I know that if you send a letter to a CA, asking for validation and that you dispute this debt, they have to update the CRAs with that notation. How long do they have? My attorney is gone for the weekend, and I'm just setting my gameplan for the week. Thanks. Before anyone sends it, I know they don't HAVE to validate. I'm looking for the violation of not informing the CRA's of the dispute... Thanks.
For a CA... You don't want them to update it to show as disputed. Not doing so is ONLY an 623(a) violation under the FCRA, which in its own is not actionable by the consumer. It would be an FDCPA violation for reporting, or threatening to report false credit information, 807(8), but why settle for one $1,000.00 FDCPA violations, when you can get $1,000.00 violations of both the FDCPA and FCRA. http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra/harris.htm The Harris Opinion says that they have a duty to inform any CRAs which they may have previously reported information to, which needs to be updated, regardless of whether they have a relationship with that CRA currently, and that the CRA *MUST* accept that update from them. http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra/harvey.htm However, the Harvey opinion adds an interesting wrinkle to this issue. "The statute is silent on the matter of the furnisher ceasing to report information while it is investigating the dispute. It is thus the opinion of the Commission staff that a furnisher that temporarily ceases to report disputed information while it investigates the matter, and then either (1) corrects the information if its investigation results in agreement with the consumer or (2) reports the item as disputed by the consumer where that is the result of the investigation, would comply with Section 623(a)." The question is how temporary is temporary, if the CA claims that it is investigating the matter for months, or years, then technically they could say that they have "temporarily ceased reporting the account while we investigate the matter." Under the FCBA, an investigation has a time frame, established by law of up to approx 90 days (2 complete billing cycles - if they receive the dispute the day after your billing cycle, that would add an additional approx 29 days for the incomplete billing cycle). But the FDCPA doesn't have a set time-frame, technically they could claim that they're investigating the account for almost the entire portion of the 7 year reporting period that they have the account, and try to argue that they've only temporarily ceased reporting to comply with the law. This is why you don't want to hang your hat on ONLY the 623(a) and 807(8) violations alone, you want to get the most violations possible so that they can not argue that they have just temporarily ceased reporting the account pending the investigation. You want to dispute through the CRA as soon as you know that the CA has received the dispute, because then if they haven't validated the account within the 30 day time limit, and they verify with the CRA, then they are breaking 809(b), 807(8) - if they don't report it as disputed, and 623(b), which IS actionable by the consumer.
