Collection of Non Payment
Complaint
Perez
Country: United States
WE received a call for senior citizen at this residents staing she owes money for a magizine subscription. But she refuzed to talk to me and wanted that subject she call. She wanted a credit card or Bank Car to debit her card, which she does not have. So she told them they only can get Money Orders from here. ( That what she pays for Items ) and they gave her an address P.O. Box 67015, Harrisburg, PA 17106. To send money order to.
Comments
Legitimate magazine subscriptions with the publisher are usually billed and paid in advance. Don't pay, and they just don't ship til you do.
There are a number of scam magazine telemarketing companies that sign up people to overpriced "contracts", and often use either in-house or external debt collectors to pressure for payment. Some of these scammers are known to fraudulently claim consumers agreed to their terms, claim consumers agreed to contracts up to 3 years at prices above newsstand, claim consumers ordered magazines never ordered, etc. There are also reports of failing to disclose terms, including cancellation terms, and failing to actually ship magazines they claim were ordered. The magazine subscription service industry is a literal cesspool of fraud and scammers.
These con men love to prey on the elderly, since they can indimidate them repeatedly to extort payments. There are even companies that collect and sell sucker lists of past victims to other scammers.
National Recovery Agency is a debt collector, at the address you have. That does not guarantee that the debt they are collecting on is legitimate, that it is not a result of fraud, or that they will follow the law in attempting to collect it. If they are complying with the FDCPA, they should send (or have already sent) a letter to the alleged debtor within 5 days of their first contact notifying the alleged debtor of the amount of the alleged debt, and containing an FDCPA required notification of dispute and validation rights.
When contacted by a debt collector, consumers have a right to dispute alleged debts, and request that validation (written proof) of the debt be obtained from the original creditor and sent to the consumer. Debt collectors must cease all collection activity until validation is sent.
If you are dealing with a shady "magazine subscription" scammer, and its debt collection partner attempting to scam or extort a senior sitizen under your care, you might be wise to involve your local District Attorney or Adult Protective Services, as this may constitute elder abuse.
https://complaintwire.org/Complaint.aspx/EOCyDbSpRAC7TgjJ3Y3HJg
It may be that once telemarketers have found a "soft" target, your residents could be bombarded with increasing levels of fraudulent calls, due to distribution of "sucker" lists.
If so, you might want to block incoming autodialed calls, which is generally how call centers, whether legitimate or not, do their dialing.
There are boxes insertable between incoming phone lines and the internal phone system that require that a code be manually entered for a call to ring through. The incoming message can disclose the code so that manually dialing callers can get through, but autodialers can't understand verbal instructions, so they never ring through.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/364/RipOff0364138.htm
"...
My wife received a call today (August 18, 2008) from National Recovery Agency (NRA) stating that I owed $40.00 for a magazine neither of us are familiar with. NRA told my wife that not paying for the magazine would ruin my credit, so my wife gave them her credit card number. She suspected it was a fraudulent company, so she used a card that is protected against identity theft.
When I returned home, I called NRA to complain. An NRA representative said this was not the first time I was contacted about this magazine (which was not true). I have never even heard of this magazine before. My wife called the magazine company that NRA gave us, and they had no record of us ordering the magazine.
I paid the $40.00 just so I would not be contacted by NRA again.
..."
Other complaints:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/425/RipOff0425758.htm
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/409/RipOff0409789.htm
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/416/RipOff0416990.htm
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/365/RipOff0365644.htm
Attempting to collect on an already paid debt.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/223/RipOff0223229.htm
Report of NRA collecting on a "debt" arrising from a contract "altered" unilaterally by the original creditor.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/212/RipOff0212475.htm
NRA may be collecting on questionable "debts" from equally questionable creditors.
http://www.dc.bbb.org/report.html?national=Y&compid=70005089
Most complaints are for "credit or billing disputes", which you would expect from a debt collector. They do appear to respond to BBB
Reports they collect on Columbia House accounts. Columbia House was sued for deceptive telemarketing violating the Do Not Call list, and has a record of complaints for shipping and billing for unwanted products.
complaints.https://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/8008146580/2
A number of complaints claim they continue to collect while failing to send validation. This is a problem with junk debt buyers collecting on questionable debt since requesting validation under FDCPA is the primary means for consumers to determine whether alleged debts are owed by them.
