I have received a phone call from a debt collector saying I owe a debt for a telephone bill from March 1997. I'm in Missouri.
Wouldn't this no longer be able to be collected on?
Can anyone give me a website address with the laws on this please?
I have found this info below, but not sure which type of debt a telephone bill would be.
STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS ON ENFORCEMENT:
Open Account (credit card): 5 years
Written Contract: 10 years
Domestic Judgment: 10 years (renewable every 3 years)
Foreign Judgment: 10 (renewable every 3 years)
Also, I took care of all my bills before I got married. Not sure how this "bill" came about. Curious if it is for one of those phones SWB used to mail out for "free" then make you return it, which I did, it was junk, or they'll charge you tons of money for the phone.
Thanks for any help/info offered!
If you have a telephone bill due from March 1997, it means that you have not made any payment towards the bill from 1997 and 7 years have already passed from the date of your last payment towards the debt, so it should not reflect on your credit report and affect your credit score. Now, as far as I know, telephone bills fall under open ended accounts and so the Statute of Limitation would be 5 years for such type of debts. So the creditor cannot legally recover the debt.
You can check the official website of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act where you can get the details of the debt collection act. For this you can visit the link "http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre27.pdf".
Hope this helps.
phone bill frm 1998
they are saying I owe 797$ but not once have they tried to contact me nor is this on my credit report ! I live in Georgia is this an open ended acct ?
I would send them a cease and desist order and let them know it is well past the statute of limitations and that it is not collectable.
Leave it up to a debt collector to try and collect an old debt, just make sure that you don't pay a dime or it starts the statute of limitations all over again.
reply
Hi Shawny,
Phone bill is a written contract. In Georgia the Statute of Limitations (SOL) for a written contract is 6 years. What you can do is send them a cease and desist letter stating that the SOL on this debt has expired, and they should stop harassing you for the debt. However, you should know that expiry of SOL doesn't mean that the collection process will have to stop.
Thanks,
Aaron
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