If you have a collection from Sunrise Credit Services on your credit report or they are calling you, your initial impulse may be to call them and work it out.
This is exactly what they want.
Before you do that, you need to know they have been known to sue on accounts they cannot prove are valid. The documentation for the debt they say you owe may not be what it seems.
According to a study by U.S. PIRGs, almost 79 percent of credit reports contain some mistakes or serious errors. This means the collection account currently hurting your credit score could be based on incorrect data, the wrong balance, or someone else’s information altogether.
The best approach is not to pay and then try to figure it out, but to dispute the account first and then pay if you owe.
Who Is Sunrise Credit Services?
Sunrise Credit Services is a debt collection agency, operating for over 50 years out of Melville, NY. They were founded in 1974. Here is their basic contact information:
Address: 8 Corporate Center Drive, Suite 300 Melville, NY 11747
Phone: (631) 501-8500 / Toll Free: (800) 645-9824
Years in Business: 51 years (founded 1974, incorporated 1975)
Contact Email: clientservices@sunrisecreditservices.com
Website: sunrisecreditservices.com
They are part of a group of companies which include NetTel USA, Inc. and Sunrise Capital Management. They collect for several major companies including AT&T, Bank of America, Spectrum, Comcast, and US Bank. They are a BBB-accredited business, and a member of ACA International and the Receivables Management Association International.
Their Record
This collection agency is one of the more complained about in the industry.
Over 1,061 complaints have been filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, with more than 80 percent of those complaints having to do with their debt collection practices. Their Google rating is 1.5 stars out of 546 reviews, and the Better Business Bureau lists 456 complaints in the last three years.
The majority of the complaints surround the same issues, including attempting to collect a debt from the consumer that they do not owe, not verifying the debt when the consumer requests they do so, and continuing to contact the consumer after they have requested they stop doing so.
The company has been named in at least 180 federal lawsuits, and in 2017 and 2018 alone, six proposed class actions were filed against the company for violating the FDCPA.
One class action, Aguilar v. Sunrise Credit Services, was filed in the Southern District of California in Sept. 2017. The suit claimed the company increased the amount of a Comenity Bank debt from $431.32 to $725.90 by adding $294.58 in fees that were never assessed by the original creditor.
This is not a rounding issue, this is a documentation issue. It is a serious documentation issue that raises concerns about the reliability of the records that are associated with any particular Sunrise account.
The Missing Documentation That’s Going To Help You
The Information They Are Required To Verify
According to the FDCPA, a debt collector may not tell you that you owe a debt. They may not demand payment of a debt unless they can prove that it is a legitimate debt. When you dispute a debt, the collection agency must suspend collection activities and provide written verification of the debt. This information is required to include:
- The name of the original creditor.
- The amount of the debt.
- Proof of the debt.
This is where the documentation issue that we keep running into with Sunrise becomes a real problem. In 2018, a federal complaint, Alenkin v. Sunrise Credit Services, was filed in the Southern District of New York. The complaint alleged that a Sunrise representative told him that he should not dispute the debt because he owed it and that it would do him no good to dispute it.
If this is true, it is a clear violation of the FDCPA. The FDCPA guarantees that you have the right to dispute a debt, regardless of whether the collector believes you owe it. Many people assume that if a collection agency is this aggressive, they must have perfect records.
Often, that is not the case. Debt collectors buy packages of debt from other agencies. When they do, they are typically provided with spreadsheets that include names, account numbers, and balances due. There are few copies of the original contract, copies of canceled checks, or detailed statements provided. If a consumer demands verification, the collector may not have access to the information.
What Happens When the Records Do Not Support the Debt?
One of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) reviewers reported the following experience: I asked for a debt validation letter and I asked what specific information they needed to validate the debt. They told me they could not provide those because they did not have them, however, they would attempt to collect the debt anyway.
This single comment encapsulates a problem that is repeated throughout the complaints about this company. A review of 167 cases associated with Sunrise Credit Services indicated that 86 percent contained at least one error on the credit report.
Within those cases, 43 percent contained errors in the date. 38 percent contained errors in the balance. 65 percent contained information that could not be validated. These are not small mistakes. They are serious errors that, if properly disputed, will result in having the collection account completely removed from your credit report.
