Denial of Inaccuracy

[nodollarsnomo]

I was sent a collection letter from a Texas law firm in March for Home Depot. I promptly sent them a DV letter. In the mail today was a letter from the law firm advising me that they were denying any inaccuracy regarding my account and that their letter was all the verification that they would supply. Should I just accept this and not challenge them for fear of accelerating their collection efforts? How should I proceed?

[GoingDown]

This is pretty much all that they do for "verification" anymore.

Prepare for bankruptcy and when you can file it, do so.

And this debt will become worthless to them.

[feelingnutsy]

So it doesn't really matter about doing a DV?

It doesn't delay?

[catleg]

It depends on the creditor. Sometimes, a DV will trigger an original creditor to send you by first class mail a big envelope weighing about 5 pounds with 2 years of statements. This is because an initial dispute is taken as a "red flag" warning under the FACTA law (i.e. a claim of identity theft, FACTA replaced the old Fair Credit Reporting Act). Other times you may just get a letter from the collection agency giving name, address, and a dollar amount owed to an OC. I'm not sure if there's any way to predict how they handle it. Typically it does delay somewhat because it ups the ante a little if you are, in fact, an identity theft victim. But nothing so dramatic as requiring them to look up your original application or anything like that.