Purchase of old Verizon Debt

Comments

• 0

  tj

  6 May 2011

  They are probably attempting to collect someone else's debt from you instead.  Most likely, they are illegally "re-aging" their reported information.  They will probably use various forms of deception and illegal tactics to attempt to coerce you into paying unowed amounts.  
  
  If you sold the house in 2002, you would have closed the account back then as well, and received and paid the final bill.  The fact that you have several accounts with Verizon currently in good standing supports that Verizon does not regard you as owing some old unpaid balance.  You might contact Verizon's fraud department directly, to see what they show under your name and SSN, but if this is related to a 2002 account, it might be only in archival storage by now.
  
  Regardless, if it went delinquent in 2002, then it would probably be both past SOL (they probably couldn't legally sue to collect, depending on state law) and past the 7.5 year FCRA reporting limit by today, and AFNI's current reporting of a 2002 "debt" is illegal "re-aging", violating FCRA.
  
  If, for whatever reason (most likely Verizon error), the account had actually stayed open, maybe the new owner kept getting bills addressed to you and kept paying them fraudulently using phone service under your name until he skipped out on a final payment, then the "debt" is fraudulent, due to id theft (essentially "account takeover fraud"), and you could dispute on that basis.  
  
  Your records (county recorder's records and deeds, on-line assessor's records, etc.) would show that title to the property transferred in 2002 to a new owner, and that you did not and could not have obtained phone services at that address after that point.  Your own current records, including utility records, show where you live today.
  
  Recent bill in your name, mailed to that address, combined with your property sale in 2002, pretty much proves it.  
  
  Recent bill in your name, to ANY address you don't live at, pretty much proves id theft, at least enough to file a police complaint for id theft, which is all you need to get it off your credit reports, regardless of what BS AFNI is claiming.
  
  
  As indicated by many complaints, ANFI employees are known for making up "suggestions" and excuses for why their suspect "debts" are owed.  Basically, their employees are trained to lie.
  
  They may try to claim "you must have failed to close the account", which would likely be deception, a fabrication (lie) by the AFNI employee telling you this, as they would have no way to even know, but their goal would be to deceptively con you to pay an unowed, unproven debt by playing up the difficulty of YOU having to prove you don't owe it.  
  
  Or they may suggest the "id theft" angle, while playing up the difficulty of proving it.  
  
  In one study, Verizon and AFNI were the #1 and #2 companies showing up connected to consumer complaints of "id theft" sent to FTC in 2007, as they apparently played this con game on hundreds of thousands of consumers, collecting on millions of decade old Verizon accounts (from their purchases of GTE, etc.) bought by AFNI for pennies on the dollar.  No other debt collectors were even close.  If Verizon had actually had this "crime wave" of id theft, it would have been a major story.  AFNI employees just made it all up, with their "suggestions", so consumers filed thousands of "id theft" complaints with FTC.
  
  
  Most complaints against AFNI are for attempting to collect debts from people who don't owe them.  They appear to be sending out their letters to anyone with a similar name with little attempt to make sure they collect from the right person, and they are reported to put their negative account information on the wrong people's credit reports as well.  Complaints of re-aging are not uncommon.  
  
  In particular, many consumers have reported that attempts to validate debts have been ignored, or that the response has been just some deceptive reply letter, either just AFNI saying the debt was "verified" with no proof from the creditor, or indicating that they "did not have enough information to investigate".  Their failure to validate has been the subject of investigation by the Minnesota Attorney General, and these second "cannot investigate" letters were the subject of a recent federal class action lawsuit.
  
  The Minnesota Attorney General sued them in 2008, over suspect Verizon "accounts".  Here is the press release on the lawsuit.
  
  http://www.ag.state.mn.us/Consumer/PressRelease/080715AfniInc.asp
  
  They settled, but recently had the same "problems" with spurious Qwest "accounts".
  