The bottom line is simple: The standards for documentation and verification of purchased debt are lower than most consumers expect them to be. Collectors regularly report collection accounts to the credit reporting agencies without having all of the supporting documentation. They regularly attempt to collect debts without access to the paperwork that would validate their efforts.
The difference between what they are reporting and what they can support is the chasm that a good strategy to dispute the debt is designed to exploit.
Why Paying First Can Be a Mistake
The Paid-But-Still-Damaged Trap
Paying the collection changes the status of the account from unpaid to paid, but the collection itself will stay on your credit report for 7 years from the original date of delinquency. The credit damage is done. Paying it is just changing the tag.
This is particularly crucial with a company like Sunrise, because the credit data may be incorrect in the first place. If they are reporting an incorrect balance or date, or if it’s someone else’s collection entirely, you’re verifying the incorrect credit data with your payment. You’ve just told the credit reporting agency that the data they are listing is accurate, by paying them. That’s a very hard error to correct later.
Another mistake consumers make is answering the phone or responding to their letters right away. It is absolutely in your best interest to wait. The sooner you pay a collection agency, the less likely you are to verify the accuracy of the debt.
Collection agencies use time pressure to scare you into paying immediately. They want you to act out of fear, without verifying the accuracy of the debt. There is absolutely no reason to respond to these phone calls or letters. You have the right to tell them to cease contact entirely under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), which I’ll explain later.
Ignoring their phone calls is not rude. It’s a valid response. Collection agencies are not court officers, law enforcement, or even attorneys unless they say they are. They have no authority over you. When they call, their authoritative tone is just that, a tone. It’s not based on any real authority. Most people respond to authority instinctively, and collection agencies know this.
How Do Credit Repair Companies Challenge Collections?
A credit repair company challenges collections through a multi-step process. This process is very formulaic. There’s nothing magical or mysterious about challenging collections. This is just a matter of knowing what to look for and where to apply the pressure.
The first step is a complete credit report audit. We go through your credit report line by line to identify potential errors. We check to see if the balance they are reporting is correct. We check to see if the date is correct. We check to see if the account has been re-aged. We check to see if they are verifying ownership of the debt. These are all potential blind spots in a collector’s records.
With Sunrise, in particular, having over 1,000 federal complaints that illuminate similar patterns provides a clear guidepost. If a company has consistently been found to inflate balances, fail to provide verification, and report accounts with incorrect dates, then professionals know where to dig and what questions to ask.
A dispute is not a hopeful missive. It is an informed attack that zeros in on the same vulnerabilities that have appeared in thousands of previous cases.
If the Records Fall Apart, So Does the Account
According to federal law, if a collection account contains information that is inaccurate, erroneous, fraudulent, or simply cannot be verified in a reasonable amount of time, then the credit bureaus are obligated to remove it. That is not a loophole or a technicality. It is the heart of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and it applies to every account on your report, including those from Sunrise Credit Services.
What many consumers do not realize is that this removal often occurs without a dime changing hands. This is not an exceptional outcome, reserved only for a handful of cases. It happens frequently when a collector cannot verify the debt that they have reported. Given that Sunrise has a history of placing accounts for collection even when it lacks the necessary documentation, the chances of a successful dispute are probably higher than you think.
The trick is knowing how to word the dispute, what documentation to request, and how to follow up when a collector stalls or responds with generic language. Going it alone puts you at a disadvantage, because the collector has done this a thousand times and knows how to parry and deflect challenges from consumers who do not know what to ask for. Working with professionals who handle these challenges every day levels the playing field.
Take Control of Your Credit Report
Sunrise Credit Services has been collecting debts for fifty years, but their history shows a clear pattern of pursuing accounts they cannot fully document, reporting balances they cannot always verify, and pressuring consumers who do not know their rights. The evidence is public, the complaints are on file, and the legal precedent is clear. You do not have to accept what they say at face value.
Let FightCollections.com Fight This for You
If you have a collection from Sunrise Credit Services on your report, do not assume the information is accurate and do not rush to pay.
The pros at FightCollections.com specialize in disputing collection accounts by targeting the documentation weaknesses that collectors like Sunrise have demonstrated thousands of times. Our team will review your report, locate every disputable inaccuracy, and craft a customized plan to push for full removal.
You have rights under the FDCPA and the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Let us help you use them.
Contact FightCollections.com today for a free consultation, and take the first step toward getting this collection off your report for good.
