Inquiry Letter - Response

[Anonymous]

I sent out letters to various companies that have pulled inquiries over the last year asking what they were for. Today I got an answer back stating the company had purchased a credit card debt from an OC therefor the inquiry was permissable. Also, that company sent me their first debt collector communication requesting $.

My question is... what do I do now? The OC DOFD is 3/2008 with a balance showing (the SOL here is 5 years). The CA isn't on my report (yet). Do I DV? I don't have the funds to request a PFD at this time.  Not sure ignoring it is a good option whereas that's what put us in this situation in the first place. 

[Shogun]

This would be first contact so a DV would be timely.  Get that in the mail!

[Anonymous]

I'm on it.  Thank you so much Shogun! 

[Mtgrizgirl]

How do you DV?

[guiness56]

You send a 3rd party collection agency a request for debt validation.

I found this account ___________on my credit report, please validate.

[RobertEG]

There is a relatively obscure permissible purpose under the FCRA that permits a potential investor or servicer to obtain a consumer credit report to evaluate or assess an existing credit obligation as to potential risks associated with acquring that obligation.  Investors obviously have pull with congress.

See FCRA 604(a)(3)(E).

Of course, once they acqire the account, they have other permissible purpose.

So the issue is one of whether it is required to be coded as soft vs hard, not whether they had permissible purpose.

The FCRA does not regulate coding, so that is an issue to take up with the CRA, who makes it a point not to publish their procedures for coding of inquiries.