So confused - I need help

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I will try that.

I assume OC is original creditor.

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Correct.

[Anonymous]

All right, just got off the phone with Century Link. They could not find my husband's account, based on his name and address. I think my next step should be to send the collection agency a debt verification letter? How can I use in my favor the fact that they sent us no notification of this collection?

[RobertEG]

I would like to take care of these two items, since the sum is small, they are new and the damage is substantial. How do I do it, though?

a) Call CL/Charter, pay the debt with them directly, then send a debt validation to the collection agencies, and hope they won't be able to validate it and take it off the raports?

 No.  If you pay the OC, then the debt is satisfied, and the debt collector must close their collection, and update the reported balance under collection to $0.

They do not have to delete their collection.

If you send a DV letter, they have no requirement to ever respond.  A timely DV only invokes a cease collection bar on the debt collector.  It does not set any period for or requirement to respond.  Since payment has been made, their collection is already terminated, and thus a cease collection bar would be meaningless.  They will simply ignore it.

b) Send a debt validation to the collection agencies, then follow up wth a PFD ( offering a smaller amount or the full one? sort of confused here), and a GW if they don't agree to the PDF?

If you send a timey DV to the debt collector, that will place them under a cease collection bar, precluding them from any PFD or settlement negotiations with you.  With no period in which they must respond, you are in limbo until they choose to respond, and thus cannot plan on when PFD or settlement negotiations can begin.

You either send a DV and wait for verification, or you forgo the DV.

c) Some other way of tackling them that I can't think of now?

Decide wihether or not you wish to pay the debt and forgo debt validation.  If you wish to pay, then send a PFD and hope they agree to deletion of the collections.

[Anonymous]

Thank you, Robert. We are not getting any type of collection phones or letter, actually, we have heard nothing from them. We only know of this debt from CK. I am willing to pay for it, since we would like to get a house in the next couple of years and I assume a paid collection is slightly better than an unpaid one.

With CenturyLink claiming they have no record of his account (I gave them the name and the address where he had service), I would be tempted to do a DV. I wouldn't like to update the collectors on our address though.

So If I send them a Debt Validation letter, I cannot send a POF later on, even if they didn't repond to the DV?

[Anonymous]

Bumping myself up shamelessly.

[Anonymous]

Credit Karma update:

His two collection that were dropped off and being added to my cards resulted in a big boost. Went from mid 500s to almost 700. Makes me wonder how much his real score changed.

Will be sending the first debt validation letter next week. Give them a month to reply and, if not, send them a PIF letter.

I am waiting for the America express to pop up on both of our accounts (don't know why it is taking so long), then I will try to get a Capital one Platinum again. He applied and was rejected a couple of weeks ago, so I am going to wait for at least 30 days to try again. If they reject him again, we wil go for the secured card.

[Anonymous]

Updating my thread.

This morning I decided to apply again to Capital One Platinum, and succes! 300$ unsecured. I am happy. It isn't much, but it's a start. He's got 0 anual fee, wt heck, they only gave me 0 on my first year, then 19 starting the second year. I am not sure if this card can graduate to Quicksilver, but I will give them a call and ask as I am approaching the end of the year.

He's got one card of his own and is authorized on three of mine.

Time to get rid of some baddies and garden a bit, then diversify. 

[Anonymous]

Get his real scores at cct for a dollar. Worth it.

[Anonymous]

Will get real scores soon.

Meanwhile, I have tried to pay a collection, but could not find the account on their site according to the data they gave me. I emailed them about it and they took that as a DV request. That was a month ago, still waiting.

The second collection fell off on its own. It was 5 years away from the 7 years mark, so I don't know what happened. I fear it might return when we apply for a house mortgage, but I can't do much about it now.

Something strange happened. According to CC, he lost 10 points on Experian because two accounts started reporting. They are closed, go back to 2004 and show no payment due and no missed payment date. Then why would the score drop? At the same time, his CC started reporting and one collection fell off, so everything was positive.