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I got a call from Midland about an account. They gave me a settlement offer and told me they would report it "paid in full". I told them they were not currently reporting and I would pay the entire balance if they agreed in writing that it wouldn't be reported. I was told no, they would be in violation if they did that. They faxed me a settlement offer. My response pointed out that it was perfectly acceptable for businesses to not report anything, but that reporting a settled account with paid in full was, in fact, reporting inaccurate information, and repeated my request. I told them that if this offer was unaccepted within 5 days, I would be sending a formal DV pursuant to.....I haven't gotten any response, including the formal dunning letter. Their time is up and I have the DV ready to mail. They still aren't reporting, they haven't called anymore...
What I'm wondering is, should I let it ride for now, or send the DV. Does the settlement offer cover their formal obligation for written contact? I'm new to this...do I have to wait for that letter to request DV?
All I can say is good luck, a lot of members (including me) have been having a lot of trouble with them this past month. I actually now have a stack of 7 letters stating that they will not and can not remove anything valid. I personally think it is weird they contacted you before they posted in on your reports.
They can report it as paid without any reference to settled for less. That is not inaccurate reporting.
When any debt is "settled," be it for the full amount or for an agreed lesser amount, they report the same current status to the CRA, which is simply "Paid." They update the current balance owed to $0.
There is no such thing as a current status that reflects how, and for how much, the debt was settled. When a debt is settled for less than the full amount, that fact can be separately reported to the CRAs by way of an additional Special Comment code, stating "settled for less than the full amount of the debt."
It appears that they are just stating that they wont report that additional special comment, and thus your file will not reflect the settled for less.
It might be just semantics, but does "paid in full" mean "not paid for less?"
Again, there is no such thing as reporting paid in full. Paid is settled.
Paid in full is implied by the absence of a comment that it was settled for less.
If they never sent you dunning notice, then, aside from the fact that they are in violation of FDCPA 809(a), any DV you send at this point would be timely.
Thus, it would invoke an automatic cease collection bar.
That could be good or bad, depending on your needs. If getting verification of the debt before proceeding is important for whatever reason, or you want to impose a temporary bar against credit reporting, then by all means DV.
However, it will shut down any negotiations with them until such time as they decide to provide debt verification.
It depends on your intended next step...