Up until today, I'd have dismissed that talk as crazy conspiracy theory, but I think you might be on to something. If nothing else, it is a HELL of a coincidence if there WEREN'T any shenanigans going on there. I think it's downright deceitful to lie in wait until you *know* that the consumer will be up against a wall to pounce. In this case, it seems like they knew waiting the full 30 days would put me in the clear for the mortgage, so they sprung early. It'd be nice if I had confidence that the law were actually on my side, and saying I have 30 days to dispute or request validation meant that I had 30 days before any other action were taken, but I don't. What's sad is that as far as credit reporting goes, consumers have more protection than we've pretty much *ever* had in the US. Or maybe a bit less, but certainly way better than 1977 (when I was born).
Shew, I do go off on rants, don't I? Sorry about that.
I hit a bump in the road because I realized that I may have sent the validation request to the wrong address. They tell you waaaaay up at the top of the letter to "...address all future correspondence and payments concerning this account to this address...", and then draw a highlighted box around a PO Box in Newark, NJ, but then in the Wall 'o Text (tm) near the bottom of the page, they say "All dispute correspondence should be mailed to:..." then give a physical address in Bethlehem, PA. Personally, I think that's more than a little misleading because anybody with a half a brain cell would read "all future correspondence" to also mean disputes and requests for validation, though I'm sure there's at least one court of law out there who would disagree. Anywho, I printed off a new letter to mail to the dispute address, so hopefully my bases are covered.
Does anybody think I have a snowball's chance of getting this taken care of before the closing, or will the bank see the accounts as one in the same (maybe) and let me squeak by, or am I just going to have to squeeze that turnip a little more and hope there's a few drops left?
*sigh* And things were going so swimmingly so far with this...