TL:DR can I pretend to get off sexually to the calls? Can I yell and swear ( no racist stuff or threats) can I put them on speaker mode and talk nonsense while my co workers laugh until they hang up?
For the past 3 years I have been receiving almost daily phone calls to my business line about multiple debts owed by someone else. These companies have the wrong number and I do not know the person they are asking about, although the collection companies have given me her life story and personal details (seriously, I have her full name, last known addresses, parents names and last 3 digits of her social). I have told them tonnes of times they have the wrong number, even threatening legal action until the hang up.
I asked them not to call, requested all written communication so it would be easier to ignore, they refuse to tell me the name of company and spoof their number so I can't track them down. I would like to start making a game of it with some co workers on speaker or add them to the call from their desks, would this be a privacy issue?
When I was younger and dumber than I am now I opened a credit line I couldn't pay back and bought a car I couldn't afford. Both went to collections and have been wreaking havoc on my credit report. It took me a long while to get on my feet and actually start paying attention to my credit. What are the odds that if I dispute my negative accounts the collection agencies will be able to prove its mine? The debts have been passed from collection agency to collection agency for years now.
If I pay off the balance first does it help or hurt my chances of getting these removed?
Can you put up a list of all the known phone numbers of all the student loan debt collectors who try to call their debtors? This is so debtors can program their phones to auto-reject their calls.
Why isn't there a public registry of these numbers already? Why isn't there a smartphone app that has a database of all known debt collectors' numbers that auto-rejects a call to the phones with that app?
Let's make that registry listing those numbers so we'd know what numbers to block. Thanks!
If someone needs such things during the crisis, but you do not believe they should happen, what would you say to them to explain why you oppose these things? Why would they be unhelpful or bad for the people in need?
What's your sales pitch against such measures TO someone who is in a position where they need this, due to layoffs, work stoppages, and the economy rapidly slowing down due to the international emergency?
Again, I'm asking you to address your replies to this hypothetical person.
You can use "me" if that's easier; address to me your objections and sell me on why I don't need or should not have direct checks, or my rent/mortgage paused, or my debt collections paused? I have two young children, am a tool & die worker in a factory that has closed, and my wife has a chronic health condition that requires a prescription each month (which cannot be skipped or else she could end up in the emergency room for that alone within weeks of no medication). We have two weeks of savings, and most of our debt is medical debt from her condition and a few accidents. My employment medical insurance is "lower end". No student or other debt, modest consumer debt of a few thousand.
Household income averaged $50,000 the past three years. No raises the past two years. We live in... let's use Kansas. The middle.
We're extremely typical Americans.
Why is it not good for me to get those checks, or my mortgager/rent/debt to not be paused?
The title is basically the TL;DR.
I purchased a house at the tail end of this year (2019) and have recieved a letter addressed to "Owner Occupier".
The debt is to an energy supplier from early 2018 and is from a supplier different to my own and the one that supplied the property when I purchased the property.
I hid my number and called the agency to try to let them know I have nothing to do with the debt. I provided their reference number but when asked my name I refused.
I obviously do not want them to attach my name to a debt that is not mine. The guy from the agency on the other end of the phone then got hostile and tried to demand my name claiming that he needed my name and security questions to proceed before threatening me with bailiffs when I explained why I would not be providing any personal details.
I thanked him for his time and hung up. I kind of regret calling but also hoped to simply settle the matter.
So, what recourse do I have and what should I expect? They have no personal information other than the address of my property. Will this affect my credit rating?
My father died a year or so ago. He had lived with me and my wife for nearly 10 years. He was a lifetime smoker who spent the last years of his life paying for it. He had been using oxygen equipment from a medical supply company for a number of years, but cancelled his service [about 6 months before his death] when he thought he had found a better/different solution to his portable oxygen needs. At that point he asked them to come pick up their equipment (tanks and a home concentrator unit). After multiple calls got no action from them, we ended up stashing the equipment away. He was happy with his new gear, but his time was up anyway and he passed a few months later.
8 months after his death, the supply company started sending him bills for services which were dated after his death, and well after he cancelled those services. Since he lived with us, I know for a fact that no services were rendered. After multiple calls I finally got them to come pick up the gear that we had, and I figured that that was it. Alas, no! Now they've passed this debt on to a collection agency, and I'm getting a little bit fed up. I'm not terribly knowledgeable in these matters, but there must be a route for me to dispute this. This is more a matter of principle for me at this point - I believe this company was just fishing for a few extra dollars, and I am not at all happy about giving money to people like that.
