AboutCreditwrench Expertise Debt Collections law, Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), federal law, how to properly answer court summons for collection cases, how to prepare federal cases against debt collectors, how to deal with debt collection phone calls.
Experience I've been an active consumer advocate for more than 40 years and have helped hundreds of people win cases against debt collectors as well as helping them defeat demands for summary judgment lodged against them by banks, debt collectors and defeat mortgage foreclosures and keep their homes.
Education/Credentials Paralegal courses for the most part. I have been teaching people how to deal with judgments, mortgage foreclosures and other such problems both on and off the internet for many, many years. I am a Richard Cornforth information provider ever since 2000 and worked with many other organizations and causes since 1980. I was Oklahoma State Chairman for the nationwide drive to defeat the Constitutional Convention which was proposed by various factions within our federal government such as the Council of State Governments and the National Organization of State Governors who were working hard to organize a Constitutional Convention to be held in 1995 for the purpose of rewriting our American Constitution to be more acceptable to the United Nations. I worked with Senator Charles Duke of Colorado and Senator Don Rogers of California and many others across the nation to keep them from getting the number of delegate states required to lawfully hold a Con-Con and we were successful. I have worked with many other legislative issues in Oklahoma and have always been very successful.
Question QUESTION: I had a cell phone through Voice Stream from 2000 - 2001. After completing my one year contract, I canceled my service with them. The reason for canceling my service with Voice Stream was due to issues with them not sending me bills and continuously charging me late fees which, in most cases, I was able to get them to credit back. I received a letter the other day from a collection agency stating that my account had been turned over to them from T-Mobile. Apparently T-Mobile bought Voice Stream several years ago. I have never received any kind of notification that I still owed anything until this notice from the collection agency seven years later. I have spoken with the collection agency and T-Mobile and they have limited history on this matter but they seem to think that either I never paid my last bill or I was charged the early termination fee. My question is how long would they have to get this to collections and can this affect my credit report. I am just trying to figure out my options at this point. The account was opened in TX and I was military so I moved quite a bit. Thank you very much in advance for your assistance.
ANSWER: There is a federal law limiting collections on cell phone bills to two years. After two years they cannot collect on cell phone bills.
It can stay on your credit report for the full 7 years however but in any event you simply don't owe that bill anymore by federal law.
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QUESTION: Thank you very much for your response. Do you know the name of the law and if there is any mention of how long they have before they can place it on your credit report? Again...thank you very much for your assistance.
No, don't know the name of the law. I'm guessing it is in the telecommunications law. I remember that, as usual, when I run into an interesting law or article about law I put a link to it on my message board at http://consumers.creditwrench.com and most such things as links to good resources go into the resources section. I'm quite sure I would have put it there because so many people have problems with old cell phone bills that such information is highly valuable and I wouldn't want to lose that one.
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