Response to dunning notice

[marathonmama24]

Hello all. It's been a while, I'm a little rusty at this.

When my husband and I bought our home in April 2015, we had our cable service move from our old address to our new address. They had us return all the equipment, in boxes they supplied (though it took a while and several requests to get them mailed to us), and set our new home up with new equipment. They sent us to collections over a debt they say we owed, but when we contacted them about it, they said over the phone that they were "not a collection agency", and wouldn't take our payment. Later, they said that it should have never gone to collections, and they agreed to remove it. That was all the original company.

A few weeks ago, I got a dunning notice from a new company trying to collect on the same debt the orig. company said was in error and agreed to lift. What should my response letter say?

[RobertEG]

Send them a standard request for debt validation.

Make sure to send no later than 30 days from the date of their dunning notice.

I would include an explantaion in your DV request that the creditor agreed that there was no debt, and that it should not be placed for collection.

That will put them on specific notice that any verification of the debt should include their investigation of that assertion.

How they obtained collection authority when the creditor stated there was no debt that was subject to any collection is a mystery.

Personally, I would also call the creditor and inquire as to whether they assigned any collection authority to the named debt collector.

That could be useful should the debt collector respond with validation of the debt.

[Anonymous]

Ask for validation of the debt, I would also call the original company and ask them what the deal is. They can always pull back a debt, I would also send the company anything you have in writing, and if you don't have anything start demanding whatever you can get in writing to create a paper trail for yourself.