  Class action lawsuit, Hale v. AFNI, where AFNI was found to have routinely sent out deceptive letters designed to convince people disputing debts that the burden of proof was on them, in violation of FDCPA.
  
  http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1 ... dt=2,5&as_vis=1
  
  "...
  CONCLUSION
  
  The Court finds that AFNI's statements in its form letter are "false, misleading, or deceptive" in violation of 15 U.S.C. § 1692e, and AFNI is not entitled to assert the bona fide error defense under 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(c). Accordingly, Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment on the issue of liability under § 1692e of the FDCPA is GRANTED and Defendant's motion for summary judgment is DENIED.
  ..."
  
  
  There are consumer complaints consistent with alteration of alleged account information to match who they are dunning.  For example, some complaints allege the account is tied to an address they once lived at, but years different (so real id theft is unlikely), and AFNI is claiming their name is on the account and they owe it.  
  
  Although AFNI often claims this "might be id theft", a number of complaints are more consistent with AFNI sending bills to other people skip-traced to having once lived at an address.  Skip-trace information contains a lot of junk, tending to sweep up anything that might provide leads, rather than excluding nonsense.  In particular, it is notoriously poor at indicating when someone might have lived at an address.  As the original creditor (often Verizon) would not even have had access to this mix-up in information when the account was set up, this points to a pattern of systematic alteration and fraudulent billing, originating with AFNI itself.
  
  The types of alterations that AFNI is likely to have made in your case might include:
  
  1)  They may have a bill under an old phone number you had, actually under someone else's name, and they "erroneously" found you once had that phone number so they send you their bill, fraudulently misrepresenting that you owe it.
  2)  They may have some other person's phone bill, billed to the address you once lived at, probably at a different time, and they are now fraudulently billing you, in your name, for this phone bill that again never had your name on it.
  3)  They may have some electronic documentation on old Verizon accounts, including that on your old account, that Verizon may show either accurately or inaccurately, as having a balance due, and they are "re-aging" it to illegally put it on your credit report over 7.5 years later.
  4)  The Verizon data may show the account as having no balance due, maybe Verizon corrected a billing error, but AFNI is "accidentally" misreading the account coding to claim you still owe an amount written off, claiming it is a "bad debt" rather than a "billing correction" write-off, combined with re-aging it to illegally report it.
  
  Here are reports from 2 ex-AFNI employees on what AFNI is doing to produce so many complaints from consumers who claim that AFNI is trying to collect on unowed bogus debts.
  http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/353/RipOff0353689.htm
  
  Don't waste your time calling them, as their phone employees cannot be trusted.  Communicate only in writing, with all letters send certified return receipt requested.  Keep good records of all communications, with copies of all letters, as you may need a paper trail showing your disputes and their responses if you have to sue them.
  
  Pull all 3 credit reports to see if they are also putting erroneous negative information on the others.
  
  Send a letter to AFNI disputing their erroneous account information on your credit report(s) as not your debt, and requesting that they send validation (proof) of the alleged debt obtained from the original creditor, with proof that you are the correct person owing it.  Demand proof of when the account was closed and went delinquent.
  
  When you get the green cards back, or confirm their receipt via the USPS website, dispute the accounts with the credit reporting agencies, in writing, indicating that they are not your accounts.  
  
  Also dispute the account date, as AFNI is required to accurately report the first date of delinquency to the CRA, so that the CRA can remove it after 7.5 years.  The CRA should be reporting when this account will be removed.
  
  If any account closed when you sold the property in 2002 had been accurately reported by AFNI, then NO debt would even show in your credit report.
  
  If AFNI "verifies" the erroneous information to the credit reporting agency, or continues to attempt to collect the erroneous debt from you, file complaints with FTC, your state AG, and the Illinois Attorney General.  
  
  Attempt to obtain credit to see if you are denied due to their negligently reported erroneous information, in order to prove they have damaged you.  A recent (2010) collection account should cause you to be turned down for credit, or at least cause you to get very poor terms, for which the creditor will have to notify you through an "Adverse Action Notice" that there was something negative found on one of your credit reports.
  
  Then contact a consumer protection attorney in your state to look into suing them for the FDCPA violations due to continued collection without validation, and the FCRA violations for willful or negligent posting of erroneous credit information.  If you are successful, both FDCPA and FCRA allow a court to direct them to pay your attorneys fees, on top of damages.
  
  You might try www.naca.net

  Reply!