CBCS Or Midland Credit Management Inc. For Fingerhut Credit Advantage Never Received Initial Communication Notice Required By The FDCPA. San Diego, California

Sue them for violations of the FDCPA.

It is very hard to prove the "initial communication" regulation, because all they need to show is that they attempted it.  Since they never send anything by Certified Mail or that requires your signature, it makes it very hard to prove.  I don't doubt you didn't get any initial communication, just letting you know that the proof of this is sometimes hard.

For the item showing up on your credit report you need to do a few things.  First be sure that everything you send is done by Certified Mail with Return Receipt to have proof of what you sent and when.  Also, never sign your name to any letter just type it.

Send a letter to the Credit Reporting Agencies disputing the listing.  If they come back as verified go to the next step of the Debt Validation letter to the Collection Agency.  If they do not validate the letter within the 30 days send send another letter to the Credit Reporting Agencies requesting the listing be removed because of the lack of validation.   There are several sites you can search for very good examples of Debt Validation letters that you can use.

If after this they are not removed, you not only can go after MCM for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, but the CRA's for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.  All of this can be done in Small Claims Court without lawyers.

The advice above is somewhat solid. However, verifying that the initial correspondence was sent is not something that occurs in a CRA dispute.

Disputes with the CRAs are solely for the validity of the debt. You lodge the dispute, the CRA asks the creditor for validation of the debt. They are not going to to ask for validation that you received the initial communication.

So the dispute process kind of serves as your second chance to request verification of the debt, but it will not involve an investigation into the actions taken by the collection agency.

If it comes out that the debt is verifiable and valid, you're pretty much stuck. A failure to send the initial communication is kind of a "harmless error" at this point, because it wouldn't have turned out in your favor.

However, it is still and FDCPA violation either way. But the only real way you're going to get anywhere with this is to take the collector to court, where the burden would be on you to prove that you never received the initial correspondence. You would be attempting to prove a negative, which is all but impossible, for a likeley award of about a hundred bucks.

I would certainly reccommend filing the dispute. It's free and at least the debt will show up as "disputed" on your credit report.

Best of luck!