In 2010 I was sued by a debt collector for a debt.
At the time I was in my final year of law school and was surprised at the amount of misinformation used by the plaintiff's attorney (e.g. claiming that no proof of assignment was necessary).
I informed the attorney that I would need proof that this was my debt as well as proof that his client had proper assignment of the debt. He responded by threatening (via e-mail) to interfere with my Bar admission process.
I did not believe that an unsubstantiated debt would affect my ability to sit for the bar and so I stood my ground.
He dropped the case (without prejudice) in Magistrate Court and then re-filed in State Court five months later while I was going through my Certification for Fitness process.
As a result of his second lawsuit, the State Bar did not allow me to sit for the Bar due to "a pending lawsuit" about debt.
He eventually also dropped the lawsuit in State Court. He never shared proof of this purported debt nor did he ever produce proof of assignment (presumably because he never had valid proof of either).
Nonetheless he was effective in "punishing" me by interfering with my ability to sit for the Bar after graduating from law school.
Note: this occurred in Georgia. Their rules for Bar Admission are available online at https://www.gabaradmissions.org/home
I agree that expanding the scope of the validation notice would benefit consumers. Especially important is a means for the consumer to contact the original creditor and identify the account in question.
When debts are sold multiple times it becomes impossible for consumers to: (1) determine if the account is theirs; (2) validate proper assignment; and (3) determine if the statute of limitations has expired.
The current requirements facilitate "zombie debt" accounts which - although already paid by the consumer - come back to life again and again. Absent a means for consumers to identify an account there is no way for them to verify that they have previously paid that debt.
From 1999 - 2004 I worked on a number of online identity authentication initiatives. At that time the only available solution was to ask "out of wallet" questions based on the consumer's credit file.
For example, the credit report might show that the consumer lived on Elm Street 20 years ago. Since an old address would not be easy to find (e.g. in a lost wallet) the idea is that if the consumer knows that they lived on Elm Street 20 years ago, there is greater confidence that this is indeed the person that they claim to be.
The problem with this approach is that the information in credit reports has a reliability problem. Reports indicating low error rates are misleading: they only look to "material errors" and they are often funded by credit industry groups.
If it is commonly accepted that credit reports are filled with errors - then it is incumbent upon collectors to validate and verify the debt prior to pulling a credit report or contacting the consumer.
crecente
1
In 2010 I was sued by a debt collector for a debt. At the time I was in my final year of law school and was surprised at the amount of misinformation used by the plaintiff's attorney (e.g. claiming that no proof of assignment was necessary). I informed the attorney that I would need proof that this was my debt as well as proof that his client had proper assignment of the debt. He responded by threatening (via e-mail) to interfere with my Bar admission process. I did not believe that an unsubstantiated debt would affect my ability to sit for the bar and so I stood my ground. He dropped the case (without prejudice) in Magistrate Court and then re-filed in State Court five months later while I was going through my Certification for Fitness process. As a result of his second lawsuit, the State Bar did not allow me to sit for the Bar due to "a pending lawsuit" about debt. He eventually also dropped the lawsuit in State Court. He never shared proof of this purported debt nor did he ever produce proof of assignment (presumably because he never had valid proof of either). Nonetheless he was effective in "punishing" me by interfering with my ability to sit for the Bar after graduating from law school. Note: this occurred in Georgia. Their rules for Bar Admission are available online at https://www.gabaradmissions.org/home
View this comment in the discussion thread
crecente
2I agree that expanding the scope of the validation notice would benefit consumers. Especially important is a means for the consumer to contact the original creditor and identify the account in question. When debts are sold multiple times it becomes impossible for consumers to: (1) determine if the account is theirs; (2) validate proper assignment; and (3) determine if the statute of limitations has expired. The current requirements facilitate "zombie debt" accounts which - although already paid by the consumer - come back to life again and again. Absent a means for consumers to identify an account there is no way for them to verify that they have previously paid that debt.
View this comment in the discussion thread
crecente
3
From 1999 - 2004 I worked on a number of online identity authentication initiatives. At that time the only available solution was to ask "out of wallet" questions based on the consumer's credit file. For example, the credit report might show that the consumer lived on Elm Street 20 years ago. Since an old address would not be easy to find (e.g. in a lost wallet) the idea is that if the consumer knows that they lived on Elm Street 20 years ago, there is greater confidence that this is indeed the person that they claim to be. The problem with this approach is that the information in credit reports has a reliability problem. Reports indicating low error rates are misleading: they only look to "material errors" and they are often funded by credit industry groups. If it is commonly accepted that credit reports are filled with errors - then it is incumbent upon collectors to validate and verify the debt prior to pulling a credit report or contacting the consumer.
View this comment in the discussion thread