Well all. I don't know what to do now. Here is the original post I did a couple of weeks ago.
Here is the response I got back today. I don't know how to proceed. These guys won't give up.
In response to Ms. D's rebuttal, we would like to reconfirm that we are licensed and bonded in the state of North Carolina. We have already provided the Better Business Bureau with copies of our license (#000) and bond (#00000 NC).
With regard to the discussion of open accounts, we would like to explain that we have certain agreements with our clients. The two accounts in question were assigned to our agency and we have acted in the capacity of a third party debt collector. We feel we have sufficiently explained why we are reporting Ms. D's two debts as open accounts and we believe we have followed all legal compliance protocol in the collection and credit reporting of these accounts.
Regarding the statute of limitations for collecting debts, our understanding of the North Carolina administrative code is that there is a three year time frame to collect on debts that are implied or explicit, or where verbal or written contracts exist. We also understand that there is a ten year window to collect on accounts where judgments exist.
One of Ms. D's accounts, # 0000, was placed at our agency by a dental office, Gentle Dental, located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We would like to mention that we have an itemization on file that shows the debt is valid based upon the information provided to us by our client. There has been no collection activity on this account since January 11, 2003, with the exception of a letter we sent to Ms. D in response to a written letter of dispute she sent to our office. We are required to respond to all written disputes, hence the validation letter that we sent to Ms. D on September 12, 2008. We are not currently attempting to collect on this account.
Ms. Ds other account in question, # 0000, was placed at our agency by a company named ABC, Inc., located in Anytown, IA. We would like to explain that our client already had obtained a judgment against Ms. D at the time of placement at our agency. Our client obtained the judgment on September 16, 2002. We have documentation on file which supports this. The judgment number is 000000. Being that this account falls under the jurisdiction of a judgment it is our understanding that we may continue efforts to collect this debt. This judgment is NOT on my credit reports, btw.
We would like to mention that up until August 1, 2008, we showed that Ms. D was living at the address of Anytown, Illinois . We did not have any record whatsoever that Ms. D was living in North Carolina until she submitted an online dispute, which we processed on August 1, 2008, and at that time updated her accounts with the new address. We did not attempt to contact Ms. D after receiving this updated information, and we have not attempted to contact Ms. D since she has resided in North Carolina, aside from responding to her two written letters of dispute (as required by law).
Ms. D claimed that we pulled her credit report and shared the information with a third party. We would like to make it clear that we did not pull Ms. D's credit report. In order to investigate this complaint, we viewed the trade lines that we, XYZ, are reporting. We utilize a credit reporting tool provided by each of the major credit bureaus that allows us to view what only we are reporting on a particular consumer's credit file. We absorb the cost of each trade line view request, which has no impact whatsoever on a consumer's credit file and/or credit score.
Our duties as a data furnisher require us to report true and accurate information when submitting data to the credit repositories. We do not dictate how long an item stays on a credit report, as that is something governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The credit repositories have filters in place to remove trade lines from credit files when the debts exceed the legal timeline for credit reporting. We feel we are not reporting information to Ms. D's credit file inaccurately; hence it is not our intention to put in a delete request to the credit repositories. Requesting that the credit bureaus delete Ms. D's two accounts from credit reporting would be going against the spirit of the law (FCRA) and against the requirement for a data furnisher to report true and accurate information.
