Yesterday my husband received a letter from someone attempting to collect on a debt. I have no idea what this debt could be about, so I was going to send a letter to verify it. However this particular letter poses many questions for me.
A) the letter was sent to the wrong address. For all I know, the bills for whatever this item could be have been going to this address for months or years without my knowledge, and the neighbor who has been receiving them may have been refusing the letters or throwing them away because they weren't for them.
b) the letter itself was a "discount offer", not a first demand for payment.
The best I can tell, this is at least the second company trying to collect, as this letter references the debt being owed to some other collections agency instead of any possible original creditor I recognize.
What is my next step? Do I send a debt verification letter which will confirm my address? Sorry if this question is dumb.
Hi,
Not a dumb quesiton at all. I want to ask though, because this will help not only I, but others understand. Did you send these letters via certified mail? The reason why is:
To have a paper trail/receipt of the letter being sent so you can leverage your rights during the time clock the collector has to respond, and also know they received the letter. You can also use this method as proof when validating the collection with the bureaus also, by using the certified mail receipt as proof a letter was sent originally, also with CFPB too, since you can upload documents when filing a complaint.
knowing this will help navigate your process better!
My apologies if I wasn't clear. I haven't sent any letter yet. I was more inquiring if I should?
