My own Midland annoyance...

[Scamp]

Hi, everyone.

Like so many on here, I'm getting dunning letters from Midland lately.

I'm lucky in that EVERYTHING I ever screwed up back in my 20's is past SOL, and nothing from that era is left on any of my reports.

Letters from CA's I just shred, but one of them (I think it's Midland) has my phone number and rings my house a few times a week.  I picked up once when I was home, before I knew who it was, just to try to find out who/what yahoo this was calling me from Chicago so many times, and got a recorded message that said, among other things (and before it ID'd who they were), that if I continued to listen to the message, I was confirming that I was (my full name).  Once I realized it was a debt collector, I hung up.

Fortunately, I have caller ID and no voicemail or message machine on my phone at home, so it just rings and annoys the cats when they call during the day (so far no calling at illegal times), but my picking up that one call seems to have encouraged them and I'm assuming they now won't go away.

Got a letter from them about one of my time-barred debts yesterday, as well, to a previous address a few doors down from my current one.

Questions:  Does Midland have a habit of reporting time-barred debts and screwing with people that way, so that I'll need to watch all my reports like a hawk and possibly waste a lot of time getting rid of them?

Also, is there any point in DVing them to get them to leave me alone?  Since everything is time-barred, I'm assuming they'd be unable to V, but I really don't want to invest time, energy and postage in DVing them on everything if ignoring them will make them go away eventually.  I'm also nervous that ANY contact with them will encourage them to try reporting these ancient debts by claiming my actions reactivated everything - or something similar.

Thanks for any info anyone provides.

Happy Friday!

[Anonymous]

Do you have any proof that that is past CRTP and SOL? Such as an old credit report, statement from OC, etc.

If you do, and you are certain it is past SOL and CRTP, I'd send them a cease and past SOL letter.

[Scamp]

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sidewinder wrote:

Do you have any proof that that is past CRTP and SOL? Such as an old credit report, statement from OC, etc.

If you do, and you are certain it is past SOL and CRTP, I'd send them a cease and past SOL letter.

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I doubt that I do have any proof, Sidewinder - those debts were incurred in another state, and I've moved so many times since then that most likely all my info on those accounts got tossed at some point, thinking they were of no use anymore. 

No old credit reports, either, for much the same reason.  I pulled one or two over the years but never kept them because I didn't know about all this kind of thing back then, except that I needed to wait until everything aged off my reports, and what little I did find out about SOL and CA's was being told by an attorney specializing in such things that my best bet was just to ignore CA's about these debts and wait for them to age off my reports.

Which I've done since then, but I AM getting concerned now that some unscrupulous CA will try to report one or more of them and I won't be able to prove things are time-barred because I no longer have any documentation, and all my waiting all those aching years and all my hard work more recently to rebuild will be shot to pieces.

Thoughts?  Suggestions...?  Am I worrying for nothing...?  Or if not, what can I do to try to get hold of info on these old accounts so that I'm prepared for the worst...?

[Anonymous]

I'd ride it out and deal with it if it appears on credit report.

Read up on SOL "tolling" and make sure that doesn't apply to you though.

I do not know exactly how it works, but something about the SOL being placed on "hold" if you leave the state.

Message Edited by sidewinder on 04-11-2008 07:38 AM

[Scamp]

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sidewinder wrote:

I'd ride it out and deal with it if it appears on credit report.

Read up on SOL "tolling" and make sure that doesn't apply to you though.

I do not know exactly how it works, but something about the SOL being placed on "hold" if you leave the state.

Message Edited by sidewinder on 04-11-2008 07:38 AM

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I'll look into it; thanks for the heads-up - I've not heard of it before!