Fix Your Credit Report
When it comes to fixing bad credit and collections, you have a very important right as outlined in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act: The right to have a collection account “validated.”
As designed by the FDCPA, the process of validation is much different than the concept of verification. Verification centers on a credit bureaus ability to verify information and this leads to a cursory examination of the account. During this examination, the consumer will decide whether or not the creditor was right or wrong to present certain information about the consumer.
When a collection agency is asked to validate a debt, by contrast, the process can get pretty involved. The collector must prove that the debt is your responsibility, and also that they have the legal right to collect it from you. Furthermore, the collector has to cease all collection activity until they provide this evidence to you. If the agency can’t validate the debt, it must end its attempts to collect on the debt and stop reporting the collections account to the credit bureaus.
It is important, however to note that the rights of validation apply only to collection agencies and not the original creditor. The reason for this is there is an assumption that the record maintained by collection agencies will be less accurate than those maintained by the original creditor. Collection agencies are notorious for chasing the wrong party or misstating the amounts that might be owned. The enactment of the validation process is a way of protecting the consumer from such problems.
In order to properly validate a debt, a collector is required to present documentation gained from the original creditor that displays you really do owe the amount specified. As you can see, this allows validation to be a truly helpful method of cleaning up problems with your credit report. In some instances, credit agencies may not even have all the necessary forms to validate the debt owed. This is common when a collection account has moved from collector to collector. Sometimes, all the creditor will have is a simple computer printout to provide evidence of a claim. However, the FTC has made it abundantly clear that merely providing itemization accounts is not sufficient proof for the validation of a debt.
It is also interesting to note that the validation process not only can eliminate collection accounts that belong to someone else, they can eliminate your own debt accounts. To some, this may prove to be a surprising statement but it really makes a great deal of sense. How can it be true if the information presented on your collections account is accurate?
In rare instances, it is possible to use the validation process as a means of removing accurate information from your credit report. This is mostly the case with old collections information. Some may say this is not a fair method but it is a legitimate one. Basically, you request validation on an old debt and if the debtor cannot provide the needed information, then it may be removed due to lack of validation. Again, this is only successfully achieved in rare instances but it can be done.