Should you receive collection notices, Legacy will
send a Validation of Debt (VOD) letters to your collectors demanding them to verify the information on the account they are attempting to collect on.
I requested my dental office to
send me validation of the debt.
Not exact matches
Unless provided in the initial contact, within five (5) days, every
debt collector must
send a written «
validation notice» indicating how much money you owe, the name
of the creditor you owe, what dispute rights you have if you think you do not owe this
debt, and how to obtain information about the original creditor.
With
debt validation you request the
debt collector to
send proof
of the
debt you allegedly owe.
Within five days
of contacting you, a
debt collector must
send out a
validation letter telling you how much you owe, the creditor you owe the money to, and steps you can take if you don't believe you owe the money.
The FDCPA requires that within five days
of initially contacting you about the alleged
debt, the collection agency must
send you written
validation of the
debt.
Whether you are in
debt, recently out
of debt or never had any
debt, if a collector contacts you to say you owe an old credit card
debt or some other unsecured
debt and you aren't sure they are right, it's not a bad idea to consider
sending a
debt validation letter.
In the
debt validation program that we recommend at Golden Financial Services, there are actually over 30 - pages
of documents that are
sent to your
debt collectors on round one!
The beauty
of Validation is that if you
send a letter Certified Mail Return Receipt Requested and the collection ageny doesn't respond, or fails to provide adequate evidence that you are responsible for a
debt, that
debt must (under the law) be removed from your credit reports.
Continue to collect if they have not
sent you written
debt validation notice with FIVE DAYS
of initial contact with you.
If the collection agency has been harassing you with phone calls or
sending threatening letters, a
debt validation request is a good technique to stop ALL correspondence from them until the authenticity
of the
debt has been validated.
Second, once you've
sent the collection agency a letter requesting
validation of a specific
debt, the collection agency can no longer contact you regarding that particular
debt until they provide you with reasonable evidence that they do in fact have a right to collect the
debt from you.
A
debt validation program challenges the
debt collection company —
sending out more than 30 pages
of disputes... where line by line different items are being requested.
After requesting
Validation of a
debt from a
debt collector, they
sent me a copy
of a note with my name on it, but no signature.
Once a
debt validation is requested, the collection agent must
send you proof
of your original
debt.
It might be a good idea, after
sending an initial
debt dispute letter, to
send a follow up
debt dispute letter reminding the collector
of your dispute and request for
validation.