Debt Verification
Debt verification is one of the most important rights consumers have against debt collectors. Click here for a free sample debt verification dispute letter.
When you are first contacted by a debt collector (not including by lawsuit, as discussed below), it should inform you of your right to dispute the debt and require verification. If the first contact is a phone call, they are required to send you a letter with this information within five days. If your first contact is by letter, that letter should contain it.
Within 30 days of their letter, you must demand verification in writing (on the phone does not work). You can, however, dispute the debt over the phone, but this is less important. Plan to write them to dispute and demand verification.
When you do that, the debt collector has two (legal) options: it can verify the debt and then keep trying to collect, or it can stop trying to collect the debt (and then it doesn’t have to verify it).
If it stops trying to collect, it could send the debt to another collector. If it does that, you’re back at step one and will need to do everything again. This happens, but not very often, and although it does mean you have to do more work, you will have effectively gotten one debt collector off your back, used up some of the time they have to sue you (reducing that risk) and weakened their case against you if they do sue you, so it’s worth it.
Stay on top of this. Sometimes, seeking verification is all it takes to make the debt collector go away. Click here for a free sample debt verification dispute letter.
So What is Verification?
The right to verification is designed really just to stop clerical error leading to the wrong person being harassed – think typos and misfiling, and that sort of thing. It isn’t to require significant proof of any type. So if they verify, they’ll likely do it by sending you a couple of statements with your name on them.
If it really is your name, and the other identification stuff is right, then that’s probably all they need to do. If some of that is wrong, and you tell them so, they may have to do more to verify the debt properly. In other words, very little is required, but if you cast doubt on some specific part of what they give you, they probably have to give you more to address that. Again, this is worth doing.
If the First Time you Hear from them is a Lawsuit, you Do Not Have a Right to Verification
If the first time you hear from a debt collector is that it is filing suit against you, this is not the sort of contact that gives you a right to require verification. Instead, the case is in the legal system at that point, and you will need to respond to the suit. This is true even if they say on the bottom of their stationary, for example, that they’re a debt collector. If they sue you, you have to defend yourself in court.
What if they Don’t Verify?
It violates the FDCPA for a debt collector to keep attempting to collect a debt after you’ve demanded verification until they do, in fact, verify the debt and tell you they have. After that, of course, they can keep trying. The courts are split on whether they can sue you without verifying the debt first after you’ve disputed it.
If they sue you at all, you should strongly consider defending yourself – you have a good chance to win and little to lose by fighting. If they try to collect without verifying, you may want to sue them. In either case you’ll probably want to join us for the help you need to defend your rights.
