I recently send a PFD letter to AFNI for two collection accounts that were showing on my credit report. One is originally from Verizon of MD for $40 from an account I closed probably 6 years ago. I don't remember if I owed a balance when I closed the account- I thought I was paid up. The other one is from Verizon of West Virginia- with whom I've never had an account- for $181. I sent the standard PFD letter, not acknowledging that these were in fact my debts, since it's possible that they're mistakes- but offering to pay them in full just to get rid of them.
They interpreted my letter as a dispute, and have sent me a letter saying that they cannot resolve the dispute until they recieve the following information from me: the specific information I am disputing, an explanation of the basis of my dispute, a valid phone number to contact me, and all supporting documents to substantiate my claim- examples given are a photocopy of my drivers license, id page of my passport, proof of residency at time of service, receipts, etc.
Now, my gut reaction to this is- I don't freaking think so! Am I wrong in thinking that THEY are the ones who need to provide proof that I had an account with them and owe a balance? If they don't have enough documentation to do so, the burden does not fall on ME to prove that I DON'T owe them money... right? What do I do in response to their letter? It says to call them, but I don't intend to do that. I would prefer to handle this with letters so there's documentation.
The other question I have is about a duplicate account that's showing up on my credit reports. It's a settled collection account with Target from 4 or 5 years ago. This is a legitimate entry, but it shows up twice. There are two different entries for it, with all the same information: date account opened, credit limit, date of last payment, etc.- but two different account numbers. It's clearly a typo or mistake- the two account numbers are identical, except that one is missing the last two digits. I disputed this with Equifax and they sent back a letter saying it had been verified with Target as being accurate! And it actually hurt my credit score, becase the one difference was that the one had said "bad debt/charged off" in one of the fields, and the other had been blank- and now after disputing it they updated it so they both say "bad debt!"
What can I do about this? Do I write Target and ask them to validate these accounts? One of those numbers has to be an invalid account number- it's not even the right number of digits! What do I ask for in terms of proof?
Thanks so much for any advice you can give.
