What we do · Validation
Debt validation letters
When a third-party collector contacts you about a debt, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act gives you thirty days to demand that they prove it. Do it in time and they must stop collecting until they answer. It is one of the few moments in this process where the clock is on your side.
- What it costs
- $45 per collector
- When you are invoiced
- Invoiced once the collector has responded, or the response period has passed.
- How long
- Best used within 30 days of first contact
Why so many old debts cannot be validated
Debts are sold in bulk, often as a spreadsheet: a name, an address, a balance, a date. The signed agreement, the statements and the payment history frequently do not travel with them. A collector three owners down the line may hold nothing more than a row in a file it bought for pennies.
That is not a technicality to exploit — it is the reason the validation right exists. If a company is going to affect your ability to rent a home, it should be able to show what it is claiming and where the number came from.
- Written within 30 days of the collector’s first written communication, which is when the duty to pause applies.
- Sent certified with return receipt.
- Asking for the amount, the name of the original creditor, and verification of the debt.
- Never including a payment, a promise to pay, or an acknowledgement of the balance.
Making a payment on an old debt, or acknowledging it in writing, can restart the statute of limitations in some circumstances. In Ohio the limitation period for most written contracts is six years. A debt can be too old to sue on while still being reportable, and reportable while too old to sue on — the two clocks are different and they do not start together.
If they do validate
Then the debt is yours and the honest next question is what to do about it. Sometimes that is a payment plan. Sometimes it is waiting, because the item is two years from falling off anyway and the money is better spent elsewhere. Sometimes it is a lump-sum settlement, with the terms in writing before a cent moves.
What it is not is a deletion. Paying a collection does not remove it from your report, and any promise of "pay for delete" is a promise about somebody else’s behaviour that the person making it cannot control.
If they behave badly
Calls before 8am or after 9pm. Calls at work after you have told them not to. Discussing the debt with a relative or a neighbour. Threatening arrest, or a lawsuit nobody intends to file. Continuing to contact you after a written request to stop.
Each of those is a violation with statutory damages attached, and a complaint to the CFPB and the Ohio Attorney General costs nothing. Keep the voicemails. Note the date and time of every call in a notebook. That notebook is the case.
Nobody here is going to tell you off.
The first conversation is free, it takes about half an hour, and it ends with you knowing what is actually on your file and what can honestly be done about it. If the answer is "nothing we can charge for", we will tell you that, and you will still get the plan.
Not ready to talk to anyone? Take the guide and do it yourself. It is the same method, it costs nothing, and you never have to tell us you used it.