Is it good to send a dispute letter beyond the 30-day window of 1692g?
Is it good to send a dispute letter beyond the 30-day window of 1692g?
1692g letter is what is sent to you by the debt collector which also tells you that you have 30 days to dispute.
Can you send a validation notice after the 30-day period has ended?
Yes, you can absolutely send a letter outside of the 30-day period.
The downside is that you lose some of your rights once you are outside that 30 day period.
If you dispute within the 30-day period, the debt collector must provide verification or validation of the debt.
They cannot collect until they have sent validation of the debt.
This means they can either give you the information requested and continue to collect or they can do nothing.
They can take 20 years to respond just as long as they don’t try to collect during that time.
They can also choose to not validate and then transfer to another collector.
Then the process begins again.
If you are outside of that 30-day period, they don’t have to follow these rules.
However, almost all collectors that I have seen will respond to the letter.
If you have made a reasonable, legitimate validation request, they will still respond in one of these three ways even though the letter was sent after the 30 days have passed.
Even if they do not respond to your request, they must mark your credit report as disputed regardless of how long after the letter was sent.
This is particularly true if you have notified them in writing.
A collector may decide to never update your credit report again.
For example, your report was last updated on September 1st.
On September 15th, you send a request for validation outside of your 30 day period.
The collector could choose to never report on you again, and many courts would say this is fine.
Many courts have said if collector chooses to no longer credit report on the debt, then they don’t have to mark it because the debt wasn’t disputed the last time the report was updated.
If they update your report and they do not show your account as disputed, they are violating the FDCPA.
Specifically, they are violating 1692e(8), which deals with false credit reporting. This includes refusing to mark an account as disputed when they know it is disputed.
Collectors typically hate marking an account as disputed.
However, if they do continue to update the report monthly they must report it as disputed the next time they update, or else you may have a claim under 1692e(8).
Even if you are beyond that 30-day time period, send your dispute letter.
If you are unsure about how to send a dispute letter, we have a few articles available to help you get started:
- How do I send my dispute letter to the debt collector?
- Fixing Credit Report Errors: Who Do You Send A Dispute Letter To?
- Form and Substance of Dispute Letter For Credit Report Errors
Go on and send in your dispute.
If the collector updates your credit report and you have proof that you have sent the letter by certified mail, but they did not mark the account as disputed on the next credit report, then you may have a claim against them.
This may have some value in it for you.
You may get a few thousand dollars or you may be able to negotiate with them to drop the debt.
Don’t worry about the time frame. Send the letter anyway.
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John Watts