Collection Agency Question

[OneDay800]

I've been reading this forum for over a month now and love.  Took advice of many and been repairing and rebuilding both myself and DW's credit.  Thanks to all. 

Now the problem:

I have a credit montioring service that reported (Equifax) a collection agency reporting an $1162.00 balance with a date of collection 8/2007.  Since I did not know of this balance and never received a letter from the credit agency (National Credit Adjusters), I immediately disputed with Equifax 9/21/2007.  Then it came thru TU and I sent a letter to them to dispute this also an inquire (hard) they made 10/2/2007.  Still waiting for the results,  I also told the CRA's that I never received a letter from this agency to give me my legal 30 days to dispute.

Going forward on October  15, 2007, I received a letter from the credit agency stating that I was ignoring them and offered a settlement of 875.23 (.75 on the dollar),  so I DV'd them stating I never received an inital letter from them and that I started a dispute through both CRA and gave them the dates.  (Finally I was able to find out who they were collecting for (Household Bank)  The problem here is that on my CR the high balance was $890.00, with one reporting a write off of $275.00.  How can this collection agency be demanding 1162.00??  I sent the letter stating I wanted the debt to be Validated and not Verified (and thanks to someone on here) a Debt Vaildition form that they need to fill out. ALong with a request of license to collect money from my state.(NJ)

I guess my question is can they legally be doing this?  Never received an inital letter, then after disputes with CRA receive a letter stating I'm ignoring them and  offer settlement? Is this a way to get around the 30 day dispute window?  Can they come after me for more money than I orignally owed the OC?  Can they do hard inquiries on my CR? 

Sorry my 1st post is so long..just frustrated, want to be able to buy a house in the next couple of months and I thought I was done with all the collections!!

[SmartCookie]

hi OneDay800 and happy delurking 

Long day and I'm going a bit crosseyed so let me just ask one...ok no, two things...

Did you call Household bank to see if they still own the debt so you can settle with them instead of dealing with CAs?  What is the DOFD for the debt?

[OneDay800]

Thanks for the reply..

Household Bank Date of last Activity is June 2005 Account status Charge Off..Written Off. 

When I started cleaning my report (before reading this), I paid off all collections and CC's that were active, I didn't think of paying Household because of the "Written Off" status. 

After reading this forum and before receiving this collection I sent a GW letter to Household to delete this from my account (Had some medical problems which lead to finicial difficulties and which led to credit disaster!!) and have since been able to use HSBC to refianance my car loan and was just approved through Household Bank for the 2% Cash rewards CC with no annual fee with a CL of $2000.  1st somewhat non-subprime card since credit problems.  So I thought the GW would be the way to go (mailed out on October 2, 2007).  Had the car loan since 12/06 and CC since 9/07. 

So my thought would be the Household does not have the original debt otherwise I dont think they would of issued me more credit before paying off past due balances.

[OneDay800]

Any suggestions??  Please need advice...Thanks

[haulingthescoreup]

I don't have much knowledge in this area, so all I will offer is that you should call HSBC tomorrow to find out for-absolutely-sure whether they still own the debt. Be sure to wind up talking with someone who really knows what they're talking about. If they did sell the account to the CA, find out the date. I don't know that getting new credit with them indicates this one way or the other. Once you know exactly where you stand, you'll be able to get the veterans' input on this.

Unfortunately, "legal" seems to be irrelevant to an awful lot of CA's!

[SmartCookie]

Yes call and verify if OC owns it and you have not paid the CA. 

But you want to do a PFD, preferably to the OC if you have an old balance, not a GW.

Message Edited by SmartCookie on 10-28-2007 12:30 PM