Found an AR from Genesis Financial Services on my EQ report this weekend, called this morning and got the contact info. Spoke to someone there and the only info I was able to get was that it was something from '92 and it involved Credit Trends. Besides that, they had NO information. I was calling to find out what sort of account I had w/them that allowed them to do a review. All they knew about me was an old address, my SS#, a date of '92 and Credit Trends - not even a balance! Is that enough to establish permissable purpose? Sounds unlikely to me. They asked me to call back in 7-10 days, since it was being referred to a collection agency. I said "you ARE a collection agency, what are you talking about?" He kept saying "call back in 7-10 days, can't tell you anything else". I assured him I would not call again, I'd be writing them CMRR to demand PP. The other tidbit here is that Credit Trends showed up as an AR back in June '03 and I wrote a letter about their PP in October. The letter was returned undeliverable and no updated address was to be found. So, what's my next move? Since I've already closed on my home, I'm not too worried about a CA on my CR, but I'd like to avoid it if I could. Obviously we're way past SOL here, but I'd like to have as much fun as possible. I have no idea what this debt originally was, but there's a good chance it was included in my Ch7 BK in '01. It's also possible it was not, so I'd like to be prepared either way.
Here's what I'd like to send. - comments? ----------------------------------------------- Genesis Financial 104 E. Bee Line Lane Harker Heights, TX 76548 March 17, 2004 To whom it may concern, I was alarmed to see on a recent Equifax credit report an inquiry posted by your company, Genesis Financial, on March 9, 2004 The type of inquiry is an â??ARâ?, which means an account review. That implies I have some sort of relationship or an open account with your company as of March of 2004, yet I donâ??t recognize your companyâ??s name. So I called Equifax and obtained the address this letter is sent to and a phone number, 888 615.8762, which I called on March 15. I spoke with a Mr. Kennedy who asked me for my social security number and asked me if I still lived at an address that is ten years old. He then informed this was an attempt to collect a debt. I asked about the nature of the debt and hereâ??s the information he had â?? it was from 1992 and it somehow involved Credit Trends, but he couldnâ??t tell me any more. He had no balance, no original creditor, no account number, no history at all save for a ten year old address. Iâ??m not sure who Credit Trends is, but perhaps you can fill in the blanks. I sent them a letter back in October of 2003 asking about their permissible purpose in doing an AR, also on Equifax. That letter was returned undeliverable, no forwarding address. I have enclosed a copy of that letter for your review. So, to review the facts to date, you pulled my credit report on March 9 from Equifax. When I called on March 17 to find out what sort of account I had with you, Mr. Kennedy had no information that would establish I owed money to you or your client. It doesnâ??t take a genius to connect the dots and presume that if you had no basis or permissible purpose for an â??account reviewâ? on March 17 that you probably had no permissible purpose on March 9, just eight days before. The FTC regulations are quite clear about pulling credit reports without permissible purpose. It would be obvious to anyone looking at your inquiry on March 9 and Credit Trendâ??s inquiry on June 16, 2003, that you and/or Credit Trends were involved in a â??fishing expeditionâ? â?? that is, pulling my report without clear and permissible purpose to try to figure out what you could do with an alleged debt that is, by the only fact you were able to report to me on the phone, fourteen years old. There has been some press recently about the lucrative business of scavenging old debt for fractions of a penny on the dollar and hounding people into paying anything to get rid of the collection agency. There are many violations of FTC regulations taking place in that activity and I suspect this recent pull of my credit report is related. I will give you until March 27 to produce clear and valid proof of my alleged debt and your permissible purpose to pull an â??account reviewâ? on my credit report. That would require showing a relationship that was still open between us. I doubt you can provide that evidence, so I will make this one time offer. Send me a check for $500 and I will not file a suit with your registered agent on March 28 for violating the FTC regulations regarding permissible purpose. Since you have admitted a relationship with Credit Trends, I can probably cite you twice and collect $2,000. I think you can see that sending me $500 will be less costly and embarrassing than losing this battle on the facts in court. dans address
