LVNV questions!!!!

If your debt has been passed on to a collection agency or bought, it CAN show up twice...once for the original creditor and once for the collection agency ONLY! This is legal...makes a mess out of one's credit report to sort out, but legal. This is especially common with charge offs, and anyone reading your credit report knows how to connect the dots between the two. What IS illegal is for the same entity to report it twice. For example, on my credit report I had originally defaulted with The Associates. That company was bought out by CitiFinancial. Now, since the company itself was bought out, not just the debt, the debt could only be listed once, but it was listed twice - 1 under The Associates and 1 under CitiFinancial - as the ORIGINAL creditor, and once under the collection agency that bought the debt. In this case, the original creditor was in violation, but in my case all 3 entries fell off my report naturally at the 7-year mark before I ever got it resolved.

Have you requested validation from LVNV yet? They are known for not validating, and can be made to remove it from your credit report. Also, be very careful with them...watch what they are reporting very closely! They are known for not accurately reporting, and are currently in big trouble in Texas for reporting issues and illegal tactics to try to get people to pay up. I personally dealt with them not reporting a debt accurately. I had come to a settlement with them, paid it as promised, and years later found that they still had the account on my credit report as open collections with last activity being a mere month or two from the date I pulled the credit report (i.e., they were trying to re-age, for whatever reason I don't know, because they could not legally get any more money out of me because it was settled and paid). I called them on their violations, and they ended up removing themselves from my credit report all together about 5 months sooner than it was supposed to automatically fall off my report for reaching the 7-year mark. Watch your back with them!!!!

Thanks Subi. I just got a letter from their Atty saying they dismissed our case... never got any letters from them or the collection agency though until now! Now... here's a question for someone....Equifax shows the original debt (Sears) with a last date of activity as Sept 06, no date major del. 1st reported and shows the last date of payment as 8/06 and date closed as 03/07. Now LVNV shows the 1st date of del. as 03/06 and the 1st major del 1st reported as 05/07....seems that something here is overlapping???