topic Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates? in General Credit Topics

Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

weezie — Tue, 15 May 2007 20:30:14 GMT

I received a collection letter from an agency called Portfolio Recovery Associates yesterday. Looks like they claim they bought an old Capital One (nee Signet Bank) account that was charged off about 14 years ago. I sent a cease communications letters today.

I was wondering whether any of you have had any experience with this collector, and could share your opinion on what I can expect as far as their "attitude" is concerned. When I had the same experience on the same old debt a few years ago with NCO, NCO sent their "we won't contact you anymore" letter pretty quickly and that's the last I heard from them. Just wondering if I'm in for a fight with this Portfolio Recovery Associates.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

Boswd — Tue, 15 May 2007 20:35:06 GMT

I am currently in the middle of my repayment plan with them. I tried to get a PFD way back but to no avail, but besides that they were pretty decent to me. They wanted 20% upfront to get into a payment plan and I told them I didn't have that much right now, but were willing to to split it up into two payments over a course of one month and so far they have lived up to their word, gave me everything in writing without any hassel.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

Boswd — Tue, 15 May 2007 20:50:56 GMT

going back and re reading your post, I missed the part about it being 14 yrs old since it was charged off initially. How long ago was your last payment? What is your state SOL? If you haven't paid anything on this in 14 years and it falls under your states SOL, send them a cease and desist letter claiming it is well beyond your state's SOL. But there could be a catch and that is, Was this credit card opened up in the same state you live in now? If not there could be some tolling involved. Which means let's say you used to live in New York and opened up the card there and then you moved to Montana. The Statute of Limitations freezes on the date you left New York.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

weezie — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:10:13 GMT

Thank you for chiming in Boswd! Your story definitely helps! And I appreciate your advice.

Any claim they could assert is time-barred; the SOL has long passed. Thankfully, I won't have tolling (or tacking) problems. The state I was in has a 3 year SOL and the state I am in has a 6 year SOL. So, I won't be paying anything on the claim because it's time-barred. My letter says this pretty clearly. They needed to know that contacting me is a total waste of their time!

Mainly, I hope Portfolio Recovery Associates acts in a professional manner towards me as they have done for you so I don't have to get into a long drawn out tussle with these folks. I just want my "sorry we bothered you" letter so I can be done with this round.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

Noah_Bodie — Wed, 16 May 2007 08:45:25 GMT

weezie,

You used "Portfolio Recovery" and "professional manner" in the same sentence. I just wanted the name of your doctor that prescribed your medical marijuana so I can get me some. Portfolio Recovery has a pretty bad reputation on Bud Hibbs and elsewhere.

Opinions vary, here's mine.

I always DV a CA or JDB. Whether the debt is owed or not, whether it's time barred or not. DV is just too powerful of a weapon to discard. A lot of these bottom feeding JDBs are drilling drier and drier wells. They are buying ancient debts at pennies on the dollar, consumers are becoming more and more aware, and I expect CAs and JDBs to step even further outside the law.

A C&D will make they FOAD, but if they stick something on your CRs, time barred or not, then you may be in for a fight. Since you already C&Ded them, DV is effectively off the table.

DV is good right jab and it pays to use it.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

Boswd — Wed, 16 May 2007 13:27:50 GMT

On that note, try and get all your paperwork together, try to get all the proof that the last payment was 14 years ago. Even though they may have been decent to me, doesn't mean they'll be decent to everyone and Collection Agency's are notorious for trying to sneak in Judgments even on accounts that are well passed the SOL. So in the future if you happen to get a summons, answer it, and don't ignore it. Use SOL as your defense and plan on showing up to court no matter what, even if they say they'll drop the case, plan on showing up NO matter what. If you don't they can win by getting a default Judgment, even if the account is well passed the SOL. They do this because they prey on people's lack of knowledge of how the system works and that allot of people don't realize there are such a thing as a SOL and that is what they are hoping for. Portfolio is one of the larger ones so to them sending an attorney in your district is not that big of a deal to them.

I'm not saying this to scare you. They probably won't try to sue, but just have everything in order just in case they try to sneak one in.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

Boswd — Wed, 16 May 2007 13:31:31 GMT

also check out this article I found last week and posted on here.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/06/04/Business/_Buyers__give_old_deb.shtml

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

weezie — Wed, 16 May 2007 15:24:34 GMT

Many thanks, folks!

I did consider DV as one of my options and ultimately decided that, for me, a "cease communications" was the better route. But I only chose that road because I have the ability to handle things like answering a complaint and/or vacating a judgment if it comes to that. So if they act up as far as banking on a default judgment is concerned, I'll shut them down. In the meantime, I made the decision that "go away" was a better posture for me than "proove it". If they act with total disregard for the law, they'll make something up no matter what. If they comport themselves with relative professionalism, this'll be over in 30 days as opposed to 60.

