SevenBagels Posted March 14, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2005 A CA's response to my DV letter is:Dear ....The FDCPA states, with in the first thirty days, we are required to "communicate" to the consumer that we are attempting to collect a debt. We have mailed you a letter pertaining to this account, as well as the other accounts you have in our office, well within the first thirty days required by las.The FDCPA also states that we must provide validation of a debt in which we are attempting to collect within the first thirty days after "contact", if requested, in writing, by the consumer. We first had contact with you in 1998, well over thirty days.The letter goes on with lies about me calling them day after day (I never called them)the letter ends saying:I hope you will now understand why we did not response to your demand for validation on your account. We are no longer required by law to validate this debt or the other two debts you have in our office. You have been well aware of their existence, and yet you have continued to avoid them. You have the right as a consumer to dispute any of your accounts. We feel the we also have rights as a collections agency. We have the right to collect a debt. If you have any more comments or questions please feel free to call.What now? What bit of the FDCA are they missusing?What shall I do next? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SevenBagels Posted March 14, 2005 Report Share Posted March 14, 2005 A CA's response to my DV letter is:Dear ....The FDCPA states, with in the first thirty days, we are required to "communicate" to the consumer that we are attempting to collect a debt. We have mailed you a letter pertaining to this account, as well as the other accounts you have in our office, well within the first thirty days required by las.The FDCPA also states that we must provide validation of a debt in which we are attempting to collect within the first thirty days after "contact", if requested, in writing, by the consumer. We first had contact with you in 1998, well over thirty days.The letter goes on with lies about me calling them day after day (I never called them)the letter ends saying:I hope you will now understand why we did not response to your demand for validation on your account. We are no longer required by law to validate this debt or the other two debts you have in our office. You have been well aware of their existence, and yet you have continued to avoid them. You have the right as a consumer to dispute any of your accounts. We feel the we also have rights as a collections agency. We have the right to collect a debt. If you have any more comments or questions please feel free to call.What now? What bit of the FDCA are they missusing?What shall I do next? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghacorp Posted March 14, 2005 Report Share Posted March 14, 2005 Not sufficient information to go on. Why did you request DV recently when the collection practice began in 1998? If you have made no payments or agreements with the creditor your obligation may be out of SOL. Is this debt within the SOL period? Technically their response to you is correct, however they may also be sidestepping the law by refusal to validate even after the thirty day period. They cannot assume the debt is valid because you did not request within the thirty day window. My inclination would be to ignore and just wait to see what they do about it. You would have an absolute defense if they sued you out of SOL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghacorp Posted March 14, 2005 Report Share Posted March 14, 2005 Not sufficient information to go on. Why did you request DV recently when the collection practice began in 1998? If you have made no payments or agreements with the creditor your obligation may be out of SOL. Is this debt within the SOL period? Technically their response to you is correct, however they may also be sidestepping the law by refusal to validate even after the thirty day period. They cannot assume the debt is valid because you did not request within the thirty day window. My inclination would be to ignore and just wait to see what they do about it. You would have an absolute defense if they sued you out of SOL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SevenBagels Posted March 14, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2005 Hi ghacorp,Thanks for responding.The SOL has passed.I DVed the account last year in May after reading the book and reading this board.I am not afraid (or concerdned about being sued) I am working on deletions. I sent them two DV letters. I stopped pursuing this as I got very sick with cancer. Now that I am feeling better, I am working on my credit again.The accounts should get deleted by the end of this year, so maybe I should not fuss too much about them. On the other hand, I was working with the oldest accounts first.....Hope this answers your questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Methuss Posted March 14, 2005 Report Share Posted March 14, 2005 This is going to fall off your report soon anyways. Their own letter admits contacting you in 1998...seven years is either past or nearly past and it shouldn't be on your report. Unless, of course, they are re-aging...then that snotty letter of theirs just sank their battleship. Dispute with the CRAs as obsolete. Since it can't stay on your report legally, they have nothing to hold over you to make you pay.FDCPA is irrelavent here as you only have 12 months fromt he violation to sue them for it. It's apparently been quite a bit longer than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
booger69 Posted March 14, 2005 Report Share Posted March 14, 2005 Actually they still have to validate even if it is out of the 30 day window of time. The 30 days starts when the consumer gets the initial contact, just because they sent it doesn't mean he/she got it. Also they can not report this on your CR unless it is marked as "in dispute" while they are validating. Remember...they can not assume that the debt is valid just because you didn't reply to their initial contact. Besides they won't sue...this is WAAAAYYY past SOL. Send a dispute to the CRA's and see if they even bother to verify. Make sure you also send a C&D to make sure the don't pester you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
divemedic Posted March 14, 2005 Report Share Posted March 14, 2005 You are incorrect. The CA does not have to prove that you got the letter. They don't even have to prove they mailed it. All they have to prove is that they had procedures in place that would have mailed the letter. It is presumed by the court that the consumer received the letter at that point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
booger69 Posted March 14, 2005 Report Share Posted March 14, 2005 The company would have to produce an address or something to prove they had (or at least attempted to) contacted the consumer...if the address is incorrect or an address where the consumer didn't live then they would have a good argument that they were never notified. It really doesn't matter if the consumer got the initial contact anyway, he/she can still request validation anytime. I would still insist on validation and dispute with the CRA's. Since this is out of statute you can be as big a pain in their a$$ as you want to be. Maybe they will violate and you can get this removed faster. If you have no pressing issues (need financing or something like that) you could always sit back and let it fall off. But beware even after it falls off they may still pull you report and put inq's on your reports. Or sell it to some idiot JDB that re-ages and re-inserts a TL . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
score booster Posted March 15, 2005 Report Share Posted March 15, 2005 Actually Booger; they can and will assume the debt is valid if you don't respond in the first 30 days. Anyone can assume anything at anytime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Champion80 Posted March 15, 2005 Report Share Posted March 15, 2005 With this subject.. I ask the question, I can get what the mini-miranda states and understand they have the clause we will assume the debt is valid unless we are notified...etc.Are you saying that if a new CA purchases a debt and has your old address on file, and then mails out the mini-miranda, you have been sucessfully contacted according to the rules. Take for example that in california, a post office will only keep your new address forwarding for 1 1/2 years, and after that, they destroy the records (I have a letter from a post office stating exactly that from ths USPS). So, the CA sends the letter to that address, lets say three years after you had moved, and you never get it, they can now just ignore your DV letter and not follow the law. I would think not. And because you say the court would be assuming you recieved the letter because of procedures the CA had in place seems to be incorrect from the face value, how can a court assume anything, the court system is not about assuming but acting on law, and enforcing that law with proof provided by the parties involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Methuss Posted March 15, 2005 Report Share Posted March 15, 2005 Are you saying that if a new CA purchases a debt and has your old address on file, and then mails out the mini-miranda, you have been sucessfully contacted according to the rules. No. They are only allowed to assume the debt is valid. However, it has been well established that as soon as a consumer disputes a debt, the CA may not assume it is valid in any way. There is no time limit on disputing so it can happen well after the 30 days are up. Also keep in mind that the FCRA specifically prohibits reporting any information to the bureaus which the furnisher knows or has reasonable cause to know may be inaccurate (Section 623). If the consumer has disputed the debt, then the CA has reasonable cause to know that what they are reporting might be wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SevenBagels Posted March 17, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2005 Thanks Methuss, you have been very helpful, especially by pointing out section 623.I read quite a bit since your response and found more about when a consumer can dispute. It goes way beyond the first 30 days. section 611 is all about that. What a great board!!!! I'm ready to fight! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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