I Am Not A Laywer & this isn't meant to Constitute legal Advice; research on the FTC website is fairly easy also search your state laws; most are better thatn the FDCPA & FCRA
Debt buyers like to claim they are "creditors" to avoid the FDCPA ;
specifically so they do not have to stop collection activites if the debt is disputed....
Here's how it works;
A debt buyer purchases a portfolio of defaulted debts from the original creditor.
They assign the collection of the debt to an affiliated company whom attempts to collect , of that company farms it out to another collection agency;
You DV the CA, they can't Validate and return the account to the affilate
The affiliate farms it out again to different CA
You finally get wise and DV the debt buyer direct;
The debt buyer claims they are a credtor and do not have to respond to your DV request or they state they have never contacted you requesting payment, ( chaundry notice) and therefore do not have to provide any validation.
An you're stuck getting houded by myriad collection agencies;
How to get around it;
Point out that according to the FTC Buyers of debts currently in default are subject to the FDCPA
The Massachusetts division of banks has posted a letter online to debt buyers which has all the info you need to research this further;
(Yeah, it's a long link, but takes you right there
Also, the FTC advised me to dispute the debt through all 3 CRA's; that way the Debt buyer cannot claim they never recieved a notice of a dispute on this account.
Now, since you've proved them subject to the FDCPA, you point out that there are many court rulings that state that listing the account on your credit report is considered a "communication" from a debt collector which triggers the DV request; they have to validate. If you've DV'd or Disputed they cannot continue collection without validation, and subcontracting collection efforts to outside agencies is certainly considered "continuing" by the courts.
Then your fight with the CRA's begin to get it deleted I I'll let other members take it from there.