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I recently sent a validation letter to Fair Collections & Outsourcing and they sent me a statement from the origional creditor. ( An appartment complex) It is the Statement of Deposit Activity that gives a breakdown of the Deposit Allocations. There is a line where the Assistant Community Manager was supposed to sign but there is no signature. Is This Valid?
If the document says that there needs to be a signature and it is not there then it isn't valid. You may contact the company about this.
What if it was sold to a collection company?
Do I owe the collection company and the origional creditor? Doesn't make sense. Can you please explain? Seems like I would be paying twice.
Maybe I can help explain a little here. Sometimes the original creditor will hire out a collection agency to collect a past due debt. This may be what is happening in your case. If I was you I would send a debt validation letter to both the original creditor and the collection agency. If you want to clear the matter up more quickly then I would personally call the original creditor and ask if they still own the account and what you can do to resolve the issue. If you are going to pay the account up to date I would first ask for a pay for delete.
A pay for delete is an arrangement that if you pay off the debt they will remove the mark on your credit report.
Do I owe the collection company and the origional creditor? Doesn't make sense. Can you please explain? Seems like I would be paying twice.
jriosjr1980, you owe money either to the original creditor or the collection agency. Like Firey has explained, sometimes the original creditor (OC) may sell off your account to a collection agency (CA) or simply turn over the account to them. The collection agency then pursues you for the debt and you have to pay them and not to someone who isn;t pursuing you for the debt anymore.
In cases where the original creditor sells off your account to a CA, you cannot work with the OC anymore. But in case the OC has not sold off your account but has only turned it in to the CA, you may still work with the original creditor to pay off your debt. In any case, you will pay to only one of them and NOT both of them :)
You now owe the collection agency, you may be able to settle the debt for a much cheaper amount now that it is out of the hands of the original creditor.
Once they contact you or you have the information to contact them you can ask them if they can offer you any kind of settlement, usually they will do it for about 60-80 % of the original debt amount. They purchased this debt for much lower than you owe, but they will still want to make profit.
two things to remember.
1. Always get it in writing on what they are willing to accept.
2. Make sure they send you a paid in full so that someone else don't try to collect the same debt down the road, I have had this happen and produced these documents. Collection agencies will not believe you paid it unless you have proof.