Can anyone offer some relatively simple advice? Even if it's just a direction to investigate.
We need a moratorium on the activity of debt collection agencies for the remainder of the pandemic. We also need hospitals, banks, insurance companies, and utilities to adjust their policies for handling the accounts of the deceased.
My father passed away in January, when the Coronavirus seemed far away. Two months later I am still settling his affairs, now amidst a pandemic, and I am getting a glimpse of what it will be like for loved ones in the coming months. The process is daunting when companies and agencies are fully staffed and operational. We need special policies put in place to help families out during the pandemic, and we need to reform the process in the long term.
Yesterday I got a call that is the impetus for this post. A collection agency hired by my dad's Amazon Chase credit card called me to collect the remaining balance on his card. My dad's other credit card, from Capital One, had a simple process. They mailed a bill of the remaining balance to the estate of my father, and being the only beneficiary, I simply paid it. The Chase card has a policy of handing over balances of the deceased to a debt collector, and they handle the outstanding debt. Some kind of miscommunication had ensued, and the debt collector called me to say that my dad owed over $3,400, while the Chase statement showed only $300. I called Chase and talked to a supervisor who said "someone must have entered the number in wrong."
This got me thinking about the months ahead, and the ordeal that loved ones will be going through when trying to settle the affairs of the deceased, especially if there is debt involved.
Another major issue will be delays in payouts from life insurance companies, especially if the decease worked for the government. Agencies are generally understaffed and overworked - imagine what it will be like in the future, when two months later I still haven't received confirmation from the Office of Personnel Management that they have processed my father's death. OPM has to send that confirmation to the life insurance company in order for the claim to be processed. I can't even get OPM on the phone, and the last I read the agency's head had resigned. What will happen to families if a parent dies and they have to wait indefinitely for a life insurance claim to be processed?
How will families be able to handle the tsunami of paperwork and accounts to settle amidst a crisis when many offices are closed? I have spent over $100 dollars on death certificates
... keep reading on reddit ➡Not sure if this is the right subreddit for this but I just discovered I owe around 1400 euro from a rental car that had a some light damage from over a year ago. Waiting to see if my credit card can cover it still.
The question is, are there any ramifications from me waiting this long? If I completely ignore it, will I screw any chances of being able to go back to the EU? I have family/friends there so I don't want to ruin my chances of being able to return.
Received a notice from a collections agency (CA) a couple of weeks ago that I owe a debt from my old apartment complex, which I moved out of in June 2019. I responded to that notice via mail with a request to validate the debt because this was news to me. A few days later, I received in the mail what they used to validate the debt that they claim I owe:
- "Enclosed please find documentation regarding the above-referenced account and the outstanding debt currently with our office for collection. After review, it has been determined to the best of our knowledge the account is accurate and the balance is due and owing. Please note, the ledger does not reflect any additional fees added to the account as a result of the account being place with [CA name] for collections."
- A Move Out Statement dated 7/22/2019, with a list of various charges that were paid and an open balance that shows unpaid.
- Attached a copy of the leasing contract with my name and the lease & termination terms.
Is that enough to be considered validated? I've initiated the "1-2 Punch" a few days ago and only heard from the CA so far and not the bureaus. However, I shall continue onto the next step of that flowchart if what they sent was enough.
This hurts my soul seeing my credit score plummet from the low 800s, where it has been for a long time.
Thanks for your time.
Hi, As stated in the title a collection company started calling and harassing me about an 3,000 debt from a few years ago. I honestly do not know it and it isn’t on my credit report so I’ve asked them to validate it. A few weeks ago the girls huffed, told me I had 24 hours to decide before my check is garnished and then today a guy called, talked over me, talked around me, refused to give me anything to validate it and said I had 24 hours to decide before I go before a judge and my check is garnished. Is it legal for them to refuse to validate my debt? They have my email but won’t send me anything, not even some weird demand letter they said they would send. They said it’s against the law to send me anything detailing the debt.
I hope this is the right place to post this - if not, mods please remove.
We live in Ontario and my partner recently received a call from a collections agency in regards to outstanding debt of $500 in office fees that he apparently owes to his previous employer of 4 years ago.
According to him, his previous employer never made any reasonable attempts to collect this $500. They did not call him, bill him, nor send any collections letters before selling off the debt to a third party collections agency after 4 years. This is the first time he is hearing about this debt and it is negatively affecting his credit report.
What recourse does he have to attempt to dispute this fee? Does he have to pay it off since he wasn't made aware of the fee for 4 years?
