Different CA coming after me after account paid

[Silver1]

Last year a home security company sent my account to a collections agency after a protracted dispute over service. I negotiated a settlement with the collection agent - who, oddly enough was very nice about the whole thing - and he agreed not to report to the bureaus. It hasn't appeared on my credit report to date so it appears he kept to the agreement. He agreed that if I paid the settlement in full (reduced the balance by about 50%) the CA would consider the account settled and paid in full. If I tried to do payments I would not get the reduction so I paid.

I paid, the check cleared, and we went our separate ways; this CA did not report me to the credit bureaus and I never heard from them or the home security company again until last week.

A year after I paid, a brand new collection agency is coming after me for the remainder of the balance!

I have already disputed their collection notice but all I have is the cancelled check from my payment to the first CA. I have the collection agent's first name, and that is all. I should kick myself for not getting the first CA to write me to confirm the balance was paid in full.

Does anyone have advice on what to do now? I just sent a debt validation letter the day before yesterday.

Thank you, and Happy New Year!

silver

[Gryffindor]

Now you know why things must be done in writing.

Since you've sent off the DV have you checked your credit report to see if they've made an entry??? If they have placed an entry, make sure to dispute with the CRA's after you get your green card back from the DV.

Chances are they won't be able to validate.

[QMAX21]

Last year a home security company sent my account to a collections agency after a protracted dispute over service. I negotiated a settlement with the collection agent - who, oddly enough was very nice about the whole thing - and he agreed not to report to the bureaus.

Q-It is good that you had this settlement but did you get this in writing? It is always best to get this agreement in writing.

It hasn't appeared on my credit report to date so it appears he kept to the agreement. He agreed that if I paid the settlement in full (reduced the balance by about 50%) the CA would consider the account settled and paid in full. If I tried to do payments I would not get the reduction so I paid.

I paid, the check cleared, and we went our separate ways; this CA did not report me to the credit bureaus and I never heard from them or the home security company again until last week.

A year after I paid, a brand new collection agency is coming after me for the remainder of the balance!

Q-This is the reason why you have a problem. If you got the original agreement from the agent in writing you could have responded to them with a letter saying something like:

I, the debtor, in agreeing with this contract expect this agreement to be honored totally without any complications. I, the debtor knows that businesses and consumers regularly engage in debt negotiations consistently while reporting a neutral credit reporting for the debtor upon completion of their agreement.

I, the debtor, contacted several law firms and they agreed that this contract should be honored as agreed (provided that you got the terms in writing). They mentioned that if XXXX (Collection Agency) reneges on this settlement along with his/her oral statements, that this would be committing the debtor to a contract under false pretenses pursuant to this agreement. They also mentioned that if such action occured that it would be necessary to report this action to the Better Business Bureau and other Federal regulating agencies.

I am glad to reach this final agreement with XXXX (Collection Agency) I believe that your agency shouldn't have any problems reporting this account as "paid as agreed" (which is what you both agreed) upon receiving payment as well as adhering to your oral statements. Upon receiving final payment we ask that you send a statement noting that the final payment was received and that this account is to be reported as being satisfied, by reporting to the credit bureaus as "paid as agreed". We also require that you don't send any amount outside the negotiated amount settled to any third party agency or debt collector.

Any actions on this account by any other collection agency or third party debt collector constitutes as a violation of this agreement and a breach of this contract. Upon receipt of this payment you also give up your right to sue "under protest or without prejudice" or "without recourse" and therefore must not allow any further pursance of this account outside the negotiated settlement.

Que-I have used this and it has helped me before. Remember a contract is an agreement between you and the debt collector and is enforceable in court (as long as it is legal that is). It is much easier to enforce your contract if you get the terms in writing and respond while sending payment with a letter incorporating the above few paragraphs with minor variations or improvements if you so like. It has helped me before and when a CA tried to collect on a debt that was already settled from me, they had to take it off my credit report since I made this agreement with the original debt collector.

You said:

I have already disputed their collection notice but all I have is the cancelled check from my payment to the first CA. I have the collection agent's first name, and that is all. I should kick myself for not getting the first CA to write me to confirm the balance was paid in full.

Does anyone have advice on what to do now? I just sent a debt validation letter the day before yesterday.

