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I sued Portfolio Recovery and won.

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FretlessMayhem
Senior Contributor

I sued Portfolio Recovery and won.

I've been pretty mum on this for the past 6-8 months, but now that I've mailed out certified letters to the CRAs I think I can be a bit more vocal.

 

Portfolio Recovery has listed an account on my TU and EX since 2004, due to drop off in 2009. They update the balance every month, adding 6 percent interest. 

 

I called them to ask them what the debt was from. All they did was try and get me to make a payment over the phone. They said they had obtained a judgement against me and I had to pay or they would garnish my wages. 

The next day, I see a hard inq on TU from Portfolio. Two weeks later, a Summons to Answer Interogatories from the Sheriff appears on my door relating to a judgement from Portfolio. I took this as step 1 to garnishing my wages, which freaked me out. 

 

I bit the bullet and hired the top consumer attorney in Virginia who has recently testified before Congress on the CC Bill of Rights. We found out Portfolio purposefully used an old address off of my CR to deliver my Warrant in Debt for the judgement. I never got it, never showed up, and they got a default judgment. I don't know why, but it never showed up on my CRs which was why this was a surprise to me. 

 

My laywer contacts them and gets their lawyer to agree to Non-suit my case as I was improperly served. The judge and their lawyer endorsed my Motion to Vacate. My lawyer wrote up nice letters to mail to the CRAs to have them delete the derogatory account. I just mailed them on Monday, so we'll see how this works out. If they delete the account from Portfolio, I win. If they don't, then I get to sue again for FCRA violations. In a way, that's kind of win-win. Since they ruined 2 CRs, I know I can get them for violations x2.

 

The collection account is scheduled to drop in April 2009, so I think they were trying to wring whatever they could out of me beforehand. 

Here we go again...
Message 1 of 9
8 REPLIES 8
FretlessMayhem
Senior Contributor

Re: I sued Portfolio Recovery and won.

I wanted to add that my attorney told me that Portfolio (or any collection agency) definitely has the right to hard pull credit in the process of collecting, and that it is not a violation of any law. She showed me the relevant part of the FDCPA/FCRA, but I don't recall what it was offhand.

 

I know there has been debate about that on here before. 

Here we go again...
Message 2 of 9
laz98
Senior Contributor

Re: I sued Portfolio Recovery and won.


@FretlessMayhem wrote:

I wanted to add that my attorney told me that Portfolio (or any collection agency) definitely has the right to hard pull credit in the process of collecting, and that it is not a violation of any law. She showed me the relevant part of the FDCPA/FCRA, but I don't recall what it was offhand.

 

I know there has been debate about that on here before. 


very valuable information!  thank you for sharing with us Smiley Wink

Message 3 of 9
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: I sued Portfolio Recovery and won.


FretlessMayhem wrote:

I wanted to add that my attorney told me that Portfolio (or any collection agency) definitely has the right to hard pull credit in the process of collecting, and that it is not a violation of any law. She showed me the relevant part of the FDCPA/FCRA, but I don't recall what it was offhand.

 

I know there has been debate about that on here before. 


 

Hate to say this.....but an attorney's opinion carries little weight.

 

PP is a heavily debated subject and not just on these forums.

 

I am sure what you were shown in the FCRA, however when an account gets to the CA, the account is closed and the FTC says no one has PP once the account is closed.

Message 4 of 9
FretlessMayhem
Senior Contributor

Re: I sued Portfolio Recovery and won.


@Anonymous wrote:

Hate to say this.....but an attorney's opinion carries little weight.

 

PP is a heavily debated subject and not just on these forums.

 

I am sure what you were shown in the FCRA, however when an account gets to the CA, the account is closed and the FTC says no one has PP once the account is closed.


Hi Sidewinder! I remember a lot of debate around here about it before. I didn't mean it like it was binding or anything, just more like that a solid, consumer affairs attorney believes so. 

 

Something I don't get though is how the FTC would have say so on how a federal law is interpreted.  Do they function like an attorney general with consumer issues?

