5 year old alleged debt? Williams and Fudge

[Anonymous]

Last month I received a bill for $2000.00 dollars from Williams and Fudge. They said it was owed to a private skill school I went to 5 years ago.  This supposed bad debt has never once appeared on my credit reports, not once. Yet this is a bad debt? 5 years later this is coming up?

I keep up with my credit reports, and never have saw this debt/collection account in 5 years. Had no loans from this school on my reports.  So what do I do? This is out of nowhere. It's ridiculous. Never received anything from the school, just received this letter 5 years later from this slime debt collector.

How is it right they can send me this, and say it's a bad debt, when there is absolutely nothing on my credit report, and there hasn't been for 5 years?  This isn't from the school, it's from the collection agency. And it's not a defualted student loan either.

[My66charger]

Happened too me it's called Identity Theft. Make a police Report go to your local P.aD. and speak with the pretend cop tell him or her someone stole your Identity put a credit block on at least you can put the Death nail in your credit reports because our country failed. (Mod Cut- MyFico doesnt allow politics to be discussed in any of its forums)

[empiror22]

Did you in fact borrow money to go to this school? A creditor is not required to report to the CRAs, however they are required to post correct information is they do report.

[Anonymous]

Did you attend this school?

[RobertEG]

Allegations that you owe a debt can always be contested, such as via a debt validation request, filing of a police report if you are willing to assert you never had any debt with the alleged credtior or business, a dispute if you know how the asserted debt is alleged to have aoccured and you have contradicting evidence, or by legal action.

Neither the FDCPA nor the FCRA have time periods in which a creditor or business must advise of a debt or post to your credit report.

The advantage of being that old is that it may bel close to or past the SOL in your state, and closer to credit report exclusion.

Delay in reporting does not extend the credit report exclusion period, which for a collection is no later than 7 years plus 180 days from the date of first delinquency on the debt.

I would advise sending a timely DV, including a request for an itemeization of the alleged debt.

You need to reaise your assertion that you contest the debt.

Challenging the propriety of their "late" reporting is not relevant to the issue of legitimacy of the debt itself.

[Anonymous]

Well, if this is a bad debt, why contact me 5 years later? Why not send me something years ago? Why did it never once appear on my credit report? 

And yes I did attend this school in 2010.  If this was bad debt? Why not once would it show anywhere? Why not send me anything during those 5 years? Just to send me something 5 years later that came out of nowhere, I'm sorry, that's bs.

[RobertEG]

Certain debt collectors specialize in purchasing bad debt at very low cost, and then relying upon their tactics to collect.

They can obtain debt that is old at next to nothing.... only a penny on the dollar..... and thus need collect only a bit more than 1% of what they buy to make a profit.

[Anonymous]

Their verification was sending me a printed 3 page copied ledger they had. That was all. After going though it, it didnt add up at all.

What can I do in response to this?

[RobertEG]

What is or is not adequate validation is dependent upon the circumstances and interpretation of the statute.

FDCPA 809(b) does not define what is adequate verifcation.  It only requires the debt collector to investigate and obtain adequate basis for determining the validity of the debt.

Many legal actions have been brought over the issue of whether a given verifcation is adequate.  The majority of decisions hold that if they have investigated, they need not provide proofs to the consumer in order to validate.  However, a few appellate decisions have interpreted the statute as requiring some degree of documentation of the debt.

In the end, adequate validation is what a judge determines given a set of facts and their own interpretation of the requirments of section 809(b).

Inadquate verification is not, itself, a basis for asseritng any vioation by the debt collector,   It is the same as no response.

A violation would occur, at least in your opinion, if and when they resumed collection on the debt without first having provided verification.

You could then bring legal action for violation of their cease collection bar, and get the matter before a judge.