Letter and phone call
Complaint
Theresa S
Country: United States
I have received a letter from this Northland Group Inc. claiming that I owe them a lot of money. They have my correct information, and a mysterious "former clam number" that only the last few digits are visible in from a bank I have paid off years ago. The letter looks very official. You say this is a scam? How can I find out for sure? What if they keep calling and harassing me? I am a retiree on disability. What do I do?
Comments
A "former claim number" also may mean nothing at all. It may only be their internally generated account or asset number.
Sending you a letter, even "official looking", and with a "former claim number", is no proof you owe them anything, although many debt collectors will try to look as offficial as they can legally get away with, or try to convince you to pay without any proof you owe them.
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Old debts, even apparently settled or paid debts, are bought and sold years after they went delinquent, and sometimes even when they have been paid. Some debt collectors specialize in collecting on very old debt, often debt that has past the statute of limitations (SOL) and for which they can no longer legally sue to collect. They can buy this old debt for pennies on the dollar, and hope to collect close to the alleged full amount on some fraction of what they buy.
Debt collectors are required to send you a "g" letter (for the section of FDCPA, the federal law governing consumer debt collection, that requires it) within 5 days of their first contact. That letter must identity the debt, identify themselves and how to contact them, and notify you that you can dispute and request that they send you the name and address of the original creditor, the party they claim is currently owed, and that they verify whether (and how much of) it is still owed.
Send them a letter, mailed certified so you have proof that you mailed it timely and that they received it, notifying them that you dispute the alleged debt, and that you request that they obtain and send validation (proof) obtained from the original creditor. Include in your letter that it is inconvenient for you to receive their calls at any time.
If you send that within 30 days of receiving their first letter, they MUST cease all collection activity until they check with the original creditor and send you written validation. If they continue to demand payment, or keep calling, they will be violating FDCPA, and you can sue them.
Since you have notified them that contacting you by phone is "inconvenient", if they keep calling, they will also be violating FDCPA, and you can sue them.
FDCPA prohibits debt collectors from engaging in harassing, abusive, or deceptive collection.
If they send you some sort of proof, or continue to harass you, contact a consumer attorney to see what your options are. For example, their proof may be deceptive, such as some letter they print up themselves, which again is proof of nothing. FDCPA prohibits deceptive collection, and agina, you can sue for violations.
Or SOL may have passed and they can't sue you, so you can then send them a letter telling them to "cease communications", basically leaving them no options but to leave you alone or open themselves up to a lawsuit.
Even if the debt is stil within SOL, if all your income is from SS or disability, it may be pointless for them to sue, as they cannot legally garnish SS or disability income.
You would want to review all these issues, as well as your options for suing for statutory and actual damages for violations of FDCPA, should they continue to harass you.
Many consumer attorneys take these cases on contingency, since FDCPA allows courts to award statutory and actual damages and your attorney fees if you win. You can find a consumer attorney in your state through www.naca.net
FDCPA says exactly that. It's right here:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre27.pdf
"...§ 809. Validation of debts
(a) Within five days after the initial communication with a consumer in connection with the collection of any debt, a debt collector shall, unless the following information is contained in the initial communication or the consumer has paid the debt, send the consumer a written notice containing—
(1) the amount of the debt;
(2) the name of the creditor to whom the debt is owed;
(3) a statement that unless the consumer, within thirty days after receipt of the notice, disputes the validity of the debt, or any portion thereof, the debt will be assumed to be valid by the debt collector;
(4) a statement that if the consumer notifies the debt collector in writing within the thirty-day period that the debt, or any portion thereof, is disputed, the debt collector will obtain verification of the debt or a copy of a judgment against the consumer and a copy of such verification or judgment will be mailed to the consumer by the debt collector; and
(5) a statement that, upon the consumer’s written request within the thirty-day period, the debt collector will provide the consumer with the name and address of the original creditor, if different from the current creditor.
..."
SOL in fact means a lot.
It means if they sue you after it's out of statute based on state law, you can ask the court to throw the case out. It also means that if they threaten to sue you when it's OOS, you can sue them for violating FDCPA for threatening to take an action they don't intend to or cannot legally take. It can also give you a cause of action under FDCPA to sue them for deceptively suing in the first place.
Take your BS somewhere else.
and always take what you read on the internet with a grain of salt... look this place up with the better business bureau as well and look at a few other places... you might be surprised...
Technically is all that matters.
HOWEVER, if you have a delinquent account you can be called upon to pay that debt "until your dead."
Not if the consumer sends a "cease communications" letter. Of course, there are debt collectors who ignore those, ignore disputes, harass relatives, collect on paid "debt", even fake "debt". They're called "prey".
"Also, if you know that it is your account and that you owe the $$ despite what you think may be "too much" fees/interest, be an adult and pay your bill. "
And that is really the problems. Most debt collectors would rather call and harass than send validation. You're too sloppy with skip-tracing, yet even when you're guessing, you can talk piously about "being an adult". Your industry is infested with con men.
"You can attempt to dodge it by the way the guy above has put it, "
It's not about "dodging" it. There is just no point in wasting your time over OOS and non-reportable "debt". Try getting a tax refund if you "accidentally" skiip filing for 3 years. Tell the IRS about "being an adult". They'll laugh at you, and the courts will back them. No corporation would spend accounting money researching 7 year old bills, Banks don't keep check records over 7 years. You wait too long, it's over, and the law is on the side of the people who tell you that.
"seeing as he is probably a debtor himself that uses BS laws to get around his debt and sue normal people who actually have a job."
In accounting terms, we are all debtors, yourself included. Most of us have jobs, and pay bills. But being a debtor doesn't mean you owe some stranger because they call you on the phone. So when you expect "tolerance" because you "guessed" and called the wrong person, remember that 90% of the time you are harassing a person who is NOT delinquent, has a job, pays his bills, and really sees no point in you wasting his time. Also remember that if you and your coworkers do this a lot, it's really easy to see the pattern accross numerous complaints, and recognize the "con" aspect of your business. That's a good reason to sue.
"Debt collectors aren't bad people,"
Some are liars and cheats. If you're in the industry, you even know who they are. So why don't you clean up your own industry? Sooner or later it's going to cost you.
"in fact they save people millions of dollars a year by offering settlements on delinquent debt."
Hardly matters, as far as the economy goes. What you pay will never bail out the banks.
If you didn't pay a few pennies to the banks, maybe they would be more careful about lending. Maybe we wouldn't have ridiculous "bubbles", that hurt even people who are careful with their finances. And maybe there wouldn't be debt collection shakedown rackets hiding behind all the cheap portfolios.
"They provide thousands of hours in community services and millions of dollars in donations to charity. "
The Hells Angels, and the drug cartels make donations, too.
"But if you are technically being "harassed", in all complexity of the word, then tell them that the debt should a. already be cleared up and that you cannot receive calls at work or on your cell until either you are given proof by the client...not the 3rd party collection agency because they are only working on behalf of the creditor/buyer. b. it is not your debt and you have been the victim of fraud... in which case you should go to the police, file a report, and go from there. or c. if you are not the person in question at all... then tell them that you are not the person and have no knowledge of that person and by most collection agency policies they will remove your number because there is no point wasting time and money calling a wrong person. even if you're lying they will remove that number"
That's the way it's supposed to be. Increasingly, people find their grandmothers' harassed by some druggie working out of a stripmall, pretending he's a "cop" or a "process server" calling to "serve papers", on some "debt" already paid, or even non-existent. These businesses shouldn't even exist. They are just criminal rackets.
You're a [***], and it's the same cookie cutter crap every anonymous collector says in these forums.
You're not fooling anybody with your 10th grade education.