Collection Agency won't send bill! HELP!

[hopeful]

I am speaking on behalf of a family friend who doesn't speak English and has yet to receive his bill from a home supply/equipment store for the past 2-3 years. He only bought a lamp on the credit card and never received a bill from them..time went on and he naturally forgot about it. Two months ago, he did a credit check and noticed that the debt had been transferred to a collection agency. He never received any bill, letter, or phone call from them! Very uncharacteristic of debt collectors btw! We contacted them to ask for the bill and it turns out they had his mailing address wrong the whole time! They said they would mail the bill, which he has not received till this day. I sent them a letter via certified mail a few weeks ago to inform them of this. I also made a few phone calls to them, all of which were transferred to a manager's voice mail. Needless to say, none of my phone calls were returned. I recently made a complaint with FTC, and they suggested my friend to do the same with the local state commission. The problem is..the agency said they would send the bill and they never did. All my friend wants to do is look at his bill for the first time, pay for it, and dispute the interest charges on the grounds that the collection agency never sent him the bill for 3 years.

What are your thoughts and/or words of advice? Thank you so much for your help in advance!

[Lian]

The billing and payment obligations were initially between the original creditor and the consumer, not between the debt collector and the consumer.

Did the original OC account agreement specify the sending of monthly bills as the terms for then making payments?

if so, and no billing was made, then the account would not have become delinquent, and thus not appropriate for collection referral.

He is at a disadvantage in disputing with the OC under the FCRA because the party who has the answers, the OC, has apparently never reported to the CRA, so no dispute with them is appropriate.

Aside from complaints to the FTC and/or his state's atty gen, he could still pursue it by way of FCRA dispute, but it would have to be with the debt collector. The grounds for dispute would be the lack of any delinquent debt upon which to base a collection (provided that his account agreement with the OC did not include some provision that he did not comply with).

[hopeful]

Thank you Lian for your response!

I have a few more detailed comments and questions..

1. Regarding the billing terms in the credit card agreement with the OC, my friend most likely went with the usual monthly payment plan but never kept the agreement with her. The OC store employees gave her no information about her account other than the debt collector name and phone number.
IS THERE ANOTHER WAY TO RETRIEVE THE ORIGINAL AGREEMENT?

2. In our opinion, the bills from the OC were never received probably because his address was incorrectly recorded by the store representative. We assume this because the DC had the wrong address. NOTE: He used our mailing address because he was moving in a few weeks and didn't have an exact mailing or residential address. Is this a disadvantage on our part?



3. I made 3-5 unsuccessful attempts at calling the DC and sent a letter via certified mail asking for the bill but as mentioned prior, no bill was sent. Is this a sufficient attempt at asking for a bill? I think so, but when I make the dispute, I want to be sure that I did more than enough for my friend

[Lian]

The debt collector has no requirement to provide original creditor documents. They don't retain them as a normal course of business. You need to get a copy from the creditor.

If you dispute the accuracy of the delinquencies with the OC that prompted their referral of the debt for collections, the most direct way of addressing such a dispute is to file a direct dispute with the OC under FCRA 623(a)(8).

A DV letter to the debt collector wont address such issues, and even a dispute with the debt collector would be problematic, and that they are not the party that posted the derogs that resulted in their collection referral.