Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Virginia
The complete definition of validation or validate.
I am working with some people that have said that a debt collection agent, under penalty, cannot ''validate'' the a debt that they are attempting to collect because they do not have ''first hand'' knowledge of the debt, since they would be a third party. The federal code sec.1692g states that the collector must ''validate'' the debt by sworn affidavit. In this, does the legal definition of validate say that the debt collector must have ''first hand'' knowledge of a debt? The people that I am working with are saying that because the collector must ''verify'' a debt by sworn affidavit, they cannot legally do that. But the word ''verify'' does not appear anywhere in the actual code.
Is the definition of Validate the same as Verify in this case?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: The complete definition of validation or validate.
Are the people that you are working with and
telling you these things attorneys familiar with and able to interpret the U.S. Federal Code. It doesn't soumd like it.
The section of the code that you refer to merely requires the debt collector to obtain a sworn affidavit from the person, business entity or
other to whom the money is supposedly owed, outlining the facts surrounding the alleged debt and the specific sum that is being claimed as owed.
No first hand personal knowledge of the claim is presumed or required on the part of the debt collector, who once s/he has the sworn affidavit in hand, is free to move forward to collect the
debt legally in her accustomed manner.
This validation process involves merely the obtaining of the sworn affidavit and does
not mean that the collector is required to independently verify the information in the affidavit before he can take action to collect the debt.
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