When Is Validation Considered Hearsay?

Yes you can and you can file a countersuit for violation of the fdcpa for collecting on a debt without properly validating. You at that point should have an attorney. Judges are attorneys and will very often have no patience for a inexperienced layman trying to defend himself against a lawyer and side immediately with the lawyer on the assumption that he knows and you don't and wants to move on. This is not always the case but it is not worth taking a chance of getting a judgement against you.

Let me add to the above. If it is pretrial litigation then you can bring your certified letter with you and probably will get a lower counter offer. At that time you can accept it or roll the dice and say no. Then you may go to court or receive another offer. It costs money for a company to go to court and they will usually look at the bottom line and their chance of winning..

hiya--

validation is only considered hearsay when it is not proper validation to begin with.

IF they dont answer your DV, but still provide the actual documentation in court, that doesnt make it hearsay. It does, however, still mean that they violated the fdcpa. Hearsay is basically "I heard so-and so say ____". The way for a validation attempt to be hearsay is when an "affidavit" is used as validation. I love when CA's actually use one of these--it is also only hearsay if you object to its use. Just like the SOL, if you dont speak up, the court will allow it. If they provided the actual documentation, then hearsay is not your defense--ignoring a DV is. Under FDCPA, they cannot sue you if they received your DV request and ignored it. The law states that NO collection activity can take place until they have responded to your DV letter appropriately. If this happened to me, if I were served a summons from a CA that ignored my documented DV requests, I would answer the summons by denying all the statements of the plaintiff, and then add this as my affirmative defense:

"Defendant has repeatedly requested validation of this debt from plaintiff, in writing, in accordance with Section 809 of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Defendant hereby produces receipts for these certified letters, signed for by plaintiff, hereto referenced as Exhibit "A". Defendane also provides copies of the validation request letters, hereto referenced as Exhibit "B". Plaintiff refused to provide validation of this debt, but continued to undertake collection efforts against defendant in this matter. Such action is a clear violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

Defendant thus makes motion for dismissal on the grounds that this suit was unlawfully brought by plaintiff."

Letters demanding validation, etc. are necessary because many CAs operate on an a priori assumption; ie., that no proof is needed, you simply "owe the debt". I've seen a couple of the affidavits mentioned, where the affiant lies, saying theat he/she has knowledge of all details of the debt... If that were true, they could easily answer a letter of validation.

Thank you all! These responses are AWESOME!! It is also refreshing to see and clearly understand the actual distinction between my concerns about DV letters and actual violation of fdcpa by the Plaintiff. I consider this very valuable information that I believe many people overlook or forget that the collectors attorney REMAINS in violation if he/she received the DV and ignored it, regardless of what is brought to court.

DV is definitely the most efficient way to deal with the pestering debt collectors who just try to haunt you and scare you. They dont want to hear your explanations, your problems..they simply say "you owe us money". I can not understand why they can not validate the debt, if they are really authorized to collect it( thats wat they claim)

Under most state and federal rules of evidence,any document in where a person testifies as first hand knowledge and in really they only have second hand knowledge is recognized as hearsay statements. A collector must have evidence from the original creditor to properly validate a debt. His toilet paper affidavits don't work and can be attacked very easily if you immediately go on record with your objections.

I have a question about D.V. and hearsay. Last Thursday I just found out a collection agency bought my debt from HSBC. Over the years of owing HSBC money, I have moved a few times and never received a letter from the new collection agency. I must of used my father as a reference and received a phone call at his house. If I send in a D.V. letter, are they to stop all collections for 30 days until I receive a response back. They have bought this account 2 months ago but I never had any type of communications with them until last week. I am disputing the debt because my credit report from HSBC says one amount but yet this collection agency is inflating it by 4 times the amount reported.

Ryan simply insert a statement regarding the phone call and that you are assuming this is first contact per fdcpa. Send your dv letter certified return receipt mail.