DV Letter never answered....
Date: Sat, 01/03/2009 - 06:37
Please guide me in my next direction and do I need to send another letter and to who do I send it to and where can I get a copy of the letter I need to send????
Debt validation letters
The first thing you appear to be missing is the fact that there is nothing in the law that requires them to respond to your demand for validation. EVER! The only requirement is that if your debt validation letter was timely they must cease all collection activity until they have complied by getting the required information from the creditor and forwarded it to you. So, in theory at least you might not ever hear from them again.
That does happen sometimes albeit somewhat rarely.
There is also no requirement that the CRAs have to take it off simply because they did not respond to your demand for validation. Debt collectors are regulated under FDCPA and Credit reporting agencies are regulated under FCRA and they are two entirely different bodies of law. I don't give advice about credit repair because I'm not a credit repair organization. In any case, my personal opinion (for whatever that is worth) is that credit repair is a waste of time and effort.
I say that because while it is entirely possible to use the techniques found on this and other forums or to use a CRO such as Lexington Law Firm or any of the myriads of other CROs and get your credit totally repaired and in pristine shape, it all goes to pot when you get sued. Get sued and all the hard work and money spent goes down the tubes.
Credit repair may be the easiest way to get your score up. No doubt about that but the way to get it done is to use both FCRA and FDCPA to make the debt collector take it off for you.
You do that by giving them a choice. Either take it off or face a federal judge and jury. None of them want to do that if you have a careful record of their violations and can prove your allegations. They will want to settle and that happens when you get to the Rule 26(f) meetings in federal court. That is where the settlement discussions take place and since you are the plaintiff they must either go along with most of your demands or go to trial where they are sure to lose. The settlement agreement is drawn up between the parties and supervised by the court for 60 days to assure that all terms and conditions are complied with.
You not only demand that they remove any derogatory stuff from your credit reports but pay your court costs, your attorney fees, vacate any judgments they might have placed against you, forget about ever collecting a crying dime and pay you for your damages. Now that is the real way to repair your credit and get paid for doing it.
It may not be nearly so easy as writing a few letters but it sure is far more effective. You can also sue the credit bureaus and win as well.
FCRA is far more effective than FDCPA is. Let me illustrate. Let us say that Scumbag collection agency re aged your debt. They started doing it a year ago and did it on all 3 credit bureaus. Each violation is $1,000 times the 3 bureaus times the 12 months. That's $36,000 in damages. You get paid and get your credit cleaned up too. Michael M. of New Mexico currently has a lawsuit against the credit bureaus for $240,000. He has won 7 cases against debt collectors and credit bureaus over the years. He has never lost a case. He has also filed a case against a lawn sprinkler company and a dish network company and both settled quickly. His case against the dish network company was for $52.00 and they ended up paying his court costs, filing fees and other expenses to the tune of about $180 simply because they failed to return a deposit they owed him.
The lawn sprinkler company settled for just over $3,000.
That's the real way to get your credit repaired.
I am going to address this because it isnt the only mistake that
I am going to address this because it isnt the only mistake that 'ceo' and 'creditwrench', who happen to be the same person, have made. he said:
Quote:
The first thing you appear to be missing is the fact that there is nothing in the law that requires them to respond to your demand for validation. EVER! The only requirement is that if your debt validation letter was timely they must cease all collection activity until they have complied by getting the required information from the creditor and forwarded it to you. So, in theory at least you might not ever hear from them again. |
There is at least one state, Texas, that provides 30 days from date of receipt for a debt collector to provide you with the validation you asked for. if they cannot do so within that 30 days, then they MUST stop trying to collect on the debt completely, including reporting on your credit bureaus.
Also...
Quote:
There is also no requirement that the CRAs have to take it off simply because they did not respond to your demand for validation. debt collectors are regulated under fdcpa and Credit reporting agencies are regulated under FCRA and they are two entirely different bodies of law. |
This is only partly true, as debt collectors who report to your credit bureaus are "furnishers of information" according to the FCRA, and are therefore bound by that law as well, as it relates to the accuracy, content, length of time they can report, etc etc etc. The FDCPA governs debt collection law, but it is not true that the FCRA doesnt govern the debt collectors. It does just that, but only as far as their actions on your credit report. And while it is true that the credit bureaus are under no obligation to automatically remove an entry if that creditor doesnt validate, there ARE specific requirements set forth in the law for disputed accounts, and what both the credit bureau and the creditor must do when you dispute the debt.
if you sent off a timely certified DV request--within the first 30 days since the debt collector first contacted you about the debt, and the debt collector has not answered, you can file a dispute with the credit bureaus. if they have not yet validated to you, yet they verify the debt as accurate on your credit report, you now have them in violation of section 809 of the FDCPA. This also has FCRA implications as well, because a furnisher of information is held accountable for the accuracy of wht they report. if they continue to report unsubstantiated information on your report and refuse to provide you with validation, then you may have a case for FCRA violations, and you definitely have a case for FDCPA violations.