LYC, I had a Falling Down moment last night on the phone with a collections agency.
Posted by
Stephen (aka Sceire)
Apr 28 '10, 11:43
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Or as close to it as I�ve come.
Long story short my dad had, for several months, forgotten to give me one of his bills and so it was several months behind. I contacted the company, assured them it would be brought current within the next two months, and made several payments to bring the account current. In the middle of this, and while a payment that would have brought him current was out to them, they apparently sent the account to collections. I found this out because I called them to find out why the last check sent to them hadn�t been processed; my call was redirected to this collections agency.
My first contact with them was on Saturday. I told them that I had not received any documentation to the effect that the account had been placed with them, but once I had that I would call to make payment arrangements. She assured me that one would be placed in the mail immediately.
Yesterday, between my dad and I, we received 6 calls from this agency. I was finally able to call back after work on my drive home. I repeated my request for the letter (Validation of Debt) which they�re required by law to provide. I made this request several times, each time I was ignored and was then told that I just had to pay the debt, because I was the one that ran out and ran it up and if I couldn�t afford to pay I shouldn�t have done so.
At this point I requested to speak to a supervisor. Supervisor comes on and I make the same request. I�m then told that the Validation letter had already been sent to me last month, which I know could not be true because the date she stated it was sent out was the same date the last payment the credit company processed a payment (they wouldn�t have processed the payment if it was already in collections). I again requested that the letter be sent, and that the harassing phone calls stopped as I would be more than willing to make arrangements once I�d had a chance to see that it had in fact been assigned to them (I�m not in the habit of just giving out my bank account info to strangers), what the balance showed, etc. I was told �sir, if you don�t make payment arrangements immediately I�m going to mark this file as �refuses to pay debt� and then we�ll proceed to the next collections process (which I took to mean lawsuit).
At some point during all that I know I got so pissed off I was no longer �talking� but �yelling� and I was so furious that I actually had to pull over because my vision sort of blurred and the road started getting wavy.
Am I wrong to think that this is exactly the type of abuse of authority that should be reported to the BBB, or more importantly the FTC. I mean I�m obviously biased, but I think they violated several provisions of the FDCPA.
Also, I need a vacation.
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