So I got this letter from a collection agency.
The debt is past the statute of limitations in this state.
What happened was I had an account at Wachovia, someone gave me a check ($1000) drawn on Wachovia which I deposited. It wasn’t a personal check, nor was it a cashier’s check, but it was what we used to call a teller’s check where either a teller or a savings person would type the check.
I didn’t ask to have the check deposited as cash, after a few days I started writing checks on it. More than two weeks later the check bounced. I never got the check back to redeposit, I never got an answer as to why the check bounced, and when I asked them why it took them more than 2 weeks to know one of their own checks was bad I got the answer, ‘sometimes it happens that way’. I never got anything from the bank in writing about the check bouncing, nothing.
Whatever.
I lost the $1000 and another couple of hundred in overdraft fees and never got an answer to anything.
I also found out that the person who gave me the bad check has/had a good friend who worked there.
I’m wondering if there was some kind of screwy stuff going on.
As far as I am concerned screw them.
A few years back I got a call from a lawyer saying he was trying to collect on the debt and I told him what had happened and I wasn’t paying anything until I got a satisfactory answer as to what happened. He said he’d look into and never got back to me.
Now it’s a couple of years later, I guess I should have known it wouldn’t go away.
I can afford to pay it, it’s under $300, but I feel like I am being ripped off.
I wouldn’t pay it. If it’s gone to collections already and the debt is several years old, when you pay the debt it will reset the clock on how long it shows up on your credit report. Just let it drop off.
My understanding of the system is that just by pursuing the collection that does not reset the clock. If you were to pay it, however, that would be the most recent date on the collection activity and you would have the negative mark of the collection on your credit for another 7 years. If you ignore it, it’s likely going to fall off soon depending on the date it was reported as a debt sent to collections.
the only thing I would be concerned about is if they reported you to ChexSystems. That could impact your ability to open checking accounts and the like.
I already have 3 other checking accounts at two different banks so I’m not too worried about that. I know someone that happened to though, he had a horrible time when he got paid for a job with an out of state check, but he finally found a bank that would let him open an account.
Ok I wasn’t sure how that worked. I thought they could start now. The letter says that if I don’t respond within 30 days they will consider the debt to be valid.
From my experience, that just means the original collections agency sold it to another collections agency. But that sale doesn’t change the date that the debt was originally sent to collections is what is marked on your credit history. A good resource for questions like this is myfico.com, or their forums at http://ficoforums.myfico.com/. There are a lot of people who work in the industry who would have more detailed information for you.
If you’re certain that the SOL has expired, then don’t even respond. The SOL clock would have started from the date of the last overdraft charge or any payment you’ve made since. The most likely scenario is that it is one of the agencies that purchase old debt and attempt to collect it. They count on people not knowing their rights.
Have you checked your credit reports recently? If this item does not appear on any of the 3 bureaus reports, then you should be clear and able to ignore any communications.
Advice given above is based on information from my SO who has been in collections for 12 years. It is not legal advice and in fact may be fattening.
Often ignoring them will just encourage them to keep bothering you.
Usually I send them a letter stating that I do not recognize the debt and further communications will be considered harassment and legal action will be taken.