How Debt Validation Works
From the time you are first contacted by a debt collector, they have 5 days days to send you a written notice of their intentions to collect. In this notice, will be some language stating that within 30 days, you have the right to dispute the validity of the alleged debt which is the first step of the debt validation process. We will prepare notices of dispute on your behalf whether or not you actually owe the money they claim. We send these dispute notices to ensure the collection agency has the right to collect the debt you owe.
Once the debt collector receives our dispute notices, they will then have 30 days to prove they are legally allowed to collect and they are not allowed to continue their collection efforts until they prove they have a valid claim to do so. This dispute request does not have to be sent to the debt collector within 30 days as it can be sent at any time, however, if the dispute request is not sent within 30 days, the debt collector only has to stop their collection efforts if you dispute the cliam within the 30 day timeframe. Once a debt collector receives a dispute notification for validation, they must validate the claim. Many debt collectors will try to mislead you to make you believe they do not have to validate – but no matter what they tell you, by law., the debt needs to be validated.
Once a debt collector has received a validation notice, they must supply the validation documents to us within 30-days of our request. If they do not provide validation within 30 days, the debt will then be considered invalid and therefore, legally non-collectible. Once an alleged debt is proven non-collectible,the debt collector is required to remove the account notations from your credit reports, and you will no longer be obligated to pay your debt – saving you thousands of dollars! Additionally, once a debt has been proven to be invalid, you will not be responsible for paying any taxes on the forgiven amount.
If it seems to you that this is almost too easy – it is – if you have a validation request that is written correctly by one of our debt lawyers. Even if your the debt collector attempts to validate your alleged debt with an insufficient response, we have the follow-up requests to ensure the collector either send the proper documentation or otherwise, their debt will be invalid. Many times, we receive all the statements for the history of the account, but that is still not enough. We require a copy of the original account agreement and all the statements from the time of the inception of the account. We will then do our forensic accounting to ensure your collectors or original creditors didn’t overcharge you or miscalculate any interest or fees which would violate the Credit Card act of 2009 and the Truth in Lending Act. Any errors and violations we find can help to invalidate your debt.
If one of your alleged debts has been fully validated, we can then settle the debt for less than the amount you owe anyway and will still be able to save you a ton of money. You’d be surprised as to how many debt collection agencies are not able to validate their claims, especially the accounts that were sold to third-party debt purchasing companies. They do not have all the records needed to validate their claim and therefore, the Debt Validation strategy, works exceptionally well.
