Experience with LVNV

[Lian]

burnnotice, a few suggestions.

First, the dispute process and the DV process are totally separate and unrelated. Don't just do one and wait for the other.

Send a DV to the debt collector within 30-days of their dunning notice to invoke your cease collection bar. Do not wait on that. Priority one.

As for a dispute, the first question that arises is, what is your grounds for dispute?

If your grounds is that the account is not yours, and you are sure you never had an account with Bally's Health, then I suggest you start putting together your case by treating it as an identity theft issue. But make sure any "account not mine" assertion is truthful, as you gain your rights to invoke the identity theft provisions of the FCRA by making a statement to a law enforcement agency and obtaining a police report. There a criminal penalties for false statements in a police report, which is the reason the FCRA gives it weight as basis for invoking its provisions.

Once you have a police report, you can do two very important things.

First, you can use it to compel the creditor, Bally Health, to produce documents supporting their allegation that you are the party who authorized this account. Send them a copy of the police report, accompanied by an affidavit asserting you never had that account with them, along with a government ID as proof of identity, and....wallah!

You are entitled under FCRA 609(e) to legal discovery of any supporting records in their possession. They must comply with that request within 30 days.

Second, send the same information to the CRA (i.e., a copy of the police report, a sworn statement that the account is not related to any transaction authorized by you, and proof of your identity), and they must then, under FCRA 605B, block the asserted identity theft related information from any further credit reports they issue.

Get your documentation in hand before you just blindly stumble into a dispute.

If you do dispute, I would not suggest using either the online dispute process or even disputing through the CRA. I would suggest filing a direct dispute.

[burnnoticed]

Lian, thanks for your reply.

This debt was originally from 2005, and if I am correct it is out of SOL (6 years).
I have made payments in the past to another CA in the past, who is no longer in business.
Unfortunately i was naive and unorganized, and can not find any documents or receipts whatsoever.

Therehas been no record of ballys or collections on my credit reports for at least a few years since I have been checking. That is, until this LVNV showed up just recently in November. I last pulled my credit reports a few months ago in August.
I also have never received any letters from LVNV or any collection agency in years!

Certainly there must be legitimate grounds for me to dispute this and have this removed!

Please advise!