I started medical school in August 2017 and deferred the loans late September of 2017. Received a letter from a debt collection agency for my parent plus federal loans. Debt collection from Louisiana. Who do I contact? Can this be reversed? How do I appeal this? Thank you in advance.
Edit: Private loan to federal loan
A couple of years back i got a notice from the IRS saying i owed like 2500. I called them and it was from a school credit tax break thing i was given but the school never sent in the paperwork saying i paid for school that year. A lot of the friends i went to school that year said the same thing had happened to them. I can go to the school and provide a receipt that i paid for school that year. However i had moved away and the school wouldn't give me any records without me being in person. I figured eh its only 2500 they can take my taxes for a couple of years and ill clear it up when i move back. (yes i am terrible at this sort of stuff) I moved back a couple of months ago and can now get the proof i paid for school that year. However i just got a notice saying my debt had been sent to a collections agency.
- how can i prove that i don't owe the debt. Do i need to prove it to the IRS or prove it to the collection agency, will they believe me?
- will i get my back taxes back that they took for a couple of years to pay the "debt" i never owed in the first place.
- Will i get a tax refund this year since my debt was passed to a 3rd party agency?
- if i dont owe it and this hits my credit rating, i can get it removed through the fair credit thing right? possibly with a lawyers help i read in the wiki?
And they won’t stop calling. Starting in like 2016 I’d get calls saying I owed stuff. The first couple times I called the hospitals or medical groups and they say ok yes you owe ____ and I paid it and confirmed I’m cleared. The hospitals and debt collection all said I’m cleared.
Then a few months later I’d get a call from debt collection about some new other charge. I’d call every single possible place I could owe, and everyone would say no you have a zero balance, 100% confirmed.
3 months later, repeat. Then repeat, and it’s still going on. I’ve checked with every possible branch of the medical group the debt collection says I owe, and EVERYONE says I have a zero balance. I even call labs, doctors, different clinics, EVERYTHING.
Every medical person in the entire city has seemingly said I have a zero balance, yet debt collection will not leave me alone. What do I do??
Hello!
I have a medical bill that went into collections. I know it’s bad to let this happen; I’m working on paying my medical bills slowly, but unfortunately I don’t have the money. However, I did get an alert that a collections agency has claimed a debt that another agency has also claimed. It’s the same exact amount and same hospital. I have disputed both charges, and both times through Experian they have verified the debt (and I disputed at the same time). What do I do?
Unsure if this would wipe out student debt, but it's worth a shot right?
Two months back I bought something for my friends because we used it together. We agreed (I have it on paper) to split equally. Most of them paid on time (I gave 20 days), but now I'm still missing 3*65$ after repeatedly telling them to pay. They always say they want to pay in cash, but according to my countries law if you owe someone money it's your responsibility to get it to them, and that is currently just not possible for them. I basically accept anything, they could pay in fucking crypto or WoW tokens for all I care, but they don't. Now I'm thinking of giving them a last chance to pay (15 days, adding a fee of 3.25$ each (legal maximum) to show I'm serious and if they don't pay in time I'd send the debt collection office after them (would be fucked because that gets published and is visible for the next 5 years (bye bye loans), but I'm not willing to wait forever. WIBTA if I do this?
Back in June of this year, I moved out of my former apartment. I emailed notice of my intent to move thirty days beforehand, as they requested, but the property had changed owners since I first moved in, and I sent it to the old email address by mistake. I went and explained this to the office, and they said it was fine so long as I could forward them the email with the timestamp. I did so, and got an email back confirming that we were good and I owed no money.
Two months later, in August, I began receiving harassing phone calls while at work from a debt collection agency claiming that I owed roughly $1100 because of Insufficient Notice. I got in contact with my old apartment, confirmed again that I owed no money, and asked them to contact the debt collection agency to tell them to stop. I have another email from the complex dated to that day stating that everything was fine and this was to be taken out of collections. The agency did get me to pay about $300 before this, for final utility bills.
I didn't think about it again until 2 weeks ago, when I got another harassing phone call while at work. The lady from the agency would not get off the phone for nearly 40 minutes, saying they had never been contacted and I owed $792. She was incredibly aggressive and condescending, threatened that this would ruin my credit numerous times, and refused to let me get off the phone to contact my old apartment.
I convinced them to wait until the end of the month, immediately called my old apartment, and got confirmation that I was in the clear. The apartment said they would contact the debt collection agency again.
