PRA flagged my collection account.

[Shadowfactor]

My last collection is with PRA. Sent them several letters offering PFD, tried to call them about it. They claim they never got my letter. I’ve mailed 4 so far certified mail with return so I know that they received it.

The accounts have been reporting incorrectly as either a factoring company or an installment account. It updated about 7 days ago and changed back to factoring company account from installment. Still has the status open.

I read some members had some success getting PRA to delete the account with CFPB and BBB complaints. So I filed complaints with both places. Portfolio Recovery finally responded to my CFPB complaint that they were verifying the account with the CRA’s and would update it. They were also supposed to change the DOFD from 2016 to 2014.

This appeared this morning
https://ibb.co/d1iZ7R

I pulled my report from Experian. Only the report since I can’t get a new score update having gotten one 2 days ago. It’s back to showing as an installment loan.
Worse it’s now got an open date of 01/2018. It used to be opened 02/2016 So I’m assuming they re-aged my debt.

Tried to dispute it with Experian online, but it said my dispute needed special assistance and I would have to call.
What is that about ?

Any advice on what I can do about this ? They are a royal pain in my side. I’ve tried PFD letters, contacting them, emailing an executive in the disputes department.

Considering hiring an attorney to deal with this.

[Anonymous]

A bunch of things going on here.

1. You can't use a credit monitoring site to handle disputes.  Only paper reports, period.  This is because the credit monitoring sites don't (generally) show you DOFD.  You said that PRA re-aged the debt, but you haven't shown proof of that at all.  I'd be careful telling things like that to the BBB and the CPFB if what you're saying is provably false.
2. You called the CRAs?  Nice wrong terrible move.  Calling the CRAs is like calling Santa Claus.  All communications regarding disputed tradelines should be done strictly by CMRRR USPS mail to the CRAs, period.  Don't let Santa's helpers offshore try to assist you over the phone, because at worst they can screw your tradeline up even more and make it stick worse.  If you've been calling the CRAs for disputes, no wonder you're having issues.
3. You are being impatient regarding this debt, obviously.  You've contacted everyone multiple times but you probably contacted them incorrectly, using the wrong contact method, or using the wrong dispute resolution wording.  This can cause you to be flagged as a frivolous disputer which makes it harder to get rid of.

In general, before doing disputes, you should always do a lot of research first.  Then, never do telephone disputes or disputes based on credit monitoring site data.

When you dispute, you only dispute:

1. Using a paper report, including the paper report # from the CRAs
2. Using CMRRR USPS to the CRAs
3. Using CMRRR USPS to the data furnisher IF you have a reason to actually communicate with them.  I can't imagine why you would have ever contacted PRA by any method but mail and for any reason other than "PFD" period.

Now, if they are lying by phone about not receiving your letter, THAT is worthy of a BBB/CPFB letter.  I wouldn't say I was offering PFD, I would say I sent certified letters by mail to discuss payment options and they are refusing to respond.  That's it, nothing else.  Send them a copy of the CMRRR receipts and tell them that if they don't want to discuss payment, they must immediately remove all derogatory information from your credit reports as you have contacted them multiple times in good faith at high cost of time and postage.

What you really need to do is cut your phone cord or hit your smartphone with a hammer and stop relying on it for credit building purposes.  It's your second biggest enemy.

[Shadowfactor]

Thank you for the reply ABC.

To clear things up.

I have never done a dispute over the phone for any issues. I did dispute the collection account in the past through each credit agency’s dispute center online. Not through a credit monitoring service but through the direct dispute option directly through the 3 agencies own website.
I will take your advice and only do paper disputes if the need ever arises in the future.

I was just speculating that they re-aged. I never put anything like that in writing and didn’t plan on it. I was simply just asking because of a new account reporting date. This just happened this morning so that’s why I was asking for advice since I didn’t want to make any false statements. I will get paper copies and review per your advice.

