Step Six: Review Anything You Have Received Back from Any Company

Let's go over what you may have received back from the debt validation letters.

Often they will send you a payment history for the old account or a verification of the address they had on file. It means nothing.

Whatever they have sent you unless it is a copy of the original contract with your signature on it, it is meaningless and validates nothing.

Draft another letter stating that you have not received anything from them that proves your legal obligation regarding the account. Then state since they are unable to do this they are in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and any further attempts to collect on the account including reporting the account to any credit bureaus, will force you to bring a lawsuit against them.

If they have been calling you or the letters they send back are threatening, make sure you reference that in your letter. Then don't be afraid to go to your local court house and sue them. It is not expensive. Besides you already spent time and money to deal with this so don't give up now. The penalties for these companies violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act are expensive. You should read these laws for yourself at http://ftc.gov/.

If thirty days go by and you have not received any response back write a letter stating that they have failed to provide debt validation within the time frame allowed by law. State that they have failed to prove their claims against you and any further attempts to dun the debt will be grounds for a lawsuit including the reporting of any information regarding this to any credit bureau.

Check mate, you win.

If you had accounts that are still open and reported late see if their response back included the five day notice sent prior to inserting the negative information in your credit file. If it did not, then whatever they sent back can be considered insufficient. Unless it was a separate notice and they have a postage receipt proving you received it, it is meaningless. Do not forget, you had to send them letters with certified postage. Did they send you anything like that? No. Draft a letter stating that since they did not comply with the law regarding your account you need them to report your account paid as agreed or they are risking not only losing your business for their shady practices but also a lawsuit for not complying with FACTA.

The Credit Bureaus' responses

If any of the credit bureaus have not responded to you within 30 days of your letter to them, write a letter stating it has been 30 days since you wrote them asking for investigations into your credit file and you were ignored. Mention that if they are trying to say your disputes with the accounts in question were frivolous or irrelevant then by law they were supposed to notify you within five days of making that determination. Then demand that the actions outlined in your original letter be carried out immediately. Make sure you include copies of your delivery confirmations and the original letters to the bureaus and creditors.

If you have received letters back from the credit bureaus and they have verified some of the negative accounts don't worry. Send a letter back to them asking exactly how they verified the account, Under the law you are entitled to a detailed written account of the procedure used to investigate items you have disputed. Demand this and be sure to mention that you requested debt validation from these companies directly and you received no competent records that proved anything. Demand a reinvestigation with an expedited process followed by the deletion of the negative accounts in question. Do not stand for the run around.

The end of the process

If any of the companies, especially the credit bureaus have not complied with the law after another 30 days you need to sue them. Go down to your local courthouse fill out the paperwork, and sue these companies. It very rarely comes to this but it might.

A lot of times people are afraid to sue big companies. Don't be. I know you hear they have legal departments, they can afford lawyers and blah, blah, blah. Who cares. Those things are neither free nor cost effective. It will cost them thousands of dollars to deal with your lawsuit. It will usually cost you less than a hundred at most courthouses to sue them. You have all the evidence in the letters that you sent them that proves they are guilty of willful noncompliance with the law regarding you. Just present it to a judge. The companies you are suing have to get their lawyers to show up at your local courthouse to deal with you. That is neither free for the company or easy and they still will likely lose and they know it.

Once you actually sue them, if it comes to that and it is rare, they will likely concede to your demands under the law. That way when you go to court after notifying them of your lawsuit they have already complied with the law and you no longer have a case. That is a good thing it means you won. It is way cheaper for them to do that.

If a lawyer does show up with new evidence or documents at the hearing, you confidently ask where was this evidence in the last two months during your correspondences with that company? They had 30 days under the law to get it back to you and now they show up with it? That in itself is evidence of willful noncompliance with consumer laws.

Check mate again, you win.