WA - Can a collection agency charge interest of their fees?
Date: Sat, 08/01/2009 - 14:43
Two questions:
Can a collection company charge interest of their own fees?
Can a collection company charge fees on fees?
I'm not sure if that is terribly clear as my searching capabilities seem to be lacking today for some reason.
I have a debt in collection, part of said debt was a judgment, part of it was not. The judgment stated how much would be charged for collection costs - does that then become part of the principle then allowing the collection company to charge more fees of it?
Also does the collection costs act as part of the principle in the amount of interest?
A judgement...
should have included the total amount due. After a judgement has been made, a collection company can not arbitrarily add more fees.
Thank you, that was my thoughts as well. This debt was supposed
Thank you, that was my thoughts as well. This debt was supposed to have been paid off 2 years ago - but they claim I still owe more money. Their 'statement' is a mess and it looks to me that the only way they came up with that amount owing is if they charged fees of the fees.
Also the interest doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. So I'm trying to figure out if they can charge interest of their own fees, or just interest on the principle.
I would simply send them a Letter of Validation via certified ma
I would simply send them a Letter of Validation via certified mail to shut them up.
you need to review the court judgment itself---sometimes the cou
you need to review the court judgment itself---sometimes the court will stipulate that they are allowed to charge you a certain interest rate after the judgment. Check there before you look any further, and if there's nothing there about that, then send the validation letter requesting that they prove the amount as correct.
as thhe guest above stated, check the judgement. It will say whe
as thhe guest above stated, check the judgement. It will say whether or not it allows the accrual of interest (which in Washington state is 12%)
The part of the debt that has the judgment is a Perkins loan, th
The part of the debt that has the judgment is a Perkins loan, the judgment states they can charge me 50% for collection fees and 5% per annum. The rest the collection agency has is 2 other instances that apparently they can charge me 12% per annum on.
I've been researching more and found more information on the other two collections (this was all back in 2001/2002). I did a wage assignment with them for the Perkins loan and a hospital bill. From my research on the laws of wage assignments they were supposed to have added all interest and fees in with the principle and once that amount was paid, it was done and over with.
2 months after the wage assignment was put into effect the college then sent the CA another debt for student housing and a small balance I owed the bookstore. The collection agency never sent me anything about that debt.
The statute of limitations on a debt in WA is 6 years for a written contract. I actually just found out about this debt and it wasn't the CA that told me - I contacted the college. So this is almost 7 years after the college sent the CA this debt. And since according to the law the wage assignment wiped out the other two debts with the CA, I've been paying on the housing debt since Oct 2007.
Is the SOL my friend in this instance? Pretty much the debt happened in January of 2000, the CA was sent the debt in December of 2002, the CA never told me about this debt, I found out from the college just today. I was paying $200 a month on this debt on accident because I thought the CA was correct that I owed interest on the wage assignment (but according to the law that was supposed to be added into the wage assignment - so it looks like the other two debts are paid in full).
I'm thinking I'm in need of a lawyer.