiring them to provide documentation, which I have since discovered to be very shoddy at best -- and now they have nothing.
...and many (most?) have credit that is even more screwed up than that of the so-called deadbeats they are dunning. Show them no mercy.
