I am just begining the credit repair process. There are some items on my report that are completely erroneous, and some that are valid which will be taken care of in a diferent fashon. I am about to send validation letters to a few collection agencies. My questions are: Who is to decide what validates a charge? What is a sufficient validation of a charge? I have a feeling that every time I contest a charge through the credit beurau they will just accept the collection agencies word.
Hey ontrack: Remember posting this in another thread earlier today "If your goal is to get an erroneous item off your reports, and the options in an on-line dispute limit your ability to clearly indicate the problem, or fail to provide a way to send documentation of the error, and therefore affect the likelyhood that the dispute will effectively result in the removal of the erroneous information, then what good is it to fail to obtain a correction, but at on-line speed?" Why would you mock me? You seem to be a big help to a lot of people on this site. I think my question is valid and could help others besides myself.
I just realized you could be trying to ask me what it is on my credit report that is erroneous, if that is the case it really doesn't matter. I'm really just wondering what constitutes a valid charge?
Not mocking. Just very direct and blunt. I typically look at these types of problems as a tree with branches representing the (known or unknown) facts or available choices. My questions, therefore, are often aimed at clarifying unknowns, to simplify the tree and see the actual situation. Otherwise, every problem becomes an overgrown tree in serious need of pruning. In my post that you quoted, all I am suggesting is that to make your decision on how to dispute, you want to look past just what is easiest, to what is either most effective or what will position you for your next step should this dispute fail. The most effective technique from your perspective is the one that works. It is to the CRA's advantage to funnel disputes thru the on-line mechanism, and then restrict them to only their offered choices, to save costs. In doing so, they make errors in failing to correct, but they don't score those errors as their own failures, since they "responded" to the dispute, even if it didn't fix the error. As a result, that does not always make it to your best advantage to choose that route. Really just standard mini-max game theory. What are my choices, what are their responding choices, and after you go to conclusion, what is the likely payoff. As in chess, think thru the first move, not necessarily all the way to the end game, but at least a few rounds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimax
A valid charge is one you agreed to, where the other party met their obligations under your agreement, so you have an obligation to pay them for it. Everything else is error, fraud, misidentification, id theft, or whatever. It is just a matter of how to most effectively approach getting it corrected. You look at your strongest case first, since that usually sets what the outcome may be if you push it to conclusion against stubborn opposition. In addition, you don't want to undermine that path and outcome by positions you may have taken for expediency's sake, which could result in the defendent claiming your "damages" are really your own fault. As taken from a recent example, why waste energy arguing SOL, when it is really id theft, not even your account, and a police report and fraud affidavit will make the CRAs remove under law, regardless of the SOB CA, and leave you with strong legal options should they fail to do so? Similarly, once you have passed the basic disputes and have a strong case, with proveable violations and damages, why handle it yourself, when you could pass it off to a competent attorney who could add his fees to the award, do the work he is best at, and create a stronger incentive for the defendent to settle? You are just working for the defendent for free. They don't deserve it. What would "prove" a charge is valid to a court, is another matter. "I just realized you could be trying to ask me what it is on my credit report that is erroneous, if that is the case it really doesn't matter. " Usually when you are dealing with getting errors off your reports, the details DO matter. Small errors provide little legal or moral leverage, while large errors provide the potential for real damages, lawsuits to recover compensation, and therefore much more leverage. But if you take the position that "I don't want any money, I just want this off my reports", you may be setting yourself up to get neither.
