Hi everyone. At the beginning of August my parents received a letter addressed to me from a collection agency in Colorado called Boettcher & Associates. Appears to be some kind of nonsense lawfirm extension of a collection agency called BC Services Inc. My parents live in the midwest. The agency claimed they had an account for me from a power company, and the account is about 600 bucks. In the letter it said absolutely nothing of detail, only that they had just acquired an account that was for me. I could barely figure out who the creditor even supposedly was. As of June 2013, nothing of this account was reflected on my Transunion, and as of December 2012, this was not reflected on any of the major 3.
I did not call. I wrote them a certified letter saying I wanted to validate the debt, that they couldn't call me, the usual validation. I didn't provide any more information than they already had in the letter, I didn't even sign it with my hand. They sent me a single letter back, and this is all it says:
"We are in receipt of your letter of dispute. Pursuant to our obligation under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, our office has undertaken a reasonable investigation into your dispute. In acknowledgement of your dispute, we have requested the account be reported with the consumer reporting agency as disputed. Consumer reporting agencies may take up to 30 days or longer to update reports and this is beyond our control. We have also requested additional documentation from our client to resolve this matter to provide for you and will forward on that information once we receive it. Should you have any questions regarding this account or if you wish to discuss payment arrangements, please feel free to contact us at the number below. We look forward to helping you resolve this matter."
Is this a bull**bleep** response?
My first thought: I didn't acknowledge the debt. I didn't say it was mine, I did not write that it was mine, I didn't pay them, nothing. All I wrote, was literally "This is an attempt to validate this alleged debt."
My second thought: I'm not sure what they need to get ahold of my credit report. However, this power company doesn't have my social security number. All they have on me is a first and last name, and the address of my parents house (where this didn't occur), and POSSIBLY my cell number, I never even signed anything for them so they don't have a signature on any document either. I'm not sure how they got my parents address. I don't even know if they have my phone number. I've never received any calls, letters, anything about this. This particular power company I only used for a place I lived in for about 6 months, and I'm not even sure this is my account. This was in Fall 2008 to Spring 2009. My exit from that residence was abrupt and short, but I left on good terms with the land lord. I cannot remember if I ever called to tell the power I was leaving. I never had tv, or anything else I'd need to call and shut off. My time there was termporary, and not intended to be long term. I never had my power shut off or anything while I was there.
So what do I do now? Are they seriously going to ding my credit report over something before they even validate it? I laughed at how they wrote it, it sounds like cuz I wrote this letter they feel like they're going to blast my credit as revenge? I'm not going to contact them. It seems like an attempt to get me to call and start to panic. I thought it was amusing they didn't even have the paperwork of the account even on hand. It was interesting they spent more typespace in that letter talking about the credit agencies than the actual account or validation.
What do you guys think? What should I do now? Thanks for everything.
