Charged Off CC reporting a 30 day late this month after dispute??

[Anonymous]

I recently disputed my Providian account.  The account went deliquent in 2001 and has not updated in years, but has been reporting a balance the whole time.  This account has been handled by several collection agencies over the years.  However, when looking through my records, I do not see anywhere that the account was transferred or sold.  I believe that they were listed as the "assignee", which, if I am correct, means that they are collecting on behalf of Providian...not that they are the owners of the account.  I looked into this only after I disputed it because I was bewildered by what happened.  I disputed, stating that the account had been transferred, therefore Providian should not be reporting a balance.  Providian (apparantly) validated the account (with the balance still reporting), but only with EQ (the account was deleted off of TU and EX), and then the next month, reported that I was a late payment last month.  This made my EQ score plummet by about 60 points!!

In addition, I have a judgment for this debt from "Great Seneca Financial Corp as Assignee of Vision Management, Assignee of Providian National Bank".  Although Great Seneca has never sent me anything, doesn't this mean that I owe GS and not Providian, since they did not sue me for it?  There is nothing on my CB from GS or from Vision Management except this judgment (and never has been).

I am very confused.  I have a few questions:

1.  If an account has been Charged Off, can the creditor continue to report late payment?  I thought that late payments can only be reported on an open account.  From that point, it should be reported as a charge off.

2.  I thought there was some rule that says that a creditor has to charge-off the account after a certain period of time.  Can anyone confirm this?

3.  Even if Great Seneca is the Assignee...by suing me for the $$, doesn't that mean the Providian has relinquished rights to it?  In the eyes of the court, I think that I could send Providian all the money in the world, but that does not satisfy the judgment, right?

Any advice would be appreciated.  I know that Providian is violating something here, but I need help to get my head around it in order to fight it.  Thanks! 

[Anonymous]

Lots of questions here, I'll just take the easy one.

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ekuzniar wrote:

2.  I thought there was some rule that says that a creditor has to charge-off the account after a certain period of time.  Can anyone confirm this?

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No.  A creditor is not required to charge off an account.  It's purely an accounting concept.  If they wanted, they could report you as late until the end of time immortal.

When they charge off, they simply move the account on their books from Accounts Receivable to Forgetaboutit, We'll Never Get Paid So We'll Just Eat the Loss.  They usually do it within a certain period of time (when it's 120 days past due, I believe) because it's better not to have it sitting on the A/R side of the books.  It becomes exponentialy less likely that they can recover it, so the next step is to sell the debt to a JDB for peanuts.

Message Edited by masdeocho on 05-09-2007 06:07 PM

[fearful]

There is a very good documentary/movie called "Maxed Out" that may answer some of your questions.  If what this doc reports is true (and I believe most/all of it is...) it's very scary.

[RobertEG]

Under the law, an "asignee" is not the principle holder of the right, but rather one assigned rights by the principal, however specfiied in their assignment, to act for the principal in exercising any legal rights of the principal.

You have to know the rights assigned between the assignee and the assignor before you can reach any legal conclusion as to your duties.  You should consult a lawyer before making any assumptions as to satisfaction of your obligation to one versus the other.