Transcription
Hey everybody, John Skeba here from the Consumer Warrior YouTube channel. In today's video, we're going to talk about debt verification letters, or debt validation letters, as some people call them. Why they're important, really what they are, and how you can use them to help you to resolve your serious debt problem.
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All right, let's let's talk about debt verification, debt validation. I, this was coming up because, uh, many of you know I've recently partnered with Solo Suit, which is a company that helps to prepare things like answers to debt collection lawsuits. They also do debt validation or debt verification letters for consumers, and it's a really cool, high-tech way to provide really professional validation letters when you're engaging with creditors. And so, um, I'm going to put the information below this video on how you can actually use them. Very, very inexpensive way to get a very professionally done debt validation letter that's prepared by attorneys. They prepare it for you, and then you send it off to the creditor. I'm going to talk about the why you need to use them, and what they are, and how they can be a big benefit in dealing with your debt, uh, issue that you're struggling with.
Okay, so the first thing to understand when we talk about debt verification, there's actually two separate letters. There's one that the creditor sends you, and then there's one that you can send the creditor, or the debt collector, or whoever it is that's contact contacting you. Now, all of this is governed by a law called the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the FDCPA. Now, the FDCPA is this federal law that tells debt collectors and creditors how it is that they have to, you know, the rules they have to follow when they're trying to collect on a debt.
Now, one thing that it does require is it states within five days of their initial communication with you, they have to send you a verification letter. This has got to be an actual physical letter in writing that they've got to send. Now, you might be asking yourself, well, what's the initial communication? You know, if they call you on the phone, or even if they send you a letter, uh, they may send this initial verification with it. But if they just call you on the phone, within five days, they've got to send you this verification letter.
Now, their letter to you has got to have at least five different things in it. One, they've got to clearly state what the amount of the debt is that they're claiming is owed. Two, they've got to name who the creditor is that's actually wanting to get paid this amount. Three, they've got to have a statement in the letter that states that unless you dispute the the debt within 30 days from the day that you receive that letter, that the debt is considered valid. Four, they also are going to state that if you do dispute with the creditor, if you send something in there in writing, they've got to provide verification to you of the judgment or, uh, some of verification that the debt is actually owed. And then fifth, they have to send you, uh, if you request within that 30 days, they got to send you something in writing with the name and the address of the original creditor.
This is important because if you follow this channel at all, you know that most debts after the initial 180 days of collections are charged off and then often sold to junk debt buying companies who will then try to do the collections from there. You also see third-party debt collectors involved in the earlier stages, uh, and so they may be the one contacting you, and you need to have information who the actual original creditor is and who it is that's trying to do the collection. So within five days of their initial contact, they're going to send you this letter. They're supposed to under the FDCPA send you this letter with those five bullet points in it. Again, the amount of debt, the name of the creditor who they are collecting, a statement that unless you dispute this within 30 days that they're going to consider it to be valid. Fourth one was if you do dispute, the creditor then has to send you verification of the debt or copy of the judgment that they're trying to collect on. And fifth, that if you do dispute it, they've got to send you the name and the address of the original creditor.
Okay, so let's say this, you get this verification letter from the creditor. So the clock is now ticking. You have 30 days to mail in a dispute if you want to dispute what it is that they're providing. And there's a number of reasons you'd want to dispute. I should say this before we even dive into what that process is like, there are a handful of reasons why you would want to dispute the debt. One is there is a crazy amount of errors. You know, I sometimes I even run into, I feel like judges and that that don't believe that there is. All you have to do is go to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's website, look at the numerous lawsuits, the consent orders, consent judgments that they have against collectors, and you see that it's rampant. And that's because most of these junk debt buyers, they, when they go out and they buy these large portfolios of debt, often what they're receiving is spreadsheets with name, numbers, addresses, that kind of thing. They're not receiving the full monthly statements, the whole file. They're just getting these spreadsheets, converting them into letters or phone calls, and then they just start to do collections.
