If a debt collector contacts you for payment on a collection or charge-off, this information is for you.
If the collector is not the original creditor, but a company that purchased the debt from the original creditor, then you have the right to demand a complete validation of the debt. An example would be Midland Credit Management purchasing debt from your credit card holder.
Without validation, how can you be sure that the amount they claim you owe is correct, or that they even have the right to collect on the account?
In Repair Your Credit Like the Pros, there is a letter you can use that requests the five items you are entitled to have verified, per the Fair Debt Collection Act. Sounds good so far, but here’s the problem…
Oftentimes, the collector sends back one document, such as a copy of your bill, without properly validating all five items. This, of course, is not a true and proper debt validation.
The typical next step is to write to the credit reporting agencies. But then what happens if Experian, Equifax, or TransUnion send you back a letter stating the account has been investigated, verified, and remains? You see it is a form letter and you know it was a FAKE investigation, because the collector never provided you with a proper validation when you requested one!!!
This is exactly what happened to one of my book readers recently. She asked me how to proceed.
I do not do credit consulting, but since she had purchased my book, I told her what I would do in her situation. I would send a letter of demand to the credit reporting agency asking for the method they used in their (so-called) investigation, whom they communicated with, and what that person’s contact info was. Then I would add that if they could not supply me with this information, to delete the account immediately, because it was neither validated by the collector nor was it properly validated by them.
She followed my suggestion, and I heard back from her just yesterday.
VOILA! The response came back from the credit reporting agency that the collection account had been DELETED!
That is credit repair success, and it is legal according to federal law and in all 50 states.
If you need credit repair, if you believe you can do it yourself with a little step-by-step guidance and letters already written for you to customize to fit yourself, then you are a good candidate for this strategy here.