I suggest the following ste-by-step guide for dealing with debt collectors.
1. When and how did you become aware that a debt collector was initiating collection activites on the debt?
Once a debt collector is assigned collection authority by an OC, they dont have to notify you of this until such time as they
begin active collection activities with you. To provide you timely notice of your rights, FDCPA 809(a) requires a debt collector
to send you a formal collection (dunning) notice within 5-days of any initial communication with you. This includes posting to your
credit report. You should not have to monitor your CR to become aware of a reporting of a CA by a debt collector.
If a debt collector posts to your CR and does follow that up by sending you a formal dunning notice within 5-days thereafter,
they are in violation of FDCPA 809(a).
2. You can request debt validation (DV) at any time you become aware of a debt collector.
Typically, you first become aware of debt collection by your receipt of their dunning notice, but you dont have to have received
a dunning notice to request DV.
3. Once you receive a dunning notice, that sets the period in which you can send a DV letter that compels the debt collector to cease
all further collection activities until such time as they respond with validation. That period is 30-days.
You can still send a DV after 30-days, but if the debt collector chooses to hold it as untimely, they can just continue their
collection activities without first providing validation. Most report from their experiences that debt collectors rarely exercise
a holding of untimeliness of a DV, so you can always send one.
4. The content of your DV letter does not need to be expansive, but sometimes a more expansive DV letter is, in my opinion, warranted.
Requests for debt "validation" can vary in content. The term "debt validation" embraces both "debt verification" and a request for the
full name and address of the original creditor, if you separately request it.
Additionlly, one of the flaws of the entire DV process is that FDCPA 809(a) simply does not define what constitutes proper
"debt validation." I suggest that, in your DV letter, you take the inititive to specify what you consider as proper verification, unless
you will be satisfied with a simple statement by them that they verify the debt. Debt verification does not require legal prooof on
their part. I would, at a minimum, require an itemized listing.
Here is a suggested plain-vanilla DV letter:
"This is a request for debt validation under FDCPA 809(a). This is not a dispute of credit reporting under the FCRA.
I request, as minimal verification of the debt, a detailed listing of all items of the asserted debt, including the original credtitor debt,
any interest accurued to date, and any fees asserted as due to you."
If you additionally want the full name and addess of the OC, include another sentence to that effect.
If the debt collector has failed to provide you timely dunning notice, then I would additionally include the folllowing, in order to put
them on notice of their vioalation, should you later want to file a complaint:
"It is noted that you posted a collection to my credit report on (date), and did not thereafter provide me a timely collection notice
within 5-days thereafter. Thus, your credit reporting was negatively affecting my credit score without notice to me thereof, and was
thus denying me the timely ability to address this reporting. I consider you to be in violation of FDCPA 809(a)"
5. As a separate matter, if you dispute the accuracy of the debt itself, then the separte issue of a dispute under FCRA 611(a) or
FCRA 623(a)(8) might be in order. Disputes of accuracy of credit reporting are totally separate from the DV process.
