“Dear Steve,
Jd enterprises contacted my husband at work about a debt from AT&T that is over 10 years old. They told him we owed $1300, but would accept $800 today. If we didnt settle today he couldnt’t gurantee anything else and we would be served to go to court and then would owe $2500 for legal services. My husband didnt admit to oweing anything, he told them he would have to call me because he didnt know what this was about. This deby was orginally $500 or so, but is over 10 yeas nd isnt even on our credit anymore. Today I looked up a copy of credit report and 6 months ago they reported that we owed them $1300 and was in pursuit of a lwasuit. I did dispute with credit agency, but havent heard anything yet. We have worked really hard trying to fix credit from being dumb and Id theft.
What are our legal rights and what action can we take to stop this and get them to get it off our credit report?
Jennifer”
Dear Jennifer,
Well it sounds like you did owe the debt at one time and they are still chasing you for it. As long as you don’t make any admission that the debt is yours it may not start the statute of limitations clock over and the statue of limitations is important in your case. Depending on what state you live in the statute of limitations (SOL) may have already expired.
If the SOL has expired the owner of the debt, which may just be JD Enterprises now, can no longer sue you to recover the debt. However, the debt may be attempted to be collected until you no longer walk this earth.
As far as the credit report goes I would suggest you obtain a copy of your consolidated credit report and look to see what each of the three credit bureaus are showing about this debt. No one credit bureau report is a definitive source of information. To get the full picture you must look at all three. I recommend the consolidated credit report link in this story. It’s the one I use myself. If it is still listed on any of the three credit bureaus and it is showing as being first listed more than 7.5 years ago then you can ask to have it removed. I suspect if it is still being listed that at some point along the way a creditor “fudged” the date of delinquency to have the debt remain on the credit report still. It happens but the good news is that it is easily correctible. All you need to do is follow the dispute information contained in the consolidated credit report and it should be removed by the credit bureau.
To verify for certainty if JD Enterprises can actually sue you in your state and if the debt has expired under your Statute of Limitations I would urge you to find a local attorney and pay them for 30 minutes of their time to answer the question for you.
Please update me on your progress by
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