Debt Paid but Not Settled
My question involves collection proceedings in the State of: California
Briefly:
1. Short sold house with Wamu in 2009
2. Settled second mortgage for $3600
3. Per instructions paid $1000 in escrow, $1600 in escrow (seperately) and $1000 check by phone. Have cashed copies of all
4. Account gets listed as paid less than owed and i dont hear about it until 3 weeks ago.
5. Chase (bought wamu) is requesting the full amount of the second mortgage
6. Told them to take a hike, i paid it.
7. New collections hits credit, i become unhappy
So the bottom line is i paid this debt but thru all the buying and selling of banks they think i still owe the money. i never got a settlement letter from the original debt settlement because wamu never paid the collections agency. none of this is my problem but its up to me to fix it. what now?
Re: Debt Paid but Not Settled
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2. Settled second mortgage for $3600
3. Per instructions
You have proof of the settlement offer?
You do say you have proof of fulfilling the financial end of it. Send whomever is dunning you copies of the agreement and proof of payment.
Also, contact the credit reporting agencies and dispute the inaccurate reporting. btw; just in case you didn't know; if they settled for less than payment in full, that is what your credit report will reflect.
Re: Debt Paid but Not Settled
I have the settlement offer letter and copies of cashed checks totalling the settlement amount of $3600
The origional collections agency claims they never recevied payment from wamu and as such will not give me a letter stating the debt is settled.
The new collections agency says without a settlement letter my previous deal is invalid, they placed the new collections. Whats weird is they show the total amount due and no matter how you cut it $2600 was paid directly to wamu thru escrow so even if they wanted the full amount it should be $2600 less. Its proof their numbers are inaccurate.
When the new collections agency contacted me i provided them with the settlement offer and cashed checks. i sent them a letter via email stating that the account should have been closed and they still didnt verify the debt.
This has negatively affected my credit just when i was about to purchase a new vehicle and i no longer qualify.
Re: Debt Paid but Not Settled
If Wamu sold the debt to the collection agency and wrote it off, then you no longer owed Wamu and they should not have accepted payment (pretty sure that's fraud).
If they merely employed the collection agency to collect it on their behalf, then Wamu would need to tell the collection agency the debt has been settled.
You need to send those documents in writing, not email. I think about 90% of company emails goes right into the ether, I can't count the number of places I've emailed (to spend money with!) that never reply.
Re: Debt Paid but Not Settled
So obviously this is an uphill battle which me, as a consumer, is pretty much helpless. Can i sue these people or something? I attempted to find a lawyer in my area but they all wanted to run me thru bankruptcy which i dont need
Re: Debt Paid but Not Settled
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Quoting
mittens
If Wamu sold the debt to the collection agency and wrote it off, then you no longer owed Wamu and they should not have accepted payment (pretty sure that's fraud).
If they merely employed the collection agency to collect it on their behalf, then Wamu would need to tell the collection agency the debt has been settled.
y.
exactly.
there is huge misunderstanding when it comes to debt, original creditors, collection agencies, and debt buyers. It is difficult to determine whether a debt is being collected by a collection agency where the original creditor still owes the debt or where the debt has been sold and you are being contacted by a debt buyer.
You need to figure out which situation it was. If the debt was still owned by WAMU, you should be able to straighten this out. If WAMU had sold the debt, sorry to say but you are still on the hook for the full amount as WAMU had no authority to accept anything to settle the debt as it was no longer theirs to collect.
Re: Debt Paid but Not Settled
I just confirmed that the original debt collector was acting on behalf of wamu, and they claim to have never received compensation from their client so they never marked the account as settled.
Re: Debt Paid but Not Settled
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Quoting
kurbycar32
I just confirmed that the original debt collector was acting on behalf of wamu, and they claim to have never received compensation from their client so they never marked the account as settled.
It doesn't matter what the CA received in that case. Whether they received comp from WAMU or not is not your problem. It is between WAMU and them.
You should not have to deal with a BK because, based on your information, this is not a valid debt.
this is all it should take to prove you have no debt:
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I have the settlement offer letter and copies of cashed checks totalling the settlement amount of $3600
So, I would start with sending copies to the new CA as well as the old CA proving the debt was paid (redact any critical info such as bank account number and such). Contact the CRA's and notify them of the same. I can't remember if there is a way to send them your proof or not.
Re: Debt Paid but Not Settled
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Quoting
jk
Whether they received comp from WAMU or not is not your problem. It is between WAMU and them.
You should not have to deal with a BK because, based on your information, this is not a valid debt.
Thats exactly what i told them!
The original CA says they wont list as closed even though i sent them copies of everything because they were never paid. not my problem but im having to deal with it.
I sent copies of everything to the new CA and they say it was never closed so none of it counts.
The bank says the CA's are servicing the loans now and wont deal with me.
Re: Debt Paid but Not Settled
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The bank says the CA's are servicing the loans now and wont deal with me.
but this is due to a time and action when the bank was servicing the account.
Do the stuff with the credit reporting agencies and see where that goes. From what you have explained, other than the actions with the CRA's, if I was contacted for collections I would tell them to take a hike.
tell them you don't care what somebody screwed up by not closing the account or whatever they were supposed to do but you have proof of an agreement to settle and proof of payment.
I believe California has its own version of the FDCPA which might give you some actions to deal with this. I'll have to take a look.