MidnightVoice,
The CA first contacted me on March 10, 2008. They began with harassing phone calls to me at my place of employment. From the phone number that one of the CA reps recorded on my office voice mail, I researched and found out who they are. The first hard inquiry was March 12. The second was March 17. Prior to the CA contacting me, my former landlord never contacted me regarding any alleged debt to them. I moved out of the property on Sept. 30, 2007. The reason that I moved was because the landlord issued a notice to quit to me dated Sept. 6, 2007. The notice was retaliation by the landlord due to:
- My written notices to the landlord when repairs were necessary and overdue
- More written notices to address insufficient and ineffective repairs by the landlord's service technicians
- Written notices to the landlord when theft of my utilities occurred at the hand of my new neighbor who began leasing one of the landlord's additional properties in March, 2007 (utility theft was captured on camera, the landlord did nothing to address this)
- Written notices to the landlord when the new neighbor would prevent me from gaining entry to my carport by parking her vehicle to block entry to the shared driveway
- Written notices to the landlord addressing the new neighbor allowing her guests to park their vehicles blocking entry to the shared driveway.
- Notices to city code enforcement to address the new neighbor allowing her grass to grow to heights beyond 24 inches (front and backyard).
I could go on and on with the list above (as there is more), buy I'm certain you get the picture. The only conclusion that I can reach that explains the notice to quit was because the landlord didn't want to address my issues, and they got bored reading my notices for service. However, it is quite interesting that when I secured another home to lease and the realty management company contacted the former landlord for my lease payment history, they issued a glowing report in which the former landlord stated that I always paid on time, I did not owe them a debt, they had never had to take me to court for my lease payments, and they would definitely lease property to me again!
The notice to quit, according to the content, was my 30 day notice to move. My family moved out of the property on Sept. 30, 2007. Had we been in the home on October 1, 2007, I would have owed for the month of October. My lease was month-to-month. I leased the property June 2003 - September 2007. During that entire time, my lease payment was late only once which was in 2006. This was due to an error on the part of my bank that impacted my checking account and the check that had been issued to my former landlord. The error was corrected immediately and there was no problem with the landlord understanding what had occurred.
On March 19, 2008, I sent a DV letter CMRR to the CA. In return, the CA did not fully honor the validation requirements as stated by law in the letter. What they provided as their "validation" was a printout of my lease payments dating from January - September of 2007 which did not validate the debt. The CA also included a document intended to represent my lease. I compared their document to the copy of my original lease that I have and immediately noticed the differences in handwriting. Some of the content of my original lease was not included on the CA copy of the lease. My former landlord had also given the CA a copy of a confidential document bearing the social security numbers of my minor children which had been issued to my former landlord at the time that I began leasing their property. Would the unauthorized release of my children's social security numbers to the CA by the landlord be violations of the Privacy Act or Homeland Security regulations? I have also contacted the office of a local attorney with concentration on Consumer Law and Consumer Protection, Certified Fraud Examiner, and Board Certified Civil Trial Specialist.
Thanks for all of the very helpful feedback. Forgive me for the lengthy post, but I wanted to share my story with those who might be experiencing the same or similar situation.
