Ok so I sent this validation letter out over a month ago certified mail which was received over a month ago by the collection agency. They still have not sent me validation of the debt. I paid this debt to Southwestern bell, the original creditor shortly before I sent the letter out. ANyhow, now it does not say collection agency unpaid, but they actually updated it to a paid status! Anyone have any suggestions for letters to them. First I never paid them a dime, second they did not respond to me even after 30 days. So I still have nothing for verification. MistyEyed
This is an interesting situation. If the debt was in collection and you paid the original creditor in full, then how would the CA have any rights in the matter? I would think that they have none due to the fact that the creditor was paid in full(even though they had assigned the debt to a collector. Since you have no contractual obligation to pay the debt to the ca, they are reporting fraudelent infromation in my eyes. The creditor has in a sense given up their rights, yet they have accepted your moneys, this is "Accord and Satisfaction". This is interesting indeed. Anyone else?
It was actually kinda funny. I hadn't received anything from Southwestern bell but when I called them to ask why this account was sent to a collection agency and I had not received anything she said, well you can just pay the colection agency or if you like, I can give you our address and just send us a check. They never reported on my credit reports and still dont. So I just sent in the payment, it was like around $100 nothing severe. I made sure they cashed the check before I even wrote the letter. I used the validation letter everyone keeps posting around here but instead of removing it or sending me verification they update it as paid. MistyEyed
I think that you are in an excellent position. If they accepted your payment and then you recieved a collection notice form a collector and you asked for validation, you are well on your way to getting the collectors mark removed from your report. Get your cancelled check, block the routing number and the name of the institution(so they cant pull anything shady)and send a copy of the check to the collection agency. Tell them that this matter was resolved by the creditor and you. The creditor accepted your payment even thought they assigned it to someone else. This means that you have fullfilled any agreement with the creditor and it voids any recourse on the collectors part, due to their ability to prove that they are part of the agreement between you and the creditor. I would tell them to remove it immediately or suffer the consequences of legal action.
By the way they think that they have no reason to respond to your validation. I would send a second letter asking them for validation and I would refer to their inability to respond to the first letter. I would them tell them that I was going to give them 30 days to respond and I would tell them that you are going to report them to the FTC and attorney general. You might want to call the utilities commision and tell them that you paid them in full and that a collection agency under assignment form the creditor is reporting false and misleading information, and you have paid the telephone co within the terms of your agreement.
Sorry to say, but I have to disagree with just about all of the advice you have been given by others. I really hate to do that, but I see little alternative. First of all, you did a rather wise thing in paying off the original creditor instead of the collection agency. But you did a rather unwise thing in paying them at all unless you needed their services. Now then, collection agencies usually add on other sums of money on top of what the original creditor demanded. Another fact is that quite often, when this type of situation is encountered with utilities involved, the collection agency is nothing more than another office of the creditor. If this were not true, the collection agency and the utility would have signed agreements that the utility would not under any conditions accept any payments from the debtor. That protects the CA and insures that they will collect their share of the settlement. But if the utility owns the CA, then those conditions do not apply because it is actually them collecting their own debts under the guise of a collection agency. When you paid the utility, the CA was cut out and if any fees were due the CA, the utility would then have to pay them. But the CA could and probably claim that you still owed them. You state that you have already paid the bill and that you have already sent out the validation letter to the CA. Do not send any more validation letters under any circumstances. Instead, you should follow the instructions I I have just posted on another thread here which currently shows up at or near the top of the list of messages entitled "Is Junum feeling alright?" Use the instructions I have posted starting after the sending of "deerie" dealing with the estoppel letter. Take it from there. Best of luck to you
Bill I would tend to agree with you. But what if the collection is assigned outside and the utility cashed the check. He has an agreement with the utility only. Any deviation from that agreement on their part is breech of contract if they accepted his payment. Their needs have been satisfied. Now if the collector is indeed an inside agency used strictly for this utilities collections then I would proceed with something similiar to what you are stating. I guess it would all depend on wether the debt was assigned or not.
