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So today in the mail I get a letter from Northland Group, Inc. saying that an account of mine has been assigned to them for collection, and that they're offering me a settlement amount.
The account in question was an old Capital One account with a date of last activity of 11/2000. This account is nowhere on any of my credit reports. The only reason I have any information on this account at all is that I have one very old Experian credit report from 2005, and it's on there.
I would like some input regarding what I should do.
I live in Ohio, where the SOL for credit card accounts is six years, if that makes any difference.
@gamegrrl wrote:So today in the mail I get a letter from Northland Group, Inc. saying that an account of mine has been assigned to them for collection, and that they're offering me a settlement amount.
The account in question was an old Capital One account with a date of last activity of 11/2000. This account is nowhere on any of my credit reports. The only reason I have any information on this account at all is that I have one very old Experian credit report from 2005, and it's on there.
I would like some input regarding what I should do.
I live in Ohio, where the SOL for credit card accounts is six years, if that makes any difference.
Do you have any idea what the date of first deliquency for this CC is ? DOFD is the point in time where the account first became deliquent without catching up, prior to being charged off.
The credit reporting time period would be 7.5 from the DOFD. Also I believe that the clock for the SOL usually starts at the DOFD as well.
According to this page from my old credit report, the DOFD for this account was 10/2003.
Looking more closely, here is what the report says:
Date of Last Payment11/2000
Date Maj Delinquency First Reported 10/2003
Date of Last Activity11/2000
Date Reported08/2005
While the actual DOFD is not provided among the reported dates, the most logical inference is that it must have preceded the date of last payment, as only a payment could have placed the account back into good standing, and thus reset the DOFD. You can assume the DOFD preceded 11/2000.
However, that is all a bit academic, as the fac that it is not appearing in your CR is the best evidency of all that its CR exclusion period has passed. They are fishing for an unknowledgeable consumer who will just send out payment......
Being past both its SOL and CR exclusion date, there are three options:
1. Pay it, if it is nonetheless accurate and you wish to satisfy the debt;
2. Send them a DV within 30-days of receipt of their dunning notice, thus invoking a complete cease collection bar on them; which includes communications or any other collection activity; or
3. Send them a cease further communication letter under FDCPA 805(c), thus permanently barring communications with you.
Personally, I would send them a DV, and if they should verify, which is unlikely, then immediately hit them with the less-restritive cease communication letter.
So given the dates I posted for the account, asking them to verify is asking them to do the impossible, correct?
I also see on the letter that the original creditor is Capital One, and the CURRENT creditor is LVNV Funding. Does having an additional creditor in the mix affect any of the advice you've given?
The age of the debt may make it more difficult to verify, but certainly not impossible.
The statute requires only that they "obtain verification" and communicate that fact to you. It does not require them to provide written documentation to prove their finding of verification.
They now own the debt, so may very well have sufficient records to verify. Hard to say.
You appear to have both a time-barred debt and a collection past its CR exclusion date. So, ultimately, their ability to verify is not that important.
If they do verify, you can then just send a cease communication letter and forget them.
Alternately, you could just send a cease communication letter and forgo any debt verification request.
Thanks for the helpful responses!
So does the SOL apply to the state a debtor lives in, or the state the credit card company is in? I seem to vaguely recall reading something somewhere about Capital One putting wording in their fine print that trumps state laws or something. Does that ring a bell with anyone?
So Robert, the time-barred debt issue has to do with whether or not I can be sued, and the CR exclusion date refers to the fact that the account is too old to be on my credit report, correct? Given the dates I gave above, I think you're right that this is both a time-barred debt and a collection past its CR exclusion date.
If that is true, then do I really need to do anything at all?
Oh, and is this what's referred to as "Zombie Debt"?
@gamegrrl wrote:Oh, and is this what's referred to as "Zombie Debt"?
Yep, it's old, out of SOL, past CRTP debt that pops up....disappears, then pops back up again.....