DIVERSIFIED CONSULTANTS / AFNI: both reporting same Collection

[tufa4311]

Helping another friend with a Collections account. Facts:

AFNI

$101 Past Due as of Jan 2016

Original Creditor: SPRINT

DIVERSIFIED CONSULTANTS

$102 Past Due as of July 2015

Original Creditor: SPRINT

These are both listed as a Collections account on his credit report and he says they are both from the same Sprint account. I assume DIVERSIFIED CONSULTANTS gave up and sold the debt to AFNI.

I'll be able to school him on best practices/ PFD etc (as well as pointing him to myFico to do his own research) but what leverage does one have against a collections account that has alreay been sold but still reporting?

Are they allowed to still report if they no longer own the debt? I think they do...

And, what to use as leverage against DS if they no longer own the debt to get them to stop reporting?

[Anonymous]

You can dispute them as 'not having collection authority'.

[RobertEG]

There is no requriment in eitther the FCRA or FDCPA that a debt collector must delete their reported collection if they no longer have collection authority, but it is a requirment of the CRAs, and is incorportated into their credit reporting manual and credit reporting agreements.

The purpose of that CRA policy is to prevent two collections from simultaneously being incuded in your credit report.

It only applies when their collection authority has been terminated with the debt remaining unpaid.

Send the CRA a dispute over the lack of deletion of the first collection citing, as was recommended, the reason that they no longer have collection authority.

[RonM21]

Agree. Once the CA no longer owns it and it is unpaid, you can dispute in this situation.

[tufa4311]

Passed along the info - he gave DIVERSIFIED CONSULTANTS call, shared the info you guys mentioned, and DC said they'd remove the reporting with 15-30 days.