Oh, by the way the billing dept of most utility companies are not real savvy to the facts of wether the money is owed to the collector or the utility. They just process payments as they come in and dont think to much about anything else. There acceptance of the payment is all the proof you need that the purposed debt has been satisfied. Did you send a letter for terms of payment with your final payment to the creditor?
In the case of the utility whose services you might be trying to restore, you don't care about anything but the quickest whay to restore service so long as the bill is paid If they have a contract with some outside CA and they accept ept the payment from you and restore service, you could care less. A paid in full receipt is a paid in full receipt. If you don't want their services anymore, what's the difference.. Let the CA howl all they want. They'd better bring a picnic basket.
yes I did pay them, not because I needed their service but because I am trying to buy a house and the bank says collection agencies are a no no. Its not for service at all, they arent even in my area anymore. However, I paid the original creditor not the collection agency who is now claiming that I did pay them. Also, I do know that this collection agency is not part of Southwestern Bell. And the amount the collection agency sent me to pay was the exact same amount Southwestern Bell billed me at. No I did not send them a receipt with my first letter, I just asked for validation and that was it. I think with this second letter I will include a a copy of my check and tell them it has been paid in full and if they dont get outta my life, Im gonna get sue happy MistyEyed
Do you really think you will have any luck trying to sue them for reporting what they believe to be the truth and can prove that what they say is true? What grounds would you sue them on? I'd sure like to learn about that
Maybe yes. If they could prove that I owe them the money then shouldn't they provide that to me? If they report that I paid their collection account, wouldn't that be considered incorrect information going to the CRA's when I never paid them anything? Misty Eyed
Yes, invalid information should be removed from your CRA history with little problem. One or two things will likely happen. You demand it comes off, they verify and it comes back verified, wrong again. They verify and find it inaccurate and it comes off, but most likely before long it will pop back up again, maybe corrected, maybe not. These are the kinds of frustrations that happen when one attacks the credit bureaus without getting rid of the collection agency itself first. I used to be just like most other folks and went off attacking the credit bureaus. Then just a few days ago, I got to thinking about the whole thing and it dawned on me that there is very probably little use in attacking the credit bureaus and doing little or nothing about the source of the report. As an illustration of what I am talking about is IF a reporter saw someone commit a murder and reported it, would they execute the reporter? That's just about equivalent to what we do when we attack the credit bureaus and don't go after the collection agencies or the creditor. Once the creditor/CA is brought to their knees and begging for mercy, you can usually work a deal with them because they don't want to get sued any more than you want to sue them. The deal I shoot for is for them to forget about the collection and immediately remove any and all references to the debt in all the credit bureaus. It just takes a little ingeniuty to get the job done. Someday I'll actually have to go sue one of them, but that's not all that hard to do either. Courts are usually set up so that you just go down and pay a fee and they give you a standard form to fill out in which you tell your story in plain english and file it with the court and the circus is on. Some places have that easy form, and I'm sure some places don't. We do here in Oklahoma, so it don't take a genius to file on them if those ez forms are available. I'm sure that it might be conceiveable that in the event you lost they might come back and try to hit you with a suit for filing a frivolous lawsuit on them, but I seriously doubt that would happen. What's more likely is that they will try to settle out of court rather than go try to defend. Hope that helps.
