Is reporting a debt on your credit report a collection action?

Don't-Be-Afraid-of-debt-collectors

I am working on a lawsuit and ran across this section of somebody else’s lawsuit and thought it might interest you:

Credit reporting constitutes an attempt to collect a debt. See, e.g., Rivera v. Bank One, 145 F.R.D. 614, 623 (D.P.R. 1993)(a creditor’s report of a debt to a consumer reporting agency is a “powerful tool, designed, in part, to wrench compliance with payment terms from its cardholder”); Matter of Sommersdorf, 139 B.R. 700, 701 (Bankr.S.D. Ohio 1991); Ditty v. CheckRite, Ltd., 973 F.Supp. 1320, 1331 (D.Utah 1997).

Remember that plagiarism is not discouraged in legal pleadings.

Fight the good fight, Boiler

8 comments
  1. Hey Boiler, not only is it collection activity, if its being reported by a 3rd party debt collector, the FDCPA and FCRA says its illegal. They just never enforce it. Don’t believe me? Contact me and I’ll give you a link to my blog post on it! Oh, and there’s and opinion letter by an attorney (John LeFevre to Mr. Berger) with the FTC legal staff that states it’s a communication (which is collection activity) and they use the Heintz v. Weber case law to back it up as well.

    • Thanks Shannon. I enjoy collecting all of the case law I can get! The more information we have out there the better we will be able to defend ourselves. Keep on Blogging! Thanks, Boiler

  2. Another great article. I read the case. it was interesting that the court noted in this particular case, the existence of a Consumer Dispute Verification form did NOT demonstrate the collection agency conducted an appropriate investigation of the consumer’s dispute. I think the court made that assumption based partially upon the allegations of the Complaint – false reporting of a consumer debt because the debt belonged to another consumer with the same name, but different address and soc. security #. Obviously, if a proper investigation had been performed, they would have known they were collecting from the wrong person!

    • Thanks Kirk! I enjoy reading your blog. This was just a snip of part of a lawsuit I was writing that I will file this week. I thought other might get some benefit out of reading it. Thanks! Boiler

  3. I’ve got a company called Sentry Recovery and Collections harassing me and reporting on my credit even after getting a lawsuit dismissal and many CFPB filings which Sentry states they would quit falsely reporting as well as cease communications. They continue to report and even made a mockery of the CFPB cases by providing documents which are stamped DRAFT which hold no legal merit. The amounts they are demanding are all varying and cannot be confirmed with the original creditor as it had been previously satisfied. Before this ever even got to Sentry, I sent certified dispute letters to the original creditor as required by law.

    Looking to hold their feet to the fire. Please guide me in the right direction.

    Thanks,

    Sean

    • Sean,

      In my opinion, the CFPB cant help you. People can fill out their online forms until the end of time.

      My suggestion would be to study the FDCPA. It packs a punch.You can go to pacer.gov and look up other cases in your state. You can plagiarize them to fit your case.

      Other than federal court, I think you will be wasting your time.

      Let me know if you would like to talk about the specifics.

      Best, Boiler

  4. I would love to get these people in court, but I have a case that is more important at this time. I really am running out of time to sue Farmers Insurance for bad faith, fraud, and negligence. If you could talk specifics with me about filing a demand letter, and a federal suit regarding this issue first, that would be ideal and I would be eternally grateful. Then I’d like to work on this case against Sentry Recovery and Collections.

    -Sean

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