DV Letter

[nene123]

I sent a DV letter to a creditor. It has been 30 days and they have not responded. What should I do now to get them to delete the debt off of my credit report.

[willingtocope]

If you sent it to the orginal creditor (OC), they're probably not going to do anything. Under the FDCPA, they don't have to...under the FACTA ammendments to the FCRA, they do...but there's not penalty if they don't...so the won't.

You use the DV process on collection agencies (CA). Those are the people bound by the FDCPA. If it was the CA, then their tradeline (TL) your credit reports (CRs) should be marked "in dispute" after 30 days, but they actually have as long as they like to validate. But, you can sometimes write the credit reporting agencies (CRAs) after 90 days or so and say "...its obvious these people can't validate the account and it should therefore be removed...". You may have to sue to get everything removed.

[codename_fortyseven]

Just want to add that the STATUTE says they don't have to validate if they cease collections, but state laws (Tx) and federal court rulings say differently. In some circuits, they MUST validate and 45-90 days is the timeframe.

[IHateCAs]

In some circuits, they MUST validate and 45-90 days is the timeframe.

Do you have any case cites for this?

[codename_fortyseven]

I'll dig up some caselaw soon.

Here we go:

According to Towerrat, the 7th circuit says cease collection efforts and you are good. The 9th circuit says you MUST validate, even if you cease collection activity, but they must have a reasonable amount of time to do so, and in this case reasonable is 90 days. (Guerrero v RMJ)