Help - Collections after me for someone else's stuff (1 Viewer)

[JasonS]

By the way, what is the best method to tell them the "proof" they provided was bullshit?

 

[Johnny Mo]

I read something about this type of thing being an e-mail scam of some sort too. I think they start out threatening to "blab" about some visits to porn sites on the web, and or phone sex calls, and then once you pay their "black-mail" fee they know you are an easy mark and start sending bigger "ransom" notices. In either case that statute of limitations thing is probably good to throw at them first. Good luck.

 

[JasonS]

I think I'm going to mail a letter saying the following:

I have been contacted by your company about a debt you allege I owe. You have been notified that I did not accrue this debt, and proof you provided also does not show that I purchased this service. I am instructing you not to contact me further in connection with this debt. Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a federal law, you may not contact me further once I have notified you not to do so. Any further contact will be forwarded to my attorney, as will any evidence my credit rating has been affected by this issue.

 

[Brian Mansure]

Jason,

If this is still unresolved I would strongly suggest contacting your State Attorney General's office right away. They should be able to help and possibly even look into the collection company to see if they are legitimate.

This really could be a number of things...
As mentioned previously this could be a scam, certainly their "proof" is shady at best IMO

There are however many cases where collection companies see that the statue of limitations is running out on collecting a debt, even small money amounts, so they really get nasty and pushy to try an intimidate people into just paying up rather then getting harassed anymore.

I'm not saying this is your debt at all but you don't want to just let it go or forget about it cause there is a potential for this to come back an bite ya in the arse. It's much easier keeping a negative mark off your credit report in the first place then trying to get it removed.

Contact the Attorney General's office, keep track of all correspondence with this "collection agency" (letters, names, dates, times, phone numbers, etc.) is all important information that will help you get this resolved.
Also, see if you can contact your phone company and have them send you a monthly statement or bill from when this call was supposedly made, it's worth a shot.

Good luck,
Brian

just found the link to AG's website: http://www.accesskansas.org/ksag/

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I used to work the Help Desk for a business-to-business web site. We also handled in-house calls, so we were assigned both individual phone extensions and a several shared "help desk" extension that rang to the next available agent. All of our extensions were also direct--inward-dial phone numbers, so if you knew the area code and exchange you could dial direct to my desk or the help desk queues. Well, one of the help desk queue numbers was apparently a digit or two off from the home number of some lady a collection agency was after. The problem was the collection agency used a predictive dialer that transferred the call to their agents when we picked up - so they had no idea what actual number they were calling, and we had no way to identify which line they had come in on before being dumped to the queue. I finally compiled a list of all the possible in-bound numbers that they could be hitting and faxed it to the agency the next time they called. We never heard from them again, and I have no idea if they ever found the woman, if she actually owed the money and if the whole thing was ever settled.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Robin Warren]

I doubt this is legit. I work for a lending company in Canada and our parent company is a big top 10 banking company in the US. I emailed a chap at one of the Ohio locations and he said he has never heard of this outfit, nor seen it on any credit bureaus. They have to pay or be a member of a credit bureau in order to file trade lines. I doubt they would put any money into this collection. If they are shady, there is no chance Equifax/Trans Union would have them as a member.

This is such a small amount that there is like a billion to one shot that they would ever take you to court. It is way to expensive and most courts only allow a portion of legal fees to be recouped thru judgements. We would never ever in a million years chase someone for an $80 balance. I would write one more letter advising them to never contact you again and leave it at that. In a few months, send for a copy of your cbu and verify nothing fishy is on there. If it is, send copies of your letters to the credit bureau and advise them of whats going on, they don't take kindly to "collection agencies" sending false/unsubstantiated claims to them and would more than likely investigate it futher to ensure their records are correct.

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This seems really fishy to me. They need written authorization to access your credit bureau. Either they are flat out lying or they are performing fraud. Another thing, credit bureaus contain no information in regards to assets. This IS a snow job. Unless these retards consider available credit limit to be an asset.

 

[Robin Warren]

Up here in Canada we are allowed to contact references/neighbors, but we must cease immediately with a verbal or a written request. Just tell em to leave you alone and they have to respect that. There is lots of money to be made by suing these types of companies as the judge is usually very sympathetic to the victim.

 

[Erik.Ha]

1. Write them back a CERTIFIED RETURN RECEIPT LETTER STATING:

The charge is not yours;

Recite in detail the number of times they have previously contacted you and you have informed them the debt is not yours;

And that if they contact you again, or make any attempt to harm your credit rating, YOU WILL SUE THEM.

2. Keep a small microcassette recorder next to your phone.

If they contact you again, inform them that you are RECORDING the conversation for "your protection and theirs." Immediately begin rambling off step #1 above verbally. 9 times out of ten, they will hang up. RECORD ANY THREATS THEY MAKE.

3. Get a copy of your 3 major credit reporting agency reports. Check to make sure they haven't already dinged your credit. If they have, you will probably have to sue, but you'll have a fairly decent case at that point.