@vntrsc wrote:
@02cdjohn wrote:
@vntrsc wrote:
According to the new rules added to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in the Code of Federal Regulations and which went into effect November 21, 2021, a collection agency is supposed to communicate with you about the debt either by phone or letter before reporting to credit reporting agencies. If they send you a letter about the debt, they must wait at least 14 days before reporting in case the letter is returned as "undeliverable". If the letter is not returned to them as "undeliverable", the collection agency can then report.
The CFPB has determined that "about the debt" includes the validation notice (name of creditor, 30-day right to dispute and request verification, etc). They don't have to wait 30 days for you to request verification. They only have to wait the 14 days to assume you received the letter.
Now, a collection agency will claim it sent a letter. It's a sort of "he said/she said". But if your apartment application is denied due to that collection account, you should speak to a consumer attorney. You could have FDCPA violations based upon the lack of communication before reporting and for reporting an obsolete account.
Yes, go ahead and file a dispute directly with the credit reporting agencies (CRAs). That is necessary because if the collection agency verifies the account with the CRAs and it's not removed, you might want to sue the collection agency, and a dispute filed with the CRAs is the only way you could claim the collection agency violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).
ooh! I'd love to sue them. They make me sick with this crap. So... i texted my former west coast landlord (also a good friend) yesterday to ask if her tenant has a centurylink account and has been getting billed. This tenant moved in after i left for the east coast. this tenant has been at the property for 7.5 years now. 10 months after i left she complained to the landlord that she was still getting my mail. I only did mail forwarding for 6 months instead of a year. Anyway, i texted my former landlord because i wanted to be sure centurylink didn't mix up the current tenant's account with my old account at that address. my former landlord reached out to her tenant. she said that she transferred her own account and has been paying and do not owe. So now i can confirm that centurylink did not mix us up. so it's one of two things: 1) someone fraudently opened an account in my name; or 2) centurylink decided to make up some charges months and years after i moved. Again, i kept my last bill until last summer and it showed current balance $0.0 this was one month after i canceled services and moved.There is just no way in hell i now owe $5,600. And if it is #2, then SOL is up. the west coast state i lived SOL is 6 years. and i havent lived there for 7 years now. if they verify, the dispute should force them to provide the real DOFD, right?
your comment about notifying me in writing struck a chord. If the current tenant had gotten more mail for me, she would have probably told the landlord last night. so i assume this collection agency never notified me--unless they sent it to one of the other addresses on my credit report. When i pulled my report through annualcreditreport.com, i see that this collection agency did a soft pull on me in January. then placed the collection on my report in March. if they looked at my credit report in january they would have my current address. i have still received nothing in writing.
submitted dispute last night. credit score decreased 7 points **bleep**. but whatever, it is what it is.
Well, the DOFD on a credit report has nothing to with a state's SOL for collection. The date of first delinquency is the date an account goes into default and is never brought back to a current status. The credit reporting period is 7.5 years from that date.
If your account was never late, there should not be any derogatory reporting. But if they verify the account, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) specifies in 15 U.S. Code §1681s-2(a)(5) that furnishers are required to notify the CRAs of the date of delinquency withi. 90 days of first reporting. Unfortunately, there is no private right of action for failure to abide by subsection s-2(a). However, there is a private right of action under subsection s-2(b). That subsection states that furnishers are required to reported accurately and completely. Here is what the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals said about the DOFD.
"The date of delinquency enables the [CRA] to calculate the seven-year window for `aging-off' purposes—without it, the [CRA] would be unable to determine when the account had been placed for collection, rendering the `aging-off' date impossible to calculate." Seamans v. Temple Univ., 744 F.3d 853, 863 (3d Cir. 2014).
But again, if you were never late on that account, it should never have been reported as a derogatory account in the first place.
The DOFD does have to do with a state's SOL for collection--both the SOL for collection and that for credit reporting rely on the DOFD to determine when each respective clock begins to run.
In this case, you have either a new entry or a re-aged one. Either way, I'm trying to figure out how one could run up a $5600 bill for cable or internet. Sure, they may be able to add on interest or fees depending on the written agreement, but even so, this is supposedly a new delinquency based on the report showing a 2029 removal date. That's a massive amount of money that would have just gone delinquent in 2022, so not much time to add on a bunch of fees or interest. What could possibly cost that much when you get internet service???
Anyway, there are a couple of options to consider. First, absolutely dispute this with the CRAs. I would dispute it as not your debt.
I would also consider sending a certified letter to Centurylink and asking them what this account is. Inform them that you have this entry recently added on your credit, but have no idea what it is for. Ask them to provide you details such as when the account was opened, the service address, etc. The service address might be the most important part of this, because your address is something you can often rather easily prove.
Example, suppose they respond and tell you that you went delinquent on an account for internet service at 123 Main St, Anytown, USA 12345. Let's say for example they tell you that you started up this account at that address on January 4, 2022. All you need to do now to file the police report is to show proof of your address on that date--or both before and after it. An old phone bill, your driver's license, a voter registration card, anything showing your name and then-current address. So, if you live in your current address since, say, 2019, and you've lived there the whole time between then and now, you can use that as evidence that this is not an account you actually created. Showing you lived in a different town, or especially in a different state, will go a long way to establish that you didn't open that account.
