Next step?

[dursty87]

I had a collection pop up on my credit report a few months ago that I have no clue what it's for. It appears to be a medical collection from 2012. I had insurance the entire year and never had anything crazy happen that year(ER visits, ambulance, etc). I called my insurance company which is the same today as it was 5 years ago and they have no record of any unpaid balance from that year, let alone $1300 which is what the CA is reporting I owe.

After it popped up on my CR(Experian and EQ) I disputed it and it came back verified almost immediately. So, I sent a DV to the CA(this was in August/September) and never heard back. In fact, 2 weeks after sending the DV it popped up on TU which is weird because I thought they had to cease collection activities until they validate. I never received a dunning notice. I still haven't received a response from the CA so I'm not sure what my options are at this point. I am 99.99% sure this debt is not mine.

[RobertEG]

As for the effect of your DV request, if you never received a dunning notice, then your DV request was timely, meaning it imposed a cease collection bar, which remains in effect until such time as they send the requested debt validation.

The FDCPA imposes no period within which a debt collector must provide debt validation.  They can choose to delay or never respond.

Violation occurs if they conduct any collection on the debt prior to sending validation.

Yes, there is case law that provides basis for assertion that reporting to a CRA is a violation of the cease collection bar.

You can either file a complaint with the CFPB of the violation of FDCPA 809(b) or you can file a civil action for the violation, and collection $1,000.

Alternately, if you feel that you can make the statement that you never had any debt with the asserted creditor, then you can obtain a block of their reporting from your credit report by filing a police report and following the identity theft procedure set forth in FCRA 605B.  See the sticky post in the upper section of the General Credit Topics forum for a detailed discussion of the Identity Theft proceess.