Your
credit rating is important to you. It is arguably one of the most important
pieces of information in your financial life. Your credit report directly
affects the cost of credit to you. Your job may depend on your credit rating.
Junk debt buyers can wreck havoc on your credit score and make it more
expensive, if not impossible, for you to achieve the American Dream of owning
your home. Your job may depend on your credit score. Junk debt collectors
know the importance of your credit score and deliberately use it against you.
In fact, improving your credit score may attract unwanted attention from junk
debt collectors.
PARKING A DEBT
Junk debt collectors sometimes will "park" a debt on
your credit report. This means that the debt collector will report negative
information about you to credit reporting agencies but take no other action to
collect the debt. The collector then sits and waits for you to discover the
negative information in connection with some important event in your life such
as buying a home or applying for a job. At this point, your time for dealing
with the debt will be short but the need to deal with it great. The debt
collector can use the negative information and the time restraints as leverage
to coerce payment from you, regardless of whether you actually owe the debt or
the amount claimed. Parking a debt most likely violates both the Fair Credit
Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
RE-AGING A DEBT
Most negative credit information has to be removed from your
credit report seven years after the debt went into default. Junk debt
collectors often misreport the date a debt went into default in order to keep
the debt appearing on the consumer's credit report in an attempt to pressure
the consumer to resolve the debt. Re-aging a debt for this reason violates the
FDCPA and FCRA.
DEBT VALIDATION: HOW YOU CAN FIGHT BACK
Debt validation and disputing a debt are powerful tools you have against debt collectors. While similar, they are not the same.
Debt Validation refers to your right under the FDCPA to require a debt collector to validate its right to collect a debt. You have 30 days after the debt collector's "initial communication" to send a debt collector a written request to validate the debt.
Disputing a Debt is exactly what it sounds like: challenging the legitimacy of a debt or a debt collector's right to collect the debt.
WHY YOU SHOULD SEND A DEBT-VALIDATION LETTER
After receiving a timely
debt-validation letter, a debt collector must stop attempts to collect the debt
from you. This includes phone calls, letters, and reporting the debt on your credit
report. The debt collector cannot resume collection activity until it responds
to your dispute.
WHY YOU SHOULD DISPUTE THE DEBT
Disputing a debt creates duties for junk-debt
collectors under the FDCPA and FCRA. Once a debt is disputed, a debt collector,
under the FDCPA, a debt collector is required to communicate the fact of the
dispute to credit reporting agencies. The FCRA requires debt collectors to
report accurate information. When you dispute a debt to a debt collector, the
debt collector has a duty to re-investigate the accuracy of the debt and an
affirmative duty to correct any errors reported to credit reporting agencies.
HOW I CAN HELP YOU
I can send a debt-validation and dispute letter on your behalf. For a
reasonable fee, I'll send the letter on your behalf along with verification of
delivery. I will forward you any response I receive from the creditor or debt
collector. I'll review the response for possible violations of the law and
inaccuracies. I'll then advise you of your best course of action.
I may be "a debt relief agency" pursuant to Federal Law 524 of Title 11 of the US Code. I proudly provide legal assistance and help people file for bankruptcy relief under the Bankruptcy Code."
The Importance of Credit Reports
Credit reports . . . are used in spheres of decision-making beyond eligibility for credit. These include eligibility for rental housing, setting premiums for auto and other property and casualty insurance where permitted by law, and establishing (along with prior account history) eligibility for checking accounts. When an individual applies for a job, a prospective employer may examine his or her credit report upon the individual’s authorization.6 A recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management of its membership database found that almost 60% of its member employers used credit reports to screen applicants for at least some of their positions.