Here we go again...
Message 5 of 9
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: I sued Portfolio Recovery and won.

Congratulations, good to know it can work.

 

I recently pulled court cases online to find an older one and found a new one as of November!

 

It was from a Collection Letter I got in January.  My collection attorney wrote them within the 30 day period for DV, no reply.  In 3/08 it turns out they filed suit, I never got served.

 

So now they filed suit for;

1) Out of SOL debt

2) w/o serving

3) on an account that was disputed in the first 30 days which they ignored AND continued collections on.

 

When I get around to it I am going to sue the crap out of them.

 

On a potential note, a creditor is trying to scare me into paying my parents Amex by telling me they'll report to the CRAs even though I am AU.  Called the same attorney, he says if they do we'll apply for credit, get turned down because of that, then sue for major damages. He says this type of case goes well beyond the $1k violation. In fact because they threaten to report to all of the 'kids' reports (4 of us) he'll do a class action at $100k per.

Message 6 of 9
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: I sued Portfolio Recovery and won.


@FretlessMayhem wrote:

@Anonymous wrote:

Hate to say this.....but an attorney's opinion carries little weight.

 

PP is a heavily debated subject and not just on these forums.

 

I am sure what you were shown in the FCRA, however when an account gets to the CA, the account is closed and the FTC says no one has PP once the account is closed.


Hi Sidewinder! I remember a lot of debate around here about it before. I didn't mean it like it was binding or anything, just more like that a solid, consumer affairs attorney believes so. 

 

Something I don't get though is how the FTC would have say so on how a federal law is interpreted.  Do they function like an attorney general with consumer issues?




SideWinder's spot on about the opinion of an attorney -- or a judge, for that matter. Our laws are written in such a way that they're constantly open to interpretation. What one judge says, another might totally disagree with.

In a nutshell (if what I remember from Civics classes YEARS ago), the FTC is an agency that not only monitors business practices and protects consumers, but also has the power to investigate, and if necessary, "prosecute" violators in an administrative court (and retains the power to take cases all the way to the US Appeals Court).

A threat to complain to the FTC carries quite a bit of weight to any business with but a grain of intelligence.

Think of them sort of like the FBI. But for consumers. Smiley Wink
Message 7 of 9
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: I sued Portfolio Recovery and won.

while Wonderin is right in defining the FTC as the natural entity monitoring compliance with the FCRA and FDCPA, it is also a fact that the FTC very seldom(more likely never) takes action on individual complaints.

 

The FTC acts based on "patterns" of complaints - in layman terms, the more complaints they get about a specific behavior, the more likely to act on it, but they would not take an individual case and take action on it.

 

In reality, the major enforcerers of the FCRA and FDCPA individual violations are the Attorney General offices - the AG consumer complaint departments take action on individual cases, attempt a mediation and if they find valid reason to prosecute, they can start immediate action against a violator.

 

Last, but not least, the BBB is also another agency with some clout in acting on behalf of a customer.

 

When a legitimate reason exists, like a violation or unreasonable behavior on the part of a CA or a CRA, I advise to file immediately complaints with these agencies, not threatening to file complaints.

 

The complaint gets filed when the consumer feels strong armed, cheated, violated, by a CA or a CRA. These agencies then help the consumer resolve the issue.

 

Therefore, file the complaints sooner rather than later, as in many cases it also helps avoiding a response like a lawsuit from a CA, which are likely when the consumer starts fighting back on illegal tacticts.

 

For obvious reasons, a CA that is being reported to an AG for a violation of FCRA or FDCPA is much less likely to file suit against the consumer that filed the complaint, as they will try to be as conciliatory and agreable as possible, to avoid further scrutiny.

Message 8 of 9
FretlessMayhem
Senior Contributor

Re: I sued Portfolio Recovery and won.

Today is Friday and TU has deleted. All that work to get that collection off, and my score went from 695 to 698. Ha.
Here we go again...
Message 9 of 9
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