Validation Letters Not Received

Hello,

Back in October I sent out numerous validation letters to payday loan companies that included cease and desist requests only be made in writing. My question is, what if you never receive validation of the debt from the company or anything in writing.

Is there a good way to handle them? Do they have to send you a debt validation letter or not? I don't know what to do with these companies that haven't verified the debt.

Thanks everyone....

Payday loan companies are not legally obligated to respond to your debt validation requests as it applies to debt collection agencies only. However, in a better way, you have to request for an itemized statement that shows the complete details of your account with them. After requesting the details on a specified date and not getting the information, facts prove that you were concerned to pay the debt and requested for the details, but the company has never sent you anything. For proving your facts, have your copies of the statement request and the certified receipts in hand. This covers your basis strongly.

In a validation letter, you ask the collection agency to give you the details of that account for which the creditors might have hired them. They need to prove that they are the ones making legitimate collection attempts on you. But, you can use the same approach to a payday loan company. They are the original lenders and they don't need to prove anything like the CA because they have your accounts. But yes, they have your account and must give you an itemized statement on your request.

They also don't have to abide by the cease and desist because they are the original creditor.

Actually creditors can only contact your place of employement to verify employment that is it. If you ask them to stop calling you at work, they must abide by that, including the original creditor. They cannot harass you at work.

It is blatantly obvious that you copied the content of the above letter from another source. Why would you send a letter you copied? We in the collection industry laugh at it. The letters you send do not contain any useful information about the account you are complaining or asking about. Your copied letter also contain threats. We never use "threats" as a means of communication. My agency does not take kindly to threats of any kind, especially, ones that are nothing but phoney, fake, and have no merit. Why do you keep sending the same letter??? Your letter also contains the following inaccurate statement "required 30 days to validate a debt". There is no such time limitation in any federal law. I also suggest that you consult with legal counsel insofar as your letter contains many inaccuracies of both state and federal laws. No matter how many copied letters you send, the bottom is, once a debt is not disputed with the original creditor. It gets sold, then, resold and never goes away. So rather than not paying before the account goes into a charge off status. Hiding for a couple of years and resurfacing when you want to do something with your credit and think that you could send an unoriginal form letter. Resolve the issue with the original creditor because wants its on your credit report as delinquent and in our office......... well, you know the rest.

settleup....what is your purpose on this forum? I don't think anyone really cares about your opinion that is doing people absolutely no good.

Interesting, I thought that selling and re-aging of an already aged account was illegal? If it has passed it's 7 or 10 year limit then that is it? It cannot be sold to another company for collection and entered as a new account. It may be new to the collection agency but it is not a NEW ACCOUNT. The original SOL and length of time on the consumer's credit report is to stay at the original date. So SETTLEUP I think you need to get over it and realize that even though these original debts may be valid there are laws which we all must abide by ---that includes you and your company. And actually I question your actual job description. Even accursed collection agencies know that the term is 30 days to verify the validity or a debt which they have reported on a Consmer's Credit Report. It says it everywhere including on the Credit Agencies websites. Perhaps you should be going back to school to brush up on your information? Or maybe find another line of work which doesn't involve interacting with the human race.....like cesspool cleaner or bedpan washer?

Settle up, this is not an essay contest in which participants are scored based on originality! Does it matter if the letter was original or copied? Most lawyers use a standard form letter (i.e Copy of another letter) for such communication. They do not compose an original letter for every communication. These are lgeal situations. It does not matter where the wording came from as long as it covers all legal bases.

The "30 Days to validate" comes from the standard discaimers added to almost all collection notices which reads:

I would refer you to USC Title VIII Debt Collection Practices Act Sec 809 As amended by Public Law 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009 (Sept. 30, 1996)

You are right in one thing, that the fdcpa doe not place a thirty day time limit on the collection agencies time to respond, but it does state that the collection agency must Cease collection attempts until they can produce the requested information and or documentation. At this stage of the game most Collection Agencies refer the accounts to another Agency and move on , rather than send them back to their client and ask them to provide the required information so that the debt can be collected legally. They cannot just drop it , then try to collect a fwew months later without producing the requested validation. Under the FDCPA and FCRA it is not the consumer who is responsible for proving a debt is not valid, it is the creditor and collection agency who arer respobsible for proving a debt is valid.

The 30 days to respond is some what implied (though not legally defined) by the numerous 30 day time limits established to dispute the validity of the debt, as well as by the
30 Period in which a CRA has to validate a disputed account under the FCRA.

