Collection agency and forged check

[Lex_]

The law professor had this in a different post:

"Once you dispute the validity of a debt the collection agency is supposed to close the account and send it back to the creditor. By sending them written notice they will be hard pressed to deny that they had received a valid dispute and it should prevent this alleged debt from hitting you where it hurts -- on your credit report."

My questions are:

What constitutes a valid dispute?

You say they should close the account, but what if they don't?


I wrote a different post (I put it in the wrong forum - general criminal law). That post explains how I've come to owe the collection agency/Zieggy's tavern for a check that I wrote out to the electric company.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

Disputing the validity of a debt is the plain meaning of the words -- writing to the collection agency a statement to that effect. "I do not agree that I owe the debt for which you are collecting in invoice 34532 since this debt was already paid by check on March 3, 2002." The agency is then supposed to send this back to the creditor.