Thank you, and Happy New Year!

silver

Que-If you sent the Debt Validation letter wait 30 days for them to validate it if they can. If they fail to validate it, send a follow up giving them only 15 days. AFter then take the necessary legal steps. I doubt it the CA has the documentation even if they purchased your account from the original debt collector. But remember what I said in the paragraphs above in sending payment to the debt collector to make sure they wont' come after you with another agency trying to get the rest of the balance.

This worked for me. Hope this helps.

[Silver1]

Hello Qmax,

Agreed; I wish I had gotten something from the CA in writing before the payment was made. I sent the validation letter and will await their reply, and in the meantime will look for any and all documents I can find on this account.

I have taken the good advice given on this forum and will only communicate with these people in writing. I'm going through it now with a long, long dispute with AT&T over a cancelled cell phone and since I've gone to communicating only in writing with the collection agency handling this account, the phone has gone silent and the negative entries were removed from my credit report.

I'll update with whatever I receive from this particular CA.

Thank you, and happy new year to all.

[gdouglaslee]

If the unsettled balance was $600 or more, you should have received a form 1099 to report the unsettled balance on your federal and state taxes as imputed income.

If you don't have a form 1099 or you didn't claim the unsettled balance as imputed income on your taxes, you might be able to use due consideration to claim accord & satisfaction if you live in Ohio and a few other states, but you would need to prove that you paid at least 10 days in advance of the due date.

[admin]

If the unsettled balance was $600 or more, you should have received a form 1099 to report the unsettled balance on your federal and state taxes as imputed income.

If you don't have a form 1099 or you didn't claim the unsettled balance as imputed income on your taxes, you might be able to use due consideration to claim accord & satisfaction if you live in Ohio and a few other states, but you would need to prove that you paid at least 10 days in advance of the due date.

Good idea!

[Silver1]

The unsettled balance was less than $100; it was about $80. I haven't heard anything from the collection agency yet, but it's not been very long since I sent the validation letter.

Thanks!

silver

[Silver1]

Well, nothing yet from the CA. We'll see. I wonder if they'll go bonkers to collect $80?

[workinninetofive]

Some go bonkers for a buck. They probably will not be able to validate. Just "stay after" them hard.

[Silver1]

I seriously doubt they can validate anything. Perhaps I've not heard anything in over a month because they know they can't validate anything. The funny thing is that recently I got one of those "come back to ADT Security Services for your home security" letters in the mail. Because of my excellent history with their company they would love to have me come back and use their services.

[c m chase]

I was just getting ready to ask if it was ADT. They are NOTHING but trouble. I've had to deal with them before and there was quite an exchange of nasty letters between the two of us. I finally caught them in a lie saying the balance on such-and-such date was $600...when I had a letter from them a couple of days after that date saying it was only $100. They caved real quick after that.

On an unrelated case, we rented a house from my best friend who used to have ADT in it. It was turned off an uninstalled...equiptment removed and everything. She kept getting bills every month...when she called, they'd apologize and say don't worry about it. They tried to send it to collections too. I don't actually know the status on that...she probably threw a major fit, knowing her.

THEN when we moved out of that house and someone else bought it, ADT called the new owner and said "whoever it was that lived there before had been using the service for several months and didn't pay...and now, as the homeowner, YOU'RE responsible for it and you have to pay $800 and finish out the contract."

I also had a friend who had the service turned on at her house and they were taking the monthly fees out of her bank account. Well....they never actually activated the system...so there was no monitoring. They even had ADT salesmen coming up trying to get them to buy the service. Then they were sending her bills saying they weren't getting paid (after taking money out of the bank). It was a HUGE ordeal - even after she sent the bank statements, they'd never admit they got paid.

They are nothing but SCUM. I've heard many stories similar. There are lots of ADT-sucks websites out there.

[Silver1]

Yuck! And I thought I had problems with them! But I can't say I'm surprised, because in my dealings with them while I had the service turned on, they were less than competent at every turn.

Naturally the tech they sent over when the service was initially turned on right after we bought the house (brand new) was very nice, sounded like he knew his stuff, blah blah blah. It all went downhill from there, and I was dealing with mutants from then on out - especially in billing. They could not find their butts with two hands and a flashlight!

Statements were wrong, they weren't crediting the monthly bank drafts properly, they docked payments as late - how could that be, I argued with customer service - YOU draft them from my bank yourself! Well, the draft date fell on a holiday where the bank was closed, and we could not draft your payment until the next day.

And that's MY fault??

Oh, sorry, our error.

No kidding, your error!

No chance I'll go back to them.