THe FTC's Fair Debt Collection Practices Act Home Page can be found at
http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpa/fdcpact.htm

This came straight from the website of the office of the Texas Attorney General regarding disputing a debt:

If You Disagree

If you dispute an item in the file a debt collector has on you, you should give the debt collector written notice. The debt collector must provide you with the necessary forms for the written notice, and must help you fill out the forms if you request it. The debt collector has 30 days after receiving your written request to determine whether or not the disputed item is correct. If it is incorrect, it must be corrected. The debt collector must notify anyone who has already received a report containing the incorrect item. If, at the end of 30 days, the debt collector has not been able to determine whether the item is correct or not, he or she must make the change you requested and notify anyone who received a report containing the incorrect item. If it is later determined that the item was correct after all, you must be notified and collection efforts may be continued.

I am sure the laws are the same in each state...so maybe settleup should check his/her local attorney general's office. Here is the link I got this from: oag.state.tx.us/AG_Publications/txts/debt.shtml

Settle up

I guess you are also aware of the straight facts about debt collection. You must have got your license after undergoing training in the fdcpa laws. If you are trying to mislead people intentionally, you are increasing their problems largely. Most of the people are trying to pay their debts having many questions in their minds. And most of us who know the facts are trying to help them in their payments with better suggestions. Please refrain from giving incorrect information.

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/02/badcreditbgone.htm

Settleup...please explain your last thread...you titled it "the beginning of the end of your validation form letters" then gave us a quote and a link to an article about deceptive companies. That article NEVER ONCE mentioned the debt validation letter. That is not what these deceptive companies use to get stuff off your credit for the most part. That article had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with validation letters...I read the whole article...if I missed it, please highlight for me. The article is informative though, it explains what information you need to be aware of before using one of these companies. Thanks.

TMD,

The companies the article refer to use the same form letters as you. Although, you are right, they never mentioned it in the article. Additionally, it is quite laughable the lengths consumers would go to have accurate information deleted from their credit profile without paying it.

Some may have even paid these companies a few hundred $$ to have an account that was < than $100. removed.

Anyway, I am glad you liked the article.

Settle Up,

Not all of us are looking to have things taken off which are accurate. I just pulled my 3 in 1 credit report and found numerous inaccuarcies including 1 bill which is listed under 3 different collection agencies AND one with no name! They also all have different amounts listed. Plus I have 4 others which are being reported as being opened in the last year and they were actually opened almost 7 years ago and are due to fall off my report. These, you must admit, are unfair and very deterimental to my credit report. I have worked hard for five years to clear up what I owed and have continued to pay accounts on time to rectify previous mistakes which I MADE AND accept responsibility for. When I lost my job in November (after also dealing with the hurricanes here in Florida - I am in West Palm Beach) almost all of my accounts slammed me on my credit report even though I had contacted them to make arrangements and was only late with one payment. So please, while I understand your point, do not blanket all of us as people looking to deny responsibility and rip off their creditors. Thanks!

Settleup...maybe you could serve a better purpose on the forum by giving positive, helpful advise to those of us who want to pay our debts, but cannot pay all at once. I have talked to a couple of CA's and they refuse payment plans of any kind...they want all the money up front, which I would LOVE to give them just to get rid of them, and to improve my credit. But, unfortunately we ran into trouble, and hence got into this debt mess, which we will be able to completely clean up in June...but for now, I need to make payment arrangements with people. Obviously you are a debt collector, so how do you work with people on this?

I'm in favor of having Settleup and other folks with similar viewpoints spouting off. It lets you know where they're coming from, and I find that valuable information even if the factual or legal statements are not. Settleup does make a good point, although in a somewhat abrasive tone, that there is no time limit within which a debt collector must respond to the demand for verification.

In my experience, most debt collectors simply are not set up to deal with demand for verification letters. So they pass the debt around to one after another, and the purported debtor has to send each of them a new demand for verification. I think they play that shell game in order to confuse the consumer on the assumption that sooner or later, one of them will send the consumer a demand for payment that will go ignored because he'll think he's already sent the demand for verification letter to them.

The lesson is to keep track of everything that happens with debt collectors in writing. That way you'll have a log of what you did when so you can keep yourself straight, as well as the ability to "refresh your recollection" if you need to when you file suit against the debt collector.

Each and every violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act is good for up to $1,000 in statutory damages as well as reimbursement of costs, legal fees, and interest on the total at the judgment rate. If you tell them in writing not to contact you anymore, each subsequent contact is a violation. If you demand verification of the debt and they continue to try to collect without providing the information, each and every attempt to collect is a new and different violation. Keep track. They may easily end up owing you more than they say you owe them.

As to the sample form letter, I just posted one similar to that which I regularly use in the "Bureau of Collection Recovery" discussion area (I'm generally writing as an attorney for the purported debtor, so the language has been modified to suit a person who's writing on his own behalf). I don't claim any copyright, use it as you see fit.