claiming I owe $245.11 for T-Mobile acct.
Complaint
Kevin Rimpila
Country: United States
Back in 2002 I had a cell phone w/T-Mobile and it ended up being stolen from me along w/my car. I called T-Mobile and informed them of the situation and didn't hear back from them until afni collections mailed me a letter demanding payment. I was going to pay it but then a friend told me that afni scammed people for old cell phone debts. This is well past the statute of limitations-4yrs.- for CA. T-Mobile acct. #262875294 and afni acct. #034535046-02. Thanks. kr
Comments
Under FCRA, negative information can only be reported on credit reports at most 7 years from the date of charge-off, or at most 7 years plus 180 days from the date of first delinquency (date last bill was due but not paid).
If this first went delinquent in, say, April 2002, then it can't be legally put on credit reports, nor can they threaten to do so.
T-Mobile could have, in fact, billed you for whatever they thought you owed at the time.
Based on complaints against AFNI connected to old Verizon accounts, telecom companies may be selling off their old account information, including accounts charged off for a variety of reasons. The original account might be a bad debt, but might also have been adjusted or credited by the original creditor in favor of the consumer, and the difference would still be an accounting charge-off, although no amount would be owed.
This has been confirmed in several cases where Verizon customers have been able to verify that AFNI "collection" accounts are showing in Verizon's system as adjusted with no balance due, due to a billing correction, reported fraud, etc. Verizon has claimed they scrub AFNI's data of such accounts, but there are enough cases similar to this to show that their "scrub" is not entirely accurate, and/or that AFNI is ignoring the charge-off coding information.
Since AFNI routinely avoids properly responding to validation requests with actual original creditor information, the combination results in attempts to collect false debts. The Minnesota Attorney General has sued them due to complaints by Minnesota residents.
Send a letter disputing and requesting that they send proof of the debt obtained from the original creditor. Send your letter certified return receipt requested.
Report all deceptive attempts to collect to FTC, your state Attorney General, and the Illinois Attorney General.
You have a right to asked them to stop all communication and if they don't you can find one of those debt collection attorney and take them to court. You need to asked them for a copy of the so called contract that you signed I can tell most times they don't have a copy of it because it is so old.
If they cannot provide you with a copy they have to remove it from your credit report.
These are debt buyer who are praying on poor folks in such a bad economy, so please don't be scammed and if it is over 7yrs and you did not get a bill until now don't pay a dime the states that they need to send you a verification of the debt and they cant give you a copy of the contract you don't owe them not and if they put anything on you credit report they have to remove it at once.....
Good Luck
For Sure