But I totally agree that people should consider all options and make a decision specific to their situation.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

Boswd — Wed, 16 May 2007 15:59:10 GMT

Good luck and let us know how you made out.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

nettie — Wed, 16 May 2007 21:38:40 GMT

Back in 2004, One of my account was turned over to Portfolio Recovery Associates. They were pretty nice with the dealing, as long as you keep your payment arrangements. They wanted 20% down, in which I did not have but they took two payments for the 2 months and we made monthly payment arrangements for the balance. Once my account was paid out, they sent me a letter stating a 0 blance and they also reported it to the credit bureau. nettie

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

Boswd — Wed, 16 May 2007 21:55:51 GMT

yeah that's the same boat I am in. They weren't hararassing and worked very well with me. I mean it was my debt and had years before SOL and so far they have kept their word.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

spyjax — Thu, 17 May 2007 03:14:51 GMT

Weezie:

I was contacted by PRA back in October or November of '06. I sent them a total of three letters: Initially, a DV letter; followed by a second letter that combined both a second request for detailed validation and a C&D; finally, a third, more strongly worded C&D that hinted at my intent to sue if they continued with their collection activities.

They called me only once and left a message on my voicmail. I called them back and gently demanded that they never call me again; that I expected to handle this issue strictly by mail.

After the third letter, they sent me a letter stating that they were closing the account, and no further collection activity would take place.

And, yes, this was over an account that was SOL (over something like a twelve-year old debt.)

By the way, in the second letter to them, I explicitly demanded that they not simply transfer this account to another JDB/collection agency if they couldn't provide validation of the debt. I really didn't expect them to get ugly over this, and they never did. They were actually quite easy to deal with.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

momwith2kids — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:00:33 GMT

this company is horrible. my first dealing with them was over a discover card account. they puy a levy on our bank accounts, when that wasn't enough to pay the debt off the put a levy on my husband's truck. we were having a very hard time at that time so we only had that one truck. the levy got lifted off of the truck because that was his only mode of transportation to work. they eventually garnished his wages. (which only put us further into debt). we almost lost our home over that. fair warning they don't go away. if you have any old debt out there that you think has been "charged off" by the company. they will try to collect it. they buy your debt for a fraction of what you owe. and then they collect it in full plus interest. i thought we had finally got our heads above water again. until i received a civil summons. they are suing us again for a new debt that they have aquired. it never ends with these people. if they threatened you with a suit, you better believe that they will follow through with it. i am now trying to work with the lawyers that are representing them to work out a payment arragement. good luck

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

everycall — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:39:00 GMT

This company has been indentified by the EveryCall.us community as having called hundreds if not thousands of consumers according to reports filed to our website. The following are a list of telephone numbers that have been reported to have been associated with Portfolio Recovery Associates, we hope you find this information useful so when you see them call next time you know who it is and can ignore the phone call.

Link to company information about Portfolio Recovery Associates.

253-638-1471 866-298-3632 866-299-3463 866-691-3568 757-321-2519 757-321-6278 800-772-1413 772-664-4005 866-428-6589 877-803-0008 888-772-7326 866-532-9661 800-860-0644 800-803-0008 866-940-7640

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

mistyweather — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:40:21 GMT

Hi Weezie,

I had a problem with these bozo's last year. They were "collecting" on an account that was past sol by years.

Lodge an online complaint against Portfolia to your state's consumer advocate division. You can log onto your State's Attorney General's website and find the consumer advocate division. They will usually ask you to mail any back-up proving your claim.

This worked for me. I was assigned a consumer advocate who contacted Portfolio (he cc'd me on all the correspondence). The collection was removed promptly.

Of course, one month later, Portfolio put the account back on my report, but one email to my consumer advocate and the collection was removed again. It's been over a year and I haven't seen (credit reports) or heard a peep (telephone calls) from Portfolio since.

BTW - I wouldn't waste my breath or a stamp on Portfolio. Sometimes it's better to come out blazing with the big guns. That's all some junk debt buyers seem to understand.

Good Luck and keep us posted.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

mindacid — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:26:52 GMT

Hi weezie,

I crossed paths with these guys last year. If I can give you my two cents, I think in situations like this, it's better to request debt validation than to just ask them to stop sending you communications. I say this from personal experience, because their next potential move could be to report the debt as a collection on your CRA files. That's what they did to me. Now, the debt was absolutely too old to report (about the same as yours, 13 years) , but they had no problem in re-aging the debt to make it look recent. A couple of DV letters later, sent by certified US mail, finally got their crap off my credit reports, but it took, 6-8 weeks. It's better to just avoid the whole situation from the start.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

haulingthescoreup — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 21:48:14 GMT

Just an observation --this thread is from 2009. I don't know how many posters are still here and active. :)

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

JGF — Thu, 12 May 2011 18:03:22 GMT

I have received portfolio recovery (they are not the original creditor) collection letters indicating the account number and the amount owed but they are collecting a debt that was passed the Statute of Limitations in California. The letter was dated April 12 and they require that i should respond within 30 days. Today is the 30th day but i got the letter after April 12. What is the best recourse on this.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

llecs — Thu, 12 May 2011 18:30:34 GMT

JGF wrote:
I have received portfolio recovery (they are not the original creditor) collection letters indicating the account number and the amount owed but they are collecting a debt that was passed the Statute of Limitations in California. The letter was dated April 12 and they require that i should respond within 30 days. Today is the 30th day but i got the letter after April 12. What is the best recourse on this.

Mail a DV letter CMRRR this week and you'll be OK. The 30-day notice is required of them by federal law.

Re: Experience with Portfolio Recovery Associates?

witanga — Mon, 16 May 2011 22:04:39 GMT

I defaulted on a CapitalOne account a few years back it got turned over to them. I paid them and last week I sent them a goodwill letter to remove the account off my credit report and they did, so they are pretty easy to deal with.