Statues in Florida. My account is near to 7 years reporting

Time limit for reporting of a bad debt by the credit bureaus is seven years... the statute of limitation for the filing of a lawsuit varies by state where the debt was incurred. The following URL has some information on state-by-state SOL's and is broken down by the type of debt (oral, contracted, etc.)

Link made inactive as per forum rules-Vikas

Thanx for the reply, however, do the statues of limitation start with the last activity on the account, and does the date change when the debt collectors purchase the account??

SOL starts from the date of last activity seen in the account. If a debt buyer purchases the debt, clock is not restarted. The clock only restarts if you make any payments to the account.

Derogatory notes can stay in your report for 7 yrs. SOL is not the matter here.

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So, if I am not responsible to pay these debts, 1) how do I stop the calls and letters, 2) Once the 7 years is up for the original creditor will both the reporting from collections and the creditor drop off?

Adelgado

Once you are sure that the debt is past the SOL period and you won't be brought under legal pressures, send a cease and desist letter to the company calling you. This is one more legal weapon that can be used to stop such collection calls. Once they have received your letter, they are required to stop contacting you except if you notify them to be contacted by mail only. You have the rights to take legal actions against the company if the law is violated. Check this forum for sample letters of cease and desist letter.

At this point, your credit report should be reporting this account either under your original creditor or the collection agency holding this account. Two agencies cannot report for the same account. If this happens in your CR, place a dispute highlighting this item with the credit bureau. They will correct the details and send you the updated file.

After the debt account is past the 7 years reporting time, all negative information will be removed from your file automatically.

Quick question for anyone who knows.......
I hired a debt elimination company in June 04 and stopped making payments on my credit cards as directed. The company made full-balance payments on my behalf to the collection agencies in March 05...but the checks were returned NSF. The company has since been closed by the Florida AG's office. No further payments have been made to the CA's. When does the SOL begin...with the "good" payment (which was mine in 04)...or the "NSF" payment (which was in 05).

Also, can someone advise where I can take a peek at the actual FL statute that addresses this issue?
Much thanks..........

SOL in Florida for secured debt is 5 years and for unsecured debts, it is 4 years from the date of last activity.

You need to know the date of last activity when the account turned delinquent. This account is within the legal collection period and you need to take immediate steps to repair your credit file.

Contact the collection agency and explain the situation to them. Try to arrange a payment plan with them so that the account gets paid off without too much of financial pressures.

John, thanks for the info.

The last payment for each of my credit cards was made by me in May 04. They have been delinquent since then and were each sold to a CA towards at the end of 04. The debt elimination company I hired, made NSF payments in March 05. Since that time, the original CA's (the ones who received the bad checks) have sold my accounts to new CA's. I have promptly sent DV's to the new CA's...and they have not been able to validate the debts at this time.

Of course, I know I'm buying time...but that's the best I can do. I'm disabled with VERY limited income and gave my money to the debt elimination company thinking it was the right thing to do. That brings me back to my original question...would the FL SOL for credit card debt begin with my last payment...or the debt elimination company's NSF check?

The FL SOL will begin from the date of your last payment.

I am sorry to hear about the debt management company that has taken your hard earned money and are now shut down. Before closing, they should have cleared all the money taken from the consumers like you. Talk to the AG so that some possible arrangements are made for the consumers who dealt with the company.

Thanks. I hate to admit I was taken advantage of...but I'm not alone. The FL AG has about 4,000 (give or take)more customers across the U.S. that were taken by the same debt elimination company. The owner of the company has already admitted his company's program was a scam. They filed a lawsuit in July 05...but it has yet to go to court...so any type of restitution is far, far away. To make matters worse, I had perfect credit when I signed up with this company...I can't say that now.

Thanks again for the help today.

It is your hard earned money that will be given to someone when taking a professional help. So, be sure to do an extensive research before making a deal. Do some researches on the BBB and the FTC as well in the local AG's office.

Usually, all sorts of positive and negative information about a company are recorded with them. So, when you give your money to some company, make sure that you know having a clean slate.

You're not going to believe this...but I did. I checked the BBB site and spoke with them...nothing. I called the local FL AG's office...nothing. There was nothing...good or bad. I did not check with the FTC...but they wouldn't have had any record of this company either. The company started in approx October 03...and since they claimed the program would take 6 months or so to complete...there were no complaints on file anywhere when I joined in June 04. When progress wasn't being made on the clients files, the company had plenty of legit-sounding excuses...enough to keep the clients in line anyhow. Heck, even now...the FL BBB has only a couple dozen complaints...and there's about 4,000 victims!! Clients were warned not to file complaints, because it would slow the program down...and some clients were threatened with slander/libel lawsuits if complaints were made to the FBI, FTC, AG, etc. It's just a mess...and I'll be glad to have it behind me.