Consumer complaint received 2021-10-02
Product: Debt collection — Credit card debt
Issue: Attempts to collect debt not owed — Debt is not yours
Company: PORTFOLIO RECOVERY ASSOCIATES INC (FL)

In late XX/XX/2021, I pulled by credit reports and noticed a collection account that I did not recognize. It was from a company called Portfolio Recovery Associates. I sent them a certified letter on XX/XX/2021, which they received and signed for on XX/XX/2021 ( evidence of return receipt will be attached ). In the letter, I explained that this debt that they claimed I owed was erroneous and did not belong to me. I sited the Fair Debt collections Practices Act ( FDCPA ) and asked them to produce a signed contract from the original creditor with my signature within XXXX, which is required for them to collect on this debt and report it to the credit bureaus. I also asked that during their investigation, that they remove this unverified debt from my credit reports until their investigation was complete, which is required by law under the FDCPA. I received a response very quickly, with their letter arriving to my home on XX/XX/XXXX, which was very strange considering that they had just received my complaint 3 days prior. What was also problematic was that the response was dated as being written on XX/XX/XXXX, which is odd, because my letter was not sent out until the XXXX, so how could they have generated a response for a dispute they had not received yet? It seems as if they did not perform any investigation at all, but just had a default response queued up in their system in case I asked for validation. If this is the case, it would constitute a clear violation of my rights under the FDCPA. In my letter to them, I specifically asked for Portfolio Recovery to produce a contract with my signature to validate that this was indeed my debt, as required by law. If they had done a proper investigation, they would have found out that no such document exists. It was made clear that they do not possess the proper documentation when I reviewed their response. They only possessed snapshots of alleged charges with no contract, no signature, nothing linking me to this erroneous account. The address that was on the original account wasn't even correct. They clearly failed to validate this debt within 30 days, so, in accordance with the FDCPA, this account was supposed to be immediately removed from the three credit bureaus. Portfolio Recovery failed to do this. This company 's refusal to comply with the law has also drawn the attention of XXXX. During my dispute process with XXXX, Portfolio recovery associates was asked multiple times to produce the proper documentation to verify this debt, but they failed to do so. This resulted in XXXX deleting this erroneous information from my credit file with them. It is clear that this company isn't even keeping basic documentation to be reporting or collecting on this alleged debt. Portfolio recovery associates is aware that they have failed to validate this debt, but now seem to be deliberately and brazenly violating the law. Even through XXXX has removed this account, it unfortunately remains on my XXXX and XXXX credit reports. This violation of my rights has caused direct damages to myself as well as my family, and that is unacceptable.