Time run out on Validation request?

Is this a debt that was already paid or settled, or one that was not yours?

 

Since this is not your debt, you want to force the issue to a final conclusion, or you will be dealing with it all over again everytime a CA sells it to another.

 

Disute with the CRAs showing the listing, CRRR. This will require the CA to verify their listing to keep it on your CR. If the CA does not respond with validation but keeps the TL on your report, sent a follow up letter, CRRR. Also file a complaint with your state's AG.

Since this is for an account that is not yours, make your request for validation specific, include in your request that this is not your account, you dispute it in its entirety, and request specifically:
When the account was opened, when it went delinquent and the balance at that time, the name of the person opening the account, the address given when the account was opened, identifying information given when the account was opened, etc. If this appears to be ID theft, you may need to go down that path, filing a police report, and demanding full information from the OC on the account.

You may need to build a case that the CA, OC, and past CAs have been negligent in reporting, resulting in damage to you, or have acted in bad faith by not cooperating with investigation of an identity theft.

Also, start proving damages. You may need to talk to a loan officer at your bank on what effect a lower FICO score has on your credit terms, a mortgage broker if you might have been able to refinance, or perhaps apply for a CC and get turned down. One of your existing CC companies might notify you that your interest rate is being raised. Request an adverse action notice, and pull the credit report they say they used. Get your credit reports by mail, not just on-line. Get FICO scores to show the effect of the damaging credit line.

 

Note that your goal is not to just get this CA to give up and sell the account to another CA. You want this debt to stop damaging you, forever, and if a CA ducks their responsibilities, they deserve to be beat over the head anyway, whether they continue to try to collect or not.

 

If after you notify a CA the account is not yours and request the information on the account, they instead sell to another CA who also tries to collect from you, the first CA is more morally culpable than the second, but since the law is vague, you have to hit them with whatever violations they actually make.

 

When you disputed with a CA, did they ever either send you the information on the account, or send you in writing anything acknowledging that the account was not yours? Did you dispute with a CRA, and have the CRA remove a CA TL as a result of that dispute?

If not, you have made no permanent progress.

 

I missed this. Hi Nub.

Hope all is well.

 

In response to your letters, did the past CAs respond by deleting their TLs, and did they send you a letter saying that they were deleting your TL? Did they acknowledge in writing receiving your notification that this debt was invalid and being disputed?

Did the current CA buy this debt from a CA who you notified, and who wrote you they would delete?

 

Instead of a notification of the current CA that the debt is bogus, frame your request to them directly as a dispute of the debt and request for specific validation of the debt, or removal of their erroneous tradeline. Include in your validation request that your previous letter provided notification that you disputed this debt in its entirety, yet they were continuing to collect without validating the debt, contrary to FDCPA. Note that you had also disputed this debt with the CA who sold it to them, who failed to verify that this debt was yours.

Request appropriate identification aimed at showing that this account is not yours or is fraudulent, such as the name, address, phone number, date, and identifying information (SSN, DOB), provided when the account was opened, the date the account went delinquent, the balance at delinquency, the billing address to which the statement showing the last payment was sent, and its date, and copies of statements.

Discrepancies in identifying information, or addresses at which you never lived might point to id theft, and might provide clues to the party behind it.

If the account is not yours, you may need to file an identity theft report with your local police, and use that to force the CA, or the OC, to turn over their records to assist you in determining the extent of theft, and removing tradelines for fraudulent accounts from your CR.

You want to force not just the TL removal with a sale to another CA, but a determination that the debt is not yours, whether due to fraud or other error. If they fail to provide any information in reponse to your dispute, file a complaint with your state AG.

 

You want to give them no ambiguity or wiggle room to claim that you did not dispute clearly or request timely validation, so they should not have assumed the debt was valid and continued to collect.

You also want to show that this CA, and the previous CAs, have not only continued to collect, but have knowingly bought, sold, or tried to collect on a debt that they should have known was fraudulent or otherwise tainted, resulting in additional damages to you. By acting in bad faith, they undermine their likely defense that this was a bone fide error for which they should not be liable.

(Pawnbroker: "Officer, it is our policy to uphold the law by not holding stolen property for sale. We unload it as quickly as we find out it's stolen.")

Since this has gone through several CAs already, you may want to consult an attorney. You may need to substantiate that this is creating actual financial damage to you by trying to open a credit account, or by receiving notice from an existing creditor that your credit limit is being reduced or your interest rate increased due to changes in your credit report.

 

If they suddenly sell it, without providing any information to you, demand to know who they sold it to, whether the buyer was provided copies of your dispute letters and notified that the debt was in dispute, and demand that they remove their TL, and either provide the permissible purpose under which they have pulled your report, along with all documentation substantiating that purpose, or that they notify the CRA that they had pulled your report in error, and that therefore their inquiry should be cloaked. You may need to proceed against each CA in turn to clean up your CR.