I encourage questions and email. At the current time, I answer all questions and email. My ability to reply may change in the future with demands on my time and the frequency of email and questions.
Here is a question from the Question Guy:
If the Collector is a third party to the debt, has no real legal standing, was not part of the original request for credit… why should I then reply to their letters and not just throw them in the trash?
Boiler’s Answer:
If you don’t answer, you will give up your rights under the FDCPA § 1692 g. This section states that if you send a validation letter within 30 days of receiving their collection letter, the collector must validate the debt. If the collector does not validate the debt, they must not contact you again. It is essential to send the validation letter to maintain your rights under FDCPA § 1692 g.
Also, there is a maxim of law called the Doctrine of Acquiescence. This maxim basically states that if you don’t object, you agree. So by not replying to the debt collectors letter and thus objecting, you must agree that you owe the money.
For those two reasons I recommend answering all collection letters with a debt validation letter within 30 days. This will maintain your rights and keep causes of action available to you should you file a case in court.
Fight the Essential Fight, Boiler
Preserving your defense options is critical as Boiler said. Meanwhile contract law grants “real legal standing”. When you accept a loan or break in a credit card, you agree to a huge pile of terms — often written to disfavor you as a borrower. One of the contract clauses will say that your bank can chase you for delinquency any way it likes within reason, including fobbing off the job to third parties. It will also state that the contract terms survive assignment, transfer, or sale of your account. That’s why Giant Junk Debt Buyer Inc. can take you to court and smack you with balooning interest fees even though it never originated the loan. The JDB assumes the right to enforce all contract terms as part of its account portfolio purchase.
In addition to asserting your rights, offering resistance in the form of proper written disputes and contact restrictions is often enough to halt or seriously frustrate a collection process. You’re only asking for what federal and state laws provide you, which means an agency has to actually perform *work* to extract your assets. Many rogue collectors will work harder to *deny* your rights than to operate legally, because laws interfere with their business model.
The “block ’em/ignore ’em” response is precisely what bad collectors want from you. They say “youse owes this”, and you’re supposed to lay back for the pickpocket, or get yourself shaken by the ankles in a courtroom. People who get racked on judgments all ignored the phone calls, erased messages, and threw away the letters, thus destroying all evidence of various consumer law violations which might have ruined their collection lawyers’ plans. Vigilance becomes leverage, and leverage applied is collection denied!