When a debt collector contacts you, don’t pay or agree that the debt is yours. Read the validation notice, then dispute the debt in writing before the end date it lists. A dispute in that window makes the collector stop collecting until it sends you verification.
Say the call is about an old medical or utility bill, sold through several collection agencies, with a balance you have no records of. That’s exactly the kind of debt to make a collector prove.
The collector must send you a validation notice, either as its first message or within five days of first contacting you. The notice names the creditor, the account number, and the current amount, itemizes the interest and fees added and the payments and credits applied since a stated date, and gives the end date of a 30-day window to dispute. Until verification arrives, the collector can’t keep calling you about the amount you disputed.
Resold accounts often go unverified. In a 2013 study of nine large debt buyers, the FTC found that most portfolios came with no documents at purchase, and the buyers had verified only about half of the debts consumers disputed. Older debts were verified less often.
On the first call, get the collector’s name and mailing address and hang up without paying or promising anything. Check the notice against your own records. Then send your dispute by certified mail with a return receipt, and ask for the original creditor’s name and address. The federal rules don’t spell out what verification must include, so judge the reply yourself. A printout of the balance proves little. Useful verification names the original creditor and an account number you can match, and it itemizes how the amount grew.
If the reply shows the debt isn’t yours, say so in writing and file a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau if the calls continue. If it’s past your state’s statute of limitations, the deadline for suing over it, the collector can’t sue or threaten to. In some states a payment or even admitting you owe it can restart that clock, so get legal advice before paying. If it’s valid, negotiate from the itemization, not the collector’s opening number.
Mark the end date on your calendar the day the notice arrives, and mail the dispute with days to spare.
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