bamf70 wrote:
I don't think it's unethical to ask for verification before you send money to a CA. It seems his intention is to pay the debt but why pay a CA who isn't authorized to collect the debt only to find out somebody else is collecting for that debt? If they can't verify he can always contact the OC and make the payment to them. At least he will know the money is going where it is supposed to be going. Just my $0.02.
That's true, bamf70 - making sure that the person is supposed to be collecting the debt (they're either acting as an agent hired by the OC or they purchased the debt from the OC) is not unethical. In fact, it's a smart move to protect yourself from unscrupulous collection agencies who charge outrageous (and sometimes illegal) fees as well as those who don't care that the debt isn't yours and they're using the credit reporting system to trick you into paying it anyway.
However, some people have a misconception that using a DV will not only clean up the credit report, but it will get the person out of paying the debt. Using a DV to get out of paying a debt is unethical. It's also not necessarily true that you're "home free" from paying the debt.
Just say a DV gets a record successfully deleted. While the entry gets deleted from the CR, the CA still has a record of the "debt" in their own system. Usually that record has the debtor's name, SSN, the last known address, the last known phone number, the OC, the account number from the OC, the amount owed, and the amount for which the debt was purchased. When they "clean out" their records, guess what they do? They sell the debt to some other collector! (They're allowed to do this.) Now you have to do the process all over again with the new collector.
The person may get lucky and never hear from anyone again about the debt. OTOH, if the SOL hasn't expired on the debt yet, many CAs are answering the DV with a lawsuit.