Just right now, in my law practice here in Arizona, I'm dealing with a case with someone who got sued, and it's completely the wrong person. It wasn't even an identity theft situation. It was just they sued the wrong person. It happens more often than you think. I see it in my law practice in Arizona because I deal with this all day long. It's not just a one-off thing, it happens quite a bit. There are errors in the debt collection process just because of the huge scale of it and the fact that they don't have a lot of the information that they need. So requesting a validation or verification of who, you know, whoever this creditor is that's contacting you can help you to avoid some of those errors. We also see errors in things like dates, the amounts owed, uh, interest rates, those kind of things. Um, it's also something where there may be an issue with the statute of limitations. You know, I see this frequently where a creditor will send out a letter knowing that it's outside the statute of limitations, but they're wanting you to make some type of partial payment to revive the statute or just get you to make some type of payment where if you have better information, you can make a better decision on how you're going to be able to deal with that.
One of the big ones, which we're going to talk about, is if you send the letter back to them. So that within five days, they've sent you this verification letter. If you send out a dispute within 30 days, all collections have to stop. So they're not able to sue you, they're not able to continue to call you on the phone, they can't send you the snotty letters in the mail anymore. Everything has to stop until they provide you with the information that verifies the debt.
Okay, so let's talk about the letter that you're going to send, uh, to them. And this is again where Solo Suit, the company I'm working with, they do a great job. They can help you to prepare. You provide them with some information through their website. There's a link below this, just click on that. They'll provide you with an ironclad letter that you can then send to the creditor. You request the information that's going to be relevant to your specific case.
So the validation letter, first of all, it must be in writing. This isn't something where you can just talk to them on the phone and say, "Hey, I want you to verify this debt," or send me some type of written validation. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act requires that it be in writing that you dispute this within that 30 days. The other part, which I've mentioned numerous times, it has to be mailed out within 30 days. In my practice, what I recommend is 30 days from the date of the letter of their verification letter, just to be safe, just so that we can show, "Okay, this is when they mailed it out. Here's when I mailed it." So as soon as you receive that verification letter, my advice would be to run over to Solo Suit, get this letter prepared, print it off, and then mail it out. Because if you mail it out within the 30 days, you're good. If you don't, let's say that you decide, you know what, you get busy, and it's 60 days or 45 days, the creditor or the debt buyer, they do not have to verify the debt if you don't do it within the 30 days. So that 30-day time period, that deadline, it's important. If you get the letter, put it in your phone, set an alert. You've got to get that thing mailed out.
And it's super simple. Like I said, go over to Solo Suit, click on that, you'll have that ready immediately. It's going to cite to the appropriate provisions of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. It's going to have a list of the things that you need in there to be able to verify the debt appropriately. It's a real simple way to do it.
And then the last thing is, which I mentioned, that the debt collector has to stop all collections. This is huge. If you're looking to settle the debt, if you're looking to buy some time to be able to do that, or if you've just got an overly aggressive creditor. You know, here at my law practice in Arizona, we have a texting line, you that you can contact as kind of a chat feature on our website. One of the number one things I get on the website is questions from people who say, "Look, this creditor is blowing up my phone. They're calling me 10, 15, 20 times a day," kind of thing. You can get all of that to stop just by simply disputing it.
Not only that, it's very helpful for people like me, attorneys. I defend people who are being sued by debt collectors all the time. One of the biggest questions that the creditor's attorney always asks on cross-examination is, you know, they'll ask you, "Did you ever dispute this? You got this verification letter, did you dispute it at that point?" Most people don't do it. So this is a really simple way to improve your situation, to get yourself in a better situation to either resolve the debt or to get information to determine if it's actually your debt. This is particularly true if you kind of have a common name. I see lots of mistakes made in those types of situations.
Is to send out a debt verification letter. And I can tell you this, if they don't send you that initial letter, or if you send them a request and they don't provide it, it gives you a claim under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, or you could then go after them. You can probably get them to forgive that debt and even give you up to $1,000.
So hopefully that's helpful when talking about and understanding the debt validation and debt verification process. Again, heading over to the people at Solo Suit, click on the link below. They make a really easy, really quick, and a professionally done letter to get this done and to get it done right. Thanks for watching today.
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