Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Virginia

If your question is about Florida law, then only a Florica attorney can answer. I am not licensed in Florida, but only in Virginia.

But it sounds to me like your real question is whether you in Virginia under Virginia law will have to pay what the billing / collection company says you owe.

(In other words you live in Virignia. If you were in Florida when you entered into the contract, then perhaps Florida law could apply. But probably not.)

You don't have to pay what they claim you owe simply because they say they want you to pay that much. They need to be prepared to prove that you owe the money, and how much.

So it is not enough that they simply send you an invoice saying that they want you to pay a certan amount of money. They have to have evidence that you actually do owe that much.

Debt collection companies frequently add on a collection fee.

Unless you signed a contract agreeing to pay costs of collection, YOU DO NOT OWE this extra collection fee (in Virginia under Virginia law).

For them to successfully collect a fee for the debt collector, they must be able to FIND and produce in court your SIGNATURE on a contract in which you AGREED to pay these fees.]]

However, note that contracts that include collection fees usually also include attorneys' fees.

So you want to be very, very sure about what your contract says. If you wait until you are sued, you might end up paying more for attonreys' fees. So you need to be very crtain of what your contract says.Probably the best thing for you to do is to send the original principal balance as you understand it, NOT any other fees or expenses and NOT any amount that you dispute. If the only unpaid balance includes doubtful items, they will probably let it drop.