This type of complaint can be expected when the debt collector knows the "debts" they are collecting on are questionable and chooses to use harassment and intimidation to collect on them anyway.
Federal FDCPA lawsuits:
http://dockets.justia.com/search?query=NRA+Gr ... 3&max-year=2009
Complaint they are collecting on an alleged debt for books never ordered or received.
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/national-recovery-agency-c173985.html
Even after RBI has made so many Rules in fever of this people like you & me are being harass time to time & we are not able to find any strong organization or any person who can really bring us out of this mess...
Hope that government& RBI will do some thing in this matter also as making rules is easy but getting them implemented is the main part of work...
Federal law (FDCPA) places a number of duties on them, however, such as notifying you of your right to dispute and request validation (proof), and requiring that they cease collections when you do request validation until they obtain and send it, if you request it within 30 days of receiving their first notification of that right.
That is why a number of shady debt collectors attempt to coerce payment by phone before, or without, first sending the federally required notification, in an attempt to illegally con unsophisticated consumers, particularly if they know they are attempting to collect on old questionable accounts where they don't know who actually owes it.
File a complaint with your state Attorney General for attempting to deceptively and fraudulently extort payment for an alleged debt you do not owe.
Include in your complaint that they are repeatedly calling you demanding payment for a debt you don't owe on an account that is not yours at an address you never lived at, for which they will not provide even an account number or phone number that the original alleged creditor, ATT, might search against legitimate accounts.
Include that they have sent NO letter within 5 days as required by FDCPA, have refused to provide any proof you owe the alleged debt, and instead have deceptively claimed they don't have to prove you owe this alleged debt but you have to prove you don't owe it, or else pay them.
Repeated reports indicate no letter sent as required by FDCPA. A number of complaints involve BMG and similar "record club" accounts, which people generally know for sure they NEVER had. They are reported to "fix" the alleged account information to match the target by looking up past addresses, which several consumers have reported were addresses they once lived at but the alleged account was from a time they never lived there.
Reports of severe credit report damage over small (approx. $50) bogus debts. They may be counting on extorting payment from people attempting to close on home mortgages. General consensus of complaints is that they are running a scam.
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-800-360-3588/2
"Rolee - 24 Jan 2009
This a collection agency who obviously is pulling phone numbers of people who have the same name, then calling the person and harassing them.
..."
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/459/ripoff0459769.htm
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/444/RipOff0444374.htm
http://www.creditmagic.org/debt/capital-assistance-group-2.html
Things have been heating up recently. June 2009 alone: 4
2009 YTD: 8
2008 total: 4
2007 total: 3
http://dockets.justia.com/search?query=nra+gr ... 6&max-year=2009
http://fairdebtcollection.typepad.com/fair_de ... -group-llc.html
"New FDCPA Case Against National Recovery Agency (NRA Group, LLC)
My firm is filing a new Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) lawsuit against NRA Group, LLC dba National Recovery Agency for unlawful debt collection practices. The case is being filed in the Southern District of California federal court and seeks $20,000 in actual damages plus $1,000 statutory damages under federal law, $1,000 Statutory damages under state law, attorney fees and costs. The lawsuit alleges that NRA Group, LLC dba National Recovery Agency violated the federal FDCPA and California's equivalent statute, the Rosenthal Act, by attempting to collect a debt not actually owed and reporting (and later verifying as accurate) false information to Experian credit reporting agency.
..."
They may be calling you in error, they may have mailed you a letter at some other address, or they may not have mailed you any letter at all. If they do reach you on the phone, insist that they send you the FDCPA required letter, that must be sent within 5 days.
They may also be deliberately NOT sending you a letter, assuming that they can "charm" money out of you better if they have not notified you of your legal rights. Be aware that there are MANY complaints that this company has contacted the wrong people, then used harassment and deception to attempt to extract payments for debts not owed.
Since you are in Alabama, if you have problems with illegal debt collection harassment, you might try contacting www.alabamaconsumer.com, or search www.naca.net for a consumer protection attorney.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doing_business_as