The one thing collection agencies don’t want you to know
Closed border states are great for people who owe money to live in because many collection agencies can never call you or contact you in any way.
Exceptions to this are commercial accounts and if the collection agency trying to collect a debt from you is licensed in the same state as you.
How this works in your favor is that if the collection agency trying to collect a debt from you is not licensed in your state, they will not be able to put anything on your credit report at all. Let me explain why… The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Fair Credit Reporting Laws state that you must notify the debtor (that’s you) in writing that you have 30 days to dispute the validity of a debt in writing or the debt will be considered valid. Since a collection agency isn’t allowed to contact you when you live in a closed border country, they can’t send this to you, and even if you weren’t in a closed border country when you incurred the debt, you can still remove it.
To do this, you will need to dispute your account. Let me make it clear up front, this does not make the debt go away, but it does remove it from your credit report. If you live in a closed border state and owe money to a collection agency that is not licensed in your state (most agencies are not licensed in multiple states, but some are), what you need to do is get the collection agency’s mailing address , which reports it on your credit report. Along with the address, you will need to get your account number, reference number or file number. This is all the information you will need and you can get it with one very quick phone call that will be quick and painless. Now that you have all of your account information, you will send them a written dispute letter. Now in this dispute, you will want to specifically state in it that “if you cannot verify this debt, I want it removed from my credit report immediately.”
Now the real beauty of a closed border state is that you can still contact the collection agency at any time about anything on your account and they can’t contact you even when you tell them to call, they still cannot legally call you. What you do is send the dispute letter to the collection agency asking for it to be removed from your credit, then call them on the phone every few days just to see if they have removed it from your credit report or not.
Below is a list of all countries with closed borders
Alaska
Arizona
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Hawaii
Idaho
Mississippi
New Jersey
New York*
North Carolina
North Dakota
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Minnesota
Oregon
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Washington
West Virginia
*New York is not statewide, but in Buffalo and New York, you will need to check with your attorney general to be absolutely sure.
-Don-
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