what happens when account gets sold?

[rootpooty]

trying to help a friend. when an account from a ca gets sold and the new one starts reporting does the one that gets sold supposed to report as sold transfered closed with a zero balance and then the new balance would reflect from the new ca reporting. its for an old util bill for 379 reporting as closed/transfered sold then the new collection agency is reporting it for 400 something and now it looks like he burned the same company for 2 different amounts.

sorry if this looks confusing so the question is the account that is sold, does it have to report a zero balance and then the new balance would be reported by the new ca or is this whole ball game the ca's are playing legit? so what happends if the new ca sells the account and the same thing happens again? also when a ca sells the account to a new ca does it ding the score twice for the same debt?

[jordanmedical]

This just happened to me after a DV. I called the original CA and demanded they deleted it, I'm told it'll be deleted June 1st. They no longer own the debt so I'd advised them, they can no longer report on it.

[RobertEG]

You are correct.   A debt collector who owns the debt is required to maintain the accuracy of their reporting.  Once sold, they no longer either own the debt or have continued authority to collect on it.  Technically, what a debt collector reports is the amount they are authorized to attempt collection.  It could either be through assignment of collection authority from the owner, or actual ownership.  Either way, once collection authority is terminated, they are required to update the amount they are authorized to collect to $0, and close the collection.  Deletion of the collection is optional, but many will in order to avoid any disputes from the consumer.

If a new debt collector does receive collection authority, either by way of assignment or ownership of the debt, they are then authorized to report.  Nothing prevents two debt collectors from reporting their own, separate collection on the same debt. 

I would assume that the FICO algorithm is sophisticated enough to recognize the origination of the debt as being the same, and score as only a single collection.  However, I have never seen anything concrete establishing this to be a fact.

[rootpooty]

the first ca isnt reporting a zero balance though. its reporting as closed but with 379 balance and the new ca that apparently bought the debt bumped up the balance to a little over 400. he made the mistake of calling the first ca the one that is listed as closed and they told him the reporting is accurate cause the 379 is what was owed to them when they sold it so they have to report what was owed but they did update it to closed. he then disputed it with transunion and all it did was come back verified. so as it looks on transunion that he burned the same utility company twice on 2 seperate amounts