Received a letter concerned fitness membership from an attorney who is acting as some sort of collection agency a month ago. I fired off a letter asking for verification of the debt from the sample letters: http://consumers.creditnet.com/straighttalk/board/showthread.php?s=&pgnum=1&postid=85495#post85495 In it I included the suggestive sample form requesting information to verify the debt and sent that off on October 1st. Here was there responce: Thank you for your recent letter dated _____________. It is my understanding that you would like us to complete a form to verify your debt. You indicate in your letter that this is a requirement of the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act . My firm is always interested in doing things properly and although I reviewed the FDCPA upon receipt of your letter, I was unable to determine what section would require this office to fill out your form. Nor can I find any waiver section under the FDCPA, the Validation of dects secion 1692g. This section does not require this office to supply you with all the information you are requesting. However, I would point out that our original letter contains an Re. line with all the information required by the FDCPA under section 1692g. My office is howevern always willing to verify a debt. Therefore, you will find attached to this letter a copy of the contract you signed, and a statement of account. This is the part that is really galling to me I would further advise you that nothing in this or prior letters has served to toll or stop the collection process in this case. We may proceed with suit against you without waiting the thirty days (30) days. This letter, and all other follow up letters, telephone conversations or communcations of any form between us, are to be considered by you as an attempt to collect a debt and any information obtained during the course of any said communication will be used for that purpose. The provisions of this notice are continuing in nature and shall remain in full force and effect until such time as the full Account Balance is collected Excuse me...but it is my understanding that the moment I say "hey wait a minute...you need to verify this debt" they need to stop and they can not file a suit if I am disputing the debt, or any amount there of. WTF?!? Am I wrong? Am I about to be screwed anyway? The amount of the debt is not a lot of money. It's for the last two months of a membership. The idiots at the club did not process my change of checking account and even when I called them a 2nd time with the information they needed they sent it to collection with this lunatic attorney. What now? What do I do? Offer to settle for two months of payments? If so do I deal with this jerk or with the idiots at the gym? I used the gym like 3 times the entire year...of course they don't care about that. The letter included a copy of my signature on the gym membership fee..which is precisely what I wanted. Question then, what does this sample letter with the form asking the creditor to fill out for me even do? This is round one..and it feels like I lost already.
I guess my biggest question right away is, Can they go forward with a suit even when I've requested verification of the debt? The debt listed in the subject like is NOT considered verification. Verification is proof that I agreed to to the debt to begin with, not because some attorney puts it in their letterhead that I owe them money, right?
Didn't I read somewhere on the board where there was a class action suit against a company who outsourced attorneys to do collection? BTW, the individuals won.
Sorry to say but he provided you with validation, there isn't much you can do at this point but to contact them and negotiate a payment and hope they didn't already put it on your credit report. If they did, then you need to see if they will remove if you pay. Get this in writing. I always like to go with the old "In dispute" type listing that all creditors and debt collectors are required to communicate to the CRA's once they are in notice of your dispute to catch them on a violation. You first mail to the CA a letter of dispute and request for validation, certified and registered. When you get the green card back, you then dispute the account with the CRA. When the CA repsonds to the CRAs request for verification and doesn't tell them you are in dispute, you have nailed the CA on a violation of the FDCPA and FCRA. Even if they validate at this point, this doesn't excuse them for their violation. That is where you use it for leverage to get what you want. You do not want to try and sue a company if you owe them thousands for a debt with only this one violation. They will counter sue and win their money and you will be awared with next to nothing for their violation. Works well on old accounts and account where the amount owed is less then $1000.00, at least for me anyway. Good Luck! Tac
They can always sue and are not required to wait if you request validation. You might want to lay off with legal talk since you are dealing with an attorney...but you could write back and ask him to provided an accounting of each payment made, how it was applied and how they came to the amount they reached. A contract alone does not prove you owe the amount they say you do. L
Tac, I have to disagree. If you sue a company for violations of the FDCPA they CANNOT countersue you for the underlying debt. You can sue them and get the money owed you for their violations without worrying about whether they will countersue because you owe them money and it doesn't matter if you owe one thousand or one million. Also under the FDCPA if they have not yet provided full validation and they are threatening to sue you they are in violation. Under the FDCPA they cannot threaten to take any action that cannot legally be taken or that is not intended to be taken. During validation period they cannot take you to court and if they threaten to do so this is a violation because this is a action that cannot be legally taken because during the validation period they cannot take any action that can be construed as collection activity. Certainly sueing you for this debt would be considered collection activity.
Robin, They can't crossfile but, they may certainly file there own lawsuit. There is nothing in the FDCPA that prohibits a creditor from suing you at any time. What you may be thinking about is states may well have different laws concerning "right to cure " and there may well be a specific state staute that prohits a lawsuit against someone without going to mediation or giving some formal notice. But, to say they can't sue during validation is just wrong. If you feel they are continuing collection activity you may raise that with the judge or, file your own complaint but, you can't stop a lawsuit.
yes they can sue I was under the impression that if I dispute any or all of the debt, they can do nothing until that debt is proven to me?
Mind you, what the hell do I know, but I would think that if you say they can't sue you until the debt is proven to you---what's to keep you from EVER saying the debt was proven. Really, I'm just thinking out loud, so when I say you, I don't necessarily mean you specifically. But, if that were the premise of the argument, couldn't you just continue to say that you are not convinced, just to stall legal action?? Just curious!!
Tracy raises a good point. To sue anyone all you have to do is meet minimum evenditary standards. In your case, a signed contrct and a account statement is plenty. Whyspers and Tac gave you good advice. Quit trying to play legal games with a lawyer. If they choose to sue they'll likely win and stick a judgment on your credit report. See if you can settle this thing.
I fully agree. I wanted to 1. delay this long enough to try an negotiate a settlement and 2. I've recieved mail from this slimeball on another matter and he really pisses me off. I don't agree that I owe the entire amount as I made documented effort to resolve the problem with the Fitness company and it went ignored. (giving them my new checking account info) They messed up, and were then bought out by another fitness firm and so they just sent my account to this jerk I'll pay, but why make it easy for him? Should I: 1. Contact the present fitness company and offer to pay the last two months of my agreement with their standard late penalty fee 2. Sent an offer to settle letter for less than the amount asked by the attorney with a check for my proposed amount.
Re: Verification - not a nice respo The one point you have, that no one seems to have addressed, is you TRIED to pay it before collection, if I read your post correctly? The gym didn't process the change of checking account? If you have proof of that - then at least you might have some bargaining power with the attorney to delete upon payment? Mommy
