CA Pulling my credit before validation

[brotha28]

Is this legal? I'm in CA and the CA is in CO (P Scott Lowery). I sent them a DV letter claiming that the account may be fraudulent, so insted of sending any type of validation, they sent me back a fraud affidavit and asked that I send them copies of police reports, my drivers license and a copy of my SSN card- and they can file a fraud claim for me.. I'm not sending anything, but also on about the 10th day after I sent the DV letter, I noticed that they pulled my report. Is this legal since they are not allowed to pursue collection activities until they validate?

[chane]

It's legal if it's a soft inquiry. If it's hard inquiry, I'm pretty sure it's not legal. I would dispute it and contact a lawyer to see if you have a case, if you are interested in suing them.

[brotha28]

i think it was a hard pull because I got an alert from my credit monitoring service as an inquiry. I'll look into it.
Thanks

[Lian]

I don't think the distinction between a so-called hard and soft inquiry would have any bearing on the legality of the inquiry.

The terms "hard" and "soft" inquiry are not even mentioned in the FCRA. They are credit reporting codes developed by the CRAs to assist those who review and score credit in their evaluations. They are administrative, and not legal, distinctions.

Reporting to a CRA while under a cease collections requirement under FDCPA 809(b) has long been held to be a prohibited practice. They were obviously doing a pull of your CR as part of their collection activities, and thus the violation would, in my opinion, be under FDCPA 809(b), and not any permissible pull provision of the FCRA.