Dealing with a US collections agency when not in the US?

October 26, 2012 8:40 AM

Had a US collections agency pop up on my credit report saying that I owe them an amount less than $100. This question has been asked before, but one twist in my situation: I am currently living and working outside of the United States.

I've been out of the States for a couple of years now, so I'm not even sure where this charge is coming from. I'm not planning on returning to the US anytime soon, but I was wondering what the best course of action would be. Can I force the collections company to send verification of the debt to my address in Asia? When disputing the claim to the three credit bureaus, I need to do it via snail mail, right?

I'm wondering what the best course of action would be given my situation. Any help would be very much appreciated.

posted by C^3 to law & government (3 answers total)

Best course of action is to dispute with the Credit Reporting agency.

If they come back with information, great.

Most of the credit bureaus have on-line dispute processes now.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 10:18 AM on October 26, 2012

You can always ask for documentation. It's the first thing you want to ask for in any potential dispute. As for you being in Asia, they probably have electronic files, or can scan any paper files they have and email you.

It seems to me that potential scammers would ask for amounts of money that many people would pay rather than to have to deal with a dispute.
posted by Xoebe at 12:55 PM on October 26, 2012

Go look at creditboards.com. There is a ton of information about disputing nuisance items like this.

If you have more money than time, you can offer a pay for delete. They send you a signed contract stating that they'll remove the derogatory item once it's paid and you send them a money order for the necessary amount.

Otherwise, you'll need to get good at writing letters and stock up on postage stamps. Sorry, dealing with this stuff on the phone doesn't get it dealt with, sadly. You can do the dispute with the CRAs online if you want. More likely than not it'll come back verified, though.

Send the debt collecting scum a letter requesting validation of the alleged debt. They have 30 days to respond, IIRC. If they can't validate, it's illegal for them to leave it on your report and you can sue them in small claims court if you're back in the US within the statute of limitations and get some money out of them if they fail to remove it. You'll have a better chance of a dispute working if you can say that you asked and they failed to provide validation.

Validation, by the way, can't just be a database printout from their system. Obviously the only thing that validates is that they claim you owe them money. They have to get documentation from the original creditor.
posted by wierdo at 3:57 PM on October 26, 2012