Advice on a debt from Professional Account Management?

[Anonymous]

Hello!  I decided to check my credit report recently, and was surprised to see a $300 debt in collections!  I googled the CA's name, and it seems to be an agency for the speeding cameras in DC.  While I have been to DC a few times, I never recieved any kind of ticket, and never received any collections notice from this company.  I have never dealt with anything like this before and am not sure what my first step should be.  Should I send a debt validation letter?  If validated, does anybody have any experience with whether or not this company deletes the debt from your CR once its paid?  Any help is much appreciated!!  (Also, I'm new to this forum so I hope I'm posting this correctly and in the right place.)

[RobertEG]

Becoming aware of what I call a "submarine collection" based only on the fortuitous fact that you happened to pull your own credit report and see it lingering there is one of the reasons why a requirement for dunning notice exists.  Once a debt collector initiates a commincation with a consumer regarding their collection of a debt, they are required to notify the consumer within 5 days thereafter by sending them a collection (dunning) notice, advising them of that fact, and identifying at least the amount of the asserted debt, the current owner of the debt, and of their rights to request debt verification within 30 days of that dunning notice.  The courts have routinely considered the reporting to a CRA as an event that triggers requirement for dunning notice.

They have apparently violated that requirement, resulting in harm to your credit scoring without giving you prompt notice to enable you to act on that assertion of debt.

However, the reporting itself required no prior notice, so any issue of their violation of timely dunning notice falls into a "slap them later" category that you can pursue via formal complaint to the FTC or CFPB but wont requrie deletion of their reported collection.

Any request for debt validation/verification that is sent prior to receipt of dunning notice is always timely, and thus will invoke an automatic cease collection bar on the debt collector.  However, that cease collection bar is not retroactive, so again wont apply to the already reported collection.

They can choose not to respond to your DV, and accept their "penalty" of cessation of further active collection on the debt until such time as they choose to provide the requested debt verification.

So, in summary, the decision of whether to send a DV is based on your desire to either obtain their verifcation if you doubt the legtitmacy of the debt itself, or to shut them down until they decide to verify.  It wont address their prior reporting.

If you send a DV, the cease collection bar that it imposes will bar them from any negotiations on terms of settlement of the debt, which includes either an offer to settle for less, or a pay for deletion offer on your part.  So whether to send a DV is dependent upon your next step.... do you want assurance that the debt is legit prior to discussing payment, or do you want to make a PFD offer, and attempt to both satisfy the debt and get CR deletion?

[Anonymous]

Thanks so much!  I think I'll send a DV, because I want to make sure it really was my debt before I pay it.  I don't mind paying if it really is, but I find it odd that I never got the original ticket.  If they verify the debt is mine, hopefully I can work for a PFD from there.

[Anonymous]

I will suggest you to have special tools for making your reports so that you reports can be far more better then now. Try  http://myfreeannualcreditreport.info/

[Anonymous]

PAM has an agreement with the city to delete collections once they are paid off. I just did this about a month ago. Below is a link that provides information about the agreement. In part it reads: "the collection agency has agreed to automatically send an account delete record to the credit bureaus that it utilizes. "

They won't negotiate the delete but I would verify the debt is yours and then just pay it off. My collection was deleted within a month.

http://dmv.dc.gov/service/ticket-collections

[hnycaraml]

Hello,

I just paid several tickets from DC with Professional Account Management.  I know that I am responding late, but can you advise how long after payment it took for the items to be removed from your credit report?  You said in a month, but i was wondering if it was actual thirty days or longer.  I am trying to buy a car, and any deletion I can get puts me closer to getting approved for a loan.

Thank you,

Dayo

[Miscellamy]

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@hnycaraml wrote:

Hello,

I just paid several tickets from DC with Professional Account Management.  I know that I am responding late, but can you advise how long after payment it took for the items to be removed from your credit report?  You said in a month, but i was wondering if it was actual thirty days or longer.  I am trying to buy a car, and any deletion I can get puts me closer to getting approved for a loan.

Thank you,

Dayo

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Mine were deleted almost immediately. I don't remember the specifics but I do recall that it was really fast. Within a few days. 

DC and their traffic cameras . . . grumble grumble.

[hnycaraml]

Thank you Misellamy for responding.  I do appreciate it.  I have finally found a job, and am working on PFDs for some of my items, or just simply paying them off.  I want to get where you are in score range, and creditworthiness for a CC.  Since I know I should not expect instant miracles, I am going to wait the full 30 days and check my report and score later in June (have already done it for May).  I have a few more tickets to pay with Professional Account Management, but wanted to make sure they actually do what they promise before I hand over more money.

Thanks!

[Miscellamy]

I remember being nervous too (although when I checked my notes, I see that I had already paid my tickets and just had to call PAM to get them to update their reporting). But it did update very quickly. 

If you're interested, here's my rebuilding thread: http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Rebuilding-Your-Credit/My-story-so-far-and-request-for-advice-moving... I definitely got lucky: I had been in "fake" rebuilding mode for so long when I started in earnest that most of my baddies were old and/or paid, and I think that helped. But I couldn't believe what a difference it made to get some of that negative reporting off my credit file. Good luck!