No I haven’t called the credit agencies at all. I was simply posting what experians website said about disputing the account. It said this dispute needed special handling and to call. I never actually did, since this just happened this morning and I wanted advice on how to precede.
But per your advice I won’t be calling , and will be doing a paper copy if I need to in the future. I am still doing research and trying to figure out the best way to handle this situation.
If you have any advice that would be greatly appreciated.

The PFD letters I’ve sent were taken from the internet based on what members of the forum stated in older topics. I used one of those letters.

The only contact I’ve had with PRA was mailing them PFD letters and 2 phone calls trying to discuss the PFD letters. I did recently send them a letter about the incorrect reporting and how I’ve sent them several letters about PFD and haven’t received any response. Asking them if we could please come to an agreement for PFD. It went in the same envelope

[RobertEG]

The normal CRA procedure after receiving a dispute is to send a copy, along with your supporting documentation, to the furnisher via their electronic dispute process, referred to as e-Oscar.  They use e-Oscar for over 90% of their referrals to the furnisher of the disputed information.

Apparrently, they have concluded that your request for a dispute will require special dispute processing.

I would suggest sending a paper dispute to the CRA, and forgo an online dispute, as you apparently are either asserting something that needs more than a check box dispute, or requires supplemental documents.

As for your CFPB complaint, you apparently have not yet heard from the CFPB, so it is premature to speculate on their response.

However, the first step in any resolution of an assertion of inaccurate reporting should be a formal dispute, providing the furnisher the opportunity to respond and either verify or correct.  I would not expect the CFPB to intervene until a dispute resolution has been provided.

If the assertion is that they are incorrectly reporting as a factoring company or the debt as an installment, those items dont go to the legitimacy of the debt per se, and thus would not be basis for deletion of their entire collection, so I dont see the basis for asserting deletion based on the ultimate determination of the accuracy of those items.

[Adkins]

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@Shadowfactor wrote:

I pulled my report from Experian. Only the report since I can’t get a new score update having gotten one 2 days ago. It’s back to showing as an installment loan.
Worse it’s now got an open date of 01/2018. It used to be opened 02/2016 So I’m assuming they re-aged my debt. No. They didn't "re-age" your debt. They updated the reporting of the debt to current. The last time they reported on it was 2016, and now they've reported on it in 2018, hence the date change. Your DOFD doesn't change. 

[Shadowfactor]

I’ve heard back from the Company through the CFPB complaint. PRA said it would verify the reporting with the Credit Agencies and fix any issues. The CFPB accepted that answer and closed the complaint as of today.

I wasn’t expecting the CFPB to get it deleted per se. it would have been nice to have that happen. But I was really hoping to use the incorrect reporting to get PRA to finally respond and open PFD talks.

I have no problem paying the debt. I just would prefer if there was a way to get it removed when paying. I don’t see a lot of incentive to pay it, if it’s not going to go anywhere. It’s past SOL. Paid collections and unpaid collections affect my credit score the same until FICO9 starts being used. Once I pay it, I loose the little bargaining chip I have for deletion.

[Adkins]

The debt might be past the SOL, but your score is going to take a hit now because before the debt was last updated in 2016 but now it's been updated to 2018. Current collections hurt much more than collections that are over two years old. The only way to recover any points will be to let it age again, or pay it to zero or do both. It will really hurt your score if they start updating it monthly from now on. 

[Shadowfactor]

PRA has been updating it every single month since 2016 when they bought it. I did see that on the paper copy of my Experian report from December 2017.

I got my FICO score from Experian this morning when the alert triggered a new credit report for the account flagging. It didn’t change any since it went up to 668 when the other 2 collections I had got removed. I will see if it changes tomorrow.

[Adkins]

If it's already been updating monthly, then nothing should change, score wise. 

[Shadowfactor]

Any advice on dealing with PRA or suggestions on things I can do/ say/ write to maybe get some sort of settlement discussion out of them