<<<If they could prove that I owe them the money then shouldn't they provide that to me? If they report that I paid their collection account, wouldn't that be considered incorrect information going to the CRA's when I never paid them anything?>>> I am not sure that you would really have a case for filing suit. Other than to try to get them to settle and remove the entry just to avoid the hassle. That's just my opinion, though. If they bought the debt then you DID owe THEM the money. That occured before you paid the debt off. That's why most original creditors will make you deal with the CA. You did pay the original creditor BUT.... If they had an agreement with Southwest, they may have had to send a partial payment to them to satisfy their contract. HOWEVER, they are reporting it correctly by changing the entry to PAID collection. It doesn't say who you paid...it just says paid. You did pay their collection account.... in a round about way. It's all a technicality really. Who knows what their agreement with Southwest is for handling debts. But, would you have paid if you hadn't seen the entry or gotten a bill from the collection agency? Probably not, since the original creditor never sent a bill. So to be technical again.....the collection agency did their job in getting the bill paid in full. After they bought the account. I'm not saying it doesn't SUCK. It does. But in my opinion, it's all been reported correctly, SNEAKY, but correctly. Just my $ .25 cents worth
<<<If they could prove that I owe them the money then shouldn't they provide that to me? Yes, that's exactly right ******************* If they report that I paid their collection account, wouldn't that be considered incorrect information going to the CRA's when I never paid them anything?>>> Sure would, but that would not necessarily be strong enough grounds upon which to either threaten to sue or to sue Or at least I can't imagine it would be *********************** I am not sure that you would really have a case for filing suit. I don't think you would either. *********************************** Other than to try to get them to settle and remove the entry just to avoid the hassle. That's just my opinion, though. Got to have a winning issue before you can even think about threatening to sue, let alone sue. *************************** If they bought the debt then you DID owe THEM the money. That has nothing to do with it, in reality. Not from the way I go at it. ********************** That occured before you paid the debt off. That's why most original creditors will make you deal with the CA. You did pay the original creditor BUT.... If they had an agreement with Southwest, they may have had to send a partial payment to them to satisfy their contract. In your particular case, that sounds like their problem, not yours. *********************** HOWEVER, they are reporting it correctly by changing the entry to PAID collection. It doesn't say who you paid...it just says paid. You did pay their collection account.... in a round about way. It's all a technicality really. Who knows what their agreement with Southwest is for handling debts. But, would you have paid if you hadn't seen the entry or gotten a bill from the collection agency? Probably not, since the original creditor never sent a bill. So to be technical again.....the collection agency did their job in getting the bill paid in full. After they bought the account. ************************* I'm not saying it doesn't SUCK. It does. But in my opinion, it's all been reported correctly, SNEAKY, but correctly. You are likely going to go at it sort of backwards. The first thing is to go study your FDCPA laws real good. Take each one and look at each section and see if you can figure out how to make them break that particular section of the law. Play "what if" games with yourself. How might you be able to demand something from them which the law says they must do within a certan time period. Then create a letter which alludes to that law in some way and make them obey that law and when they fail to do so within the given time frame then they broke the law. That's exactly what those validation letters are all about. But all the ones on the net I have seen so far are far too long and full of BS that is off the wall and out to lunch. They get off into things that the creditor/ca does not have to answer and makes the sender look foolish. But even so, they can and do work. The creditor/ca will usually break the law some way or another and that's when you jump on them with both feet. If you want to do it right and keep from getting into the position of ever having to go to court, you have to think of it as a type of psycological warfare. You can do it if you are expert enough with words and the crafting of letters that go right to the point and stay on the point. When it comes down to the end and you actually have them believing that you really are going to sue them, then they start looking really seriously at what the costs of defense are likely to be plus what the penalties might if they actually did lose and they start adding up the numbers real quick. If you get it down to that point and then offer them a cheap and wasy way out, you will quite often get your way. Doing credit repair the right way is not some magic mumbo jumbo deal. Spamming the credit bureaus to death until they finally delete is plain dumb. It does work surprisingly well, and will usually get about 40% of the stuff off even in the first round or so, but much of it sometimes comes back to hit you again You can never be absolutely certain it's gone when all you do is to spam them to death.
First of all, you really shouldnt attack the credit bureaus in this matter. That should only be used as a last ditch effort. The fact that you paid the original creditor is all that you need. I have brought up this arguement before and it can be used in your situation also. I would send the Ca a letter stating that you have never been a customer of their company and that they are providing false and misleading information to the credit bureau. In your letter I would also state the name of the collectors bonding agent (just to let them know that you are serious) as one of the parties that a lawsuit will be filed against if this situation is not remedied. I would also tell the creditor that your records show that you have paid them in full. Call the utilities commision of your state and let them know that you had been in good standing with this company. Tell them that they have assigned the debt to a third party that is damaging your credit files and violating your rights. I would pull up a copy of that check and make sure who cashed it. I am certain that it was THE CREDITOR but just in case. There was no "consideration" therefore How could you have paid them. Since you have never been a customer of theirs they must provide proof that you were or remove the information. It can be done because I have done it myself.
