ANFI and DirecTV

[Anonymous]

Well, I got a dunning notice from ANFI a couple weeks ago. It was for a DirecTV bill from 2013. This bill is on my TU report (pulled a couple of weeks ago) but under  "Diversified Consultants" and not ANFI. OK, so the notice said I could pay them, or I could call DirecTV or go to DirecTV.com and pay them directly.

Soooo.... I decided to call them and explained how the bill never got paid because of the confusion of two moves in two months from Oregon to California and back to Oregon and that I had not known about it until I got the notice. I told him I wanted to keep it off my credit and he said he would help me out. I went ahead and paid it ($136). I'm hoping they will recall it from ANFI, but what about the Diversified Consultants entry on TU? Do I send them a DV? Or do I dispute with TU first? 

[Anonymous]

AFNI usually will cave after a dispute. They did for me.

[Anonymous]

ANFI has not reported it, and I paid the OC directly. I'm wondering the best way to deal with Diversified Consultants who did report it - DV, or Dispute with TU?

[Anonymous]

I would suggest DVing the CA. Since there is no longer a debt to report they will hopefully remove with no issue. The dispute should work also but TU is know to do crazy things to accounts when disputed. 

[Anonymous]

I have never seen TU do any crazy things. Infact, they are one of the easiest I have worked with in terms of removing stuff once disputed.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I have never seen TU do any crazy things. Infact, they are one of the easiest I have worked with in terms of removing stuff once disputed.

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I'm glad you have had good results with them. I will say on a positive note that their reps have always been very nice but I have had nothing but trouble with them when disputing. I have been in a very similar situation and AFNI deleted within a week of DV when I paid OC.

[Anonymous]

AFNI is usually good about removing stuff off your report in my experience as well. 

[Anonymous]

Well, the clean up process has officially begun! I just logged in to TransUnion's website and disputed the Diversified Consultants entry. For reason I gave "Other" with the comment "Diversified Consultants does not have Collection Authority for this account. Also has been PIF."

Lets see what happens!

[RobertEG]

You have several issues with them.

First and foremost, how did they obtain collection authority?

If they recognized AFNI as their authroized debt collector, what knowledge do they have of Diversified?

Since the OC still owned the debt, then Diversified would have to have assigned collection authority from the OC to attempt any collection.

Second, if they reported, they were required to have sent duning notice within 5 days, identifying who they are collection on behalf of.

They did not do so?

If not, then a CFPB complaint would place them in a position of having to answer to who they assert provided them collectin authority.

Something is amiss with two debt collectors asserting concurrrent collection authority, particularly when one has not complied with their requireent to identity the currernt owner of the debt via dunning notice.

I would hope the OC could answer that question....

[Anonymous]

I must admit to being lax about all this stuff until recently. Diversified may very well have sent a dunning notice months ago, but I probably tossed it in the circular file. I think that DirecTV probably used them first, then recently transferred it to ANFI. On my TU report it says it was last updated 04/2014. ANFI has not reported it yet, so its not really an issue of two CA's reporting at the same time. Seems like Diversified just never removed the reporting, they certainly have not been updating in order to ding me harder...