Credit secrets bible CA strategy

[Yogurt]

I don't know if I'm stepping on toes here but has anybody checked out the Credit Secrets Bible? I found a 2007 copy cheap, the new version is now something called 'credit repair intelligence and it's not within my budget.

In the 07 copy, the CSB encourages you to write "Dear CA. Show me your legal authority to force me to do business with you under threat of financial harm. Cite the law or statute. Cite the contract if there is one."

Basically its stating that CAs do not have legal authority to damage your credit no matter what since they are not the OC. Does this make sense?

There has to be some kind of rules or regulations for a CA, otherwise anyone could have collections damaging their credit without even an attempt to collect.

I tried this tactic before I even found this site which I'm regretting. I got back a verification of debt. Not what I was looking for. Annoyed, I restated my letter making it sure it said very blatantly that I am only asking to know what legal right the CA has and I added "Anything given to me besides evidence of this demand is considered harassment and unlawful intimidation."

Today I got a response which was another copy of the verification of debt! I'm under the impression that if you warn a CA not to send other information and they do... it can be a lawsuit. Any thoughts on that?

My next thought is to continue on as if I never received anything because the verification never met my demand. My thought would be to wait until the 30 day deadline and write to both CA and the big 3 "this item is on my report without legal merit. Cease and desist (to CA), Delete the item (to CRA).

Still it feels... off. I'm growing weary of spending two months just to get back the same result too. It feels like a big giant waste of time and a colossal failure. If no one has any thoughts of saving this, I will have to admit the failure and contact Lexington.

[Hal Jordan]

I've got some bad news for you.

Your book is wrong. It is taking some wide based speculation and theory and trying to make it sound legal. It's nothing with any substance at all. The FCRA and FDCPA both clearly state that collection agencies have the right to report to your credit reports. In fact that's the biggest reason why the FDCPA was created and passed in the firt place.

Next, there is no such thing as a limited Cease and desist. Which is essentially what you're asking for. The letter you sent them saying "anything less is harrasement and unlawful intimidation" is completely without merrit and has no basis or standing at all. NONE. That's the same as sending your electric company a letter saying "If you don't provide me with billing statements on blue paper with white cloud back grounds it's unlawful and harrasement.".. Well, it's not unlawful and the law doesn't consider it harrasement for a creditor or collector to ask for what is due them. The FCRA and FDCPA place restrictions on what they can do to collect but collecting is not unlawful.

You have the right to ask for them to cease and desist in contacting you. Not to only give you a specific thing you're asking for. it's all or nothing. Not to mention that you have no legal right at all to ask for what you're asking for.

If you refuse to pay or if you tell them never to contact you again they are only allowed to contact you once more explaining what they are going to do. Sue you, close your account or send it back to the OC. They don't have to tell you they are doing any of those things but they can. And if they contact you again with anything other than one of those three things they are violating the FDCPA.

They have done nothing wrong or illegal at this point. In fact, they've done way more than most collection agencies by legitimatly validating the debt. By law all that is required to validate a debt is the name of the original creditor and the amount owed. That's it. They do not have to provide you with a legal standing showing they have the right to collect the debt. They do not have to give you a copy of a contract with the OC to collect. They do not have to validate a debt in any time frame (I have no idea where you're getting this 30 day deadline from unless you're confusing the 30 days you have to respond from initial contact to request validation). All that is required during the period of validation is they not attempt to collect on the debt during the time between them receiving your validation request and you receiving the validation. Once they send you that letter saying how much you owe and to whom they can resume collection activity.

The only time they have to provide any of the stuff you requested is if you have been sued and you are asking for that stuff in discovery. You'll have to motion/compel to get it.

Throw out all of the misinformation and unnecessary and untrue things so far and here is where you're bascially at.
1: You requested debt validation.
2: They provided it

Now you need to decide what you want to do next.
1: Try and work out a pay for delete (if you have the money)
2: Send them a full Cease and desist and hope they go away and send the debt back to the OC. If they do this then you should be able to dispute the debt with the 3 major credit bureaus and the CA shouldn't verify it because they no longer hold the account.
3: Do nothing and live with the harassement and hope they don't sue you before the SOL expires.
4: Directly dispute with the CRA's and hope they remove it.

Be aware that the C&D does one of two things. They will either fold up and go away (which you'll be later able to dispute with the CRA's and get it removed) or they will Sue you and you'll have to fight them in court. There is a good chance if the amount is more than several hundred dollars they will do.

Pay lexington? Here is what Lexington does. They write dispute letters to the Credit bureaus and request debt validation from the CA's. THey may even write 623 letters to the OC's for you if you pay their higher tier fees. That's it. They don't represent you.

This is all they will do. If they fail they simply write another dispute letter to the cra's. They keep doing this over and over in hopes the Credit bureaus will just delete it. Here's something else. They don't send the letters on their letter head. They actually pretend to be you and use your return address on the envelopes so you have to tell them the results of their letters because if they send the mail back to themselves the CRA's will dispute their requests as frivilous or fraudulant.

IMO they don't do anything you can't easily do yourself.


So let me ask.. How much do you owe? What kind of debt was it? (credit card, car payment, something else). And when did you make the last payment on the account?

[Yogurt]

It still seems like there should be some kind of rules to follow.
This particular CA is for a library account, I owe the library some overdue fees apparently and they turned it over to a CA.

Common sense would dictate:
A) that the library should alert me to overdue fees.
B) there would be disclosure that they have the ability to send the fees to a CA.
C) there would be attempts to contact me before damaging my credit

None of these happened. Of course I live in a no common sense world so... yay me.

[Hal Jordan]

You would think.. but that's not the case. They don't have to give you warning they are sending something to collections. It's quite common for this to happen with medical bills. That's why over 50% of all collections are medical. Some medical service providers send people to collections after just 30 days. And sometimes even before the insurance company has a chance to process an ammended claim submission. It's not right. And that's why we need legislation change but currently the deck is completely stacked against the consumer.

You never did answer the questions.. Answering those will give a better idea on how to approach this.

how much do you owe?..

when was the payment due initially?

[Lian]

Hal has hit the nail on the head!

I would only add one comment. If you hire a credit repair organization, they cannot even assist you in the preparation of a direct dispute with the furnisher of the information, let alone file a direct dispute on your behalf.

The furnisher can summarily refuse to investigate any direct dispute when they have reasonable belief that it was "submitted by, or is prepared on behalf of the consumer by, or is submitted on a form supplied to the consumer by, a credit repair organization..."

Implementing rules for the direct dispute process, 16 CFR 660.4(b)(1)(vi).

A credit repair organization is specifically exempted from participation in direct disputes. Adding to the comments that you can, indeed, do more than they can.