This morning, the debt collection agency called me to tell me they attempted to withdraw their $792 from the car they had on file from when I paid them before, but had been denied due to insufficient funds- for unrelated reasons visible in my post history, I'm fucking broke and my life is falling apart. Again they refuse to let me contact my apartment, stating they had validated the debt with the complex.
I left a message with my old complex again first thing this morning but have not heard back.
I don't know what to do. I don't have this money. I have almost no money. And I don't owe this, as near as I can tell. I have that in writing twice over. But these calls are going to keep happening, and it's going to impact my credit, which is a problem right now when I'm trying to find a place to live.
2 years ago I lived with my father for a few months. In that time we had the cable setup in my name. When I moved out my father said he would continue making the payments, but soon after, it it went cancelled into collections. I was completely irresponsible and wasn't tracking my finances at all. Fast forward 2 years of not being aware of this balance, the cable providers account shows I had a balance of about $1500 to pay, but when I reached out to the agency who bought the debt, they want close to $2500 because of interest. Is there a way to detest and negotiate this? I know make good money and can pay it all, but my credit score is around 400 because of this and I would like to look at purchasing a house with my SO in a year's time. BONUS QUESTION: when the balance is paid off, how soon will it positively effect my credit (I live in Canada if that matters)
A few months ago, we started to receive letters from a company called Face2Face contact for an overdue gas bill at our property on behalf of Scottish Power. Initially we ignored them because we assumed it was a mistake because our property does not and never has had gas. Then, some sheriff officers came to the door demanding to see the meter and payment. Politely, told to fuck off.
So, the next day, we went to our landlord (the council) and informed them of the situation to see if they could shed some light on it. Their customer service confirmed the absence of a gas supply to the property and that one has never been installed.
So, after that, one more letter came in and I called Scottish Power and explained to them the situation. The name on the letters was not ours but the address was. The rep on the phone said a mistake was made on their part and that one number on the first line of the address was wrong. He also confirmed that gas had never been in the property. He said that it would be dealt with and said not to worry about it.
Today, another letter came in, same company, same overdue bill. Called Scottish Power and the rep said contact to council and have them deal with the problem.
What can the sheriffs do if they do come back? It's obviously a mistake as confirmed by the council and Scottish Power themselves. But sheriffs don't take no for an answer. Their tiny brains can't handle being wrong. Can they force entry or take property to cover the debt.
We seem to be getting told two different things from the same company. Do we tell the council to deal with it or, call Scottish Power back and get them to deal with it?
This is Scotland.
Edits: Fixed typos.
Trying to get finances together and remembered this sub. Like the post says, my 3 debts are A: $1368 B:$519 and C:748 . They are all being held thru collectors right now. I need to get into a more reliable vehicle and looking to move into a rental house/apartment soon as well. I'm trying to find a way to improve my <600 score the most efficient way.
I currently have 1300 i can apply towards these debts. Should i pay the 2 smaller ones off and slowly pay the 1 bigger one off? try and open a CCard to get all 3 together and pay the 1300 towards it right away? wheel and deal each debtor and ask them of they can lower it if i pay RIGHT NOW , i doubt that will work but just trying to keep it light.
I received a debt collection notice for a charge that I have already paid to the original vendor.
Backstory: Back in November 2016, we purchase an inflatable mattress (the type with the foldout base that makes it as high as a real bed) from Grandin Road for my Father-in-law who had been released from the hospital. The bed developed a hole right where one of the leg supports was in the first 2 weeks it was used. My father-in-law is not a heavy man, after being sick he would have been lucky to hit 150 lbs. I called Grandin Road and they replaced the bed ( Now late December). Cut to one month (late January) later and the replacement bed has a hole in it in the same place. I called up Grandin Road and they said so sorry but it is out of return window. They said I could send it in for a warranty repair but I didn't want a warranty repair as the mattresses kept having the same problem.
I asked to speak to a supervisor and the person I spoke to said that she was able to get the purchase refunded. I sent back the mattress (I have proof of delivery). Month later (End of February/ early March) I get a gift certificate in the mail. I called Grandin Road and said I was supposed to be refund the money and they said they can't do that because of policy. So I disputed the claim with my credit card (Citicard). On my April statement I have the Temporary Credit, I get emails saying they contacted the merchant, then another email saying the merchant responded, then a final email saying Citicard sided with the merchant and reversed the temporary credit (shows up on my June statement). At this point I say screw it, its not worth the effort to keep disputing and I go on with my life.
Now I have a debt collector saying I owe money for the charge. My question is do I just send the boiler plate message about them proving that is my debt or do I send redacted copies of my statement showing that I owe nothing?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