I think you may have misunderstood the question I know there are many factors involved in each specific case. But I was looking for more of a general answer regardeing to what type of proof the CA's are required to offer as proof that the debt exists. I was searching and found an article that had a pretty good answer. I hope this helps anybody else who may be interested. "What constitutes validation? This is a question for the ages. The simple answer is that there IS no answer. There has never been any caselaw stating exactly what IS validation, only what it ISN’T. In a case often quoted, Chaudry V. Gallerizo, collectors claim it states that validation of a debt consists merely of an itemization of the account. In this scenario, a collector will receive a validation letter from you, and refer to this case with something like: Dear X, I have enclosed an affidavit of debt for the verification of debt you requested for the above account. The court case of Chaudhry v. Gallerizzo, 174 F. 3d 974 (4th Cir. 1999) states this is sufficient for account verification: “verification of a debt involves nothing more than the debt collector confirming in writing that the amount being demanded is what the creditor is claiming is owed; the debt collector is not required to keep detailed files of the debt.” Please contact Customer Service at [telephone number] if you have any questions. This is an attempt to collect a debt. Any information obtained will be used for that purpose. One thing that the collector fails to mention is that Chaudry specifically requested an itemization of the attorney fees. The collector provided that, and Chaudry then stated that the itemization he was given wasn’t sufficient. The collector argued that if further itemization was provided, it may reveal privileged information. The courts ruled in the collector's favor. The courts also ruled that since it was “responsive to the consumer’s request” that it WAS sufficient. Further, Chaudry also requested for itemization of FUTURE attorneys fees. As you can see, Chaudry isn’t as cut and dried as the collector might want you to believe. Also implied in this decision is the concept that if the collector actually answers all the requests of the consumer, that it could be considered validation. As for the general term “validation”, it could most easily be defined as competent evidence that a disinterested third party would reasonably see as proof that the amount, status, and nature of the debt is accurate, that the collector is the legal person to pay the debt to, and that the consumer is the correct party that should pay it."
I think you are looking at the crux of the problem. There is no such thing as what a CA is "required" to provide, until the case ends up in court, since only a court could decide that what they provided was not adequate in any meaningful binding manner. As you have also found, "Chaudhry" is not the wonderful case limiting what need be provided as validation that the debt collectors make it out to be. In that case, the attorneys did in fact provide what you would normally call validation of the debt, and what was being disputed was whether additional validation was required by FDCPA for attorneys fees that the attorneys claimed might be due, some of which had not even been incurred yet. The statement used by debt collectors, that: “verification of a debt involves nothing more than the debt collector confirming in writing that the amount being demanded is what the creditor is claiming is owed; the debt collector is not required to keep detailed files of the debt.” is taken out of context, and is not even what was actually provided to Chaudhry. If this were all that was required, it would render much of the wording of that FDCPA section meaningless and redundant, as the debt collector will generally already have provided to the consumer what the DEBT COLLECTOR thought was owed at the time of the original dunning letter being referred to in this section of the FDCPA. This is also inconsistent with the FTC position, expressed in some of their opinion letters, that validation must be obtained FROM THE ORIGINAL CREDITOR and then sent to the consumer, which would require more than just a parrotting back of their own records, which could be outdated, not obtained directly from the original creditor, or otherwise of unknown accuracy. In fact, the above quote is actually consistent with the FTC position, if you realize that, in requiring: "the debt collector confirming in writing that the amount being demanded is what the creditor is claiming is owed" the court is implying that the debt collector must have proceeded to contact the creditor to confirm this amount before forwarding that confirmation to the consumer. How else could the debt collector know what the creditor is claiming is owed, particularly when they are not expected or required to keep detailed records of the debt? This wording also is specific to this case, where the attorneys are actually directly representing the creditor, and it makes sense to determine the amount of the debt by what the creditor is claiming IS OWED [currently] by directly contacting them, without the other issues raised by repeated resale of debt among debt collectors where documentation of payments made along the way, and documentation of sale and transfer of the remaining debt, would be necessary to determine what was actually due, and to whom it was due. Yet, this court's statement above is none-the-less often used by buyers of such debt as some sort of justification for failing or refusing to provide material validation beyond their own say-so. What you are probably more concerned with, is whether the debt collector is required to provide specific documentation of the debt. Of course, the consumer is free to accept any lesser proof of the debt they are satisfied with, and the debt collectors make use of this to intimidate consumers into not requesting validation, or to confuse consumers by providing bogus validation, such as their own "affidavits" sent with so-called "Chaudhry" letters, which since they did not even perform any check with the original creditor, are a deceptive attempt to defeat the consumer's right to dispute and request validation.
Stewart, Ontrack makes good sense here. Perhaps you are overwhelmed, and understandably so. There are some great notes on what constitutes validation under the stickies in this website. Try information for newbies, etc. I can tell you that true validation would consist of your signature authorizing the charges at minimum (and lots more). Look over Butch's postings on Validation under the stickies. This section should help you greatly. Also be mindful to Statue of Limitation. Again, searchable on this site. Best of luck. KEEP POSTING!!!!!! This board is great.
