Collection Bill
Complaint
Judy Thomas
Country: United States
I received a collection bill from this company on a nynex phone number in New York. I have never been to New York, never had a phone in NY etc. Called the company and was told to file a dispute on their website. When I started to do this, they wanted birthdate, DL number etc. I decided that it was not a good idea to give them all this additional info. I have not checked my credit report but will and if I find it will dispute it through the credit agency. This is crazy.
Comments
AFNI has been widely reported to send such "bills" to anyone with a similar name to whatever was on some old "account". They have even been reported to send such "bills" to people who once lived at the address on an account, but years apart from the alleged period of the account, and to a number of young adults who would have been between 3 and 12 years old at the time the account was opened.
Their first collection letter was required by federal law (FDCPA) to notify you of your rights to dispute the debt, and your right to request validation, which is written proof of the amount owed and who owes it, obtained from the original creditor. Under FDCPA, if you send them a letter disputing the debt and requesting validation within 30 days of receiving their first collection letter, they are required to cease all collection efforts until they obtain and send you that validation. You should send this letter certified return receipt requested so you have proof of when you sent it and when they received it.
Although they are required by law to notify you of your dispute and validation rights under FDCPA, there are many reports that their employees you reach when you call will try to divert you down paths likely to extract money even when you don't owe the debt. Their "redirection" of your dispute to their website is one of these evasions, as it seeks to place the burden of proof onto you, and demands all sorts of things not required by federal law to dispute and request validation. For example, there is no FDCPA requirement that you provide identification (DOB, DL, SSN) to assert your rights to request validation.
Basically, they know they are sending these bills to a lot of people who don't owe anything, yet they pretend they think you owe it, until caught, when they often claim it was just an innocent "mistake".
Request validation, in writing as outlined above. Then, since this is an alleged "debt" from NY, call the NY Attorney General's office, who is reported to be invesigating AFNI at the request of a NY state senator.
Many of these old debts are from the 1990's, making them illegal to report on credit reports, and probably past SOL so they couldn't sue in most states (including NY), either. That leaves them with trying to threaten consumers, but trying to do so while still claiming they are not, since threatening actions they cannot legally do is deceptive collection and illegal under FDCPA.
What year are they claiming this debt went delinquent?
Is their collection account showing on any of your credit reports?
Have they claimed to have your SSN, and that it is "on the account"?
Does one of your credit reports show their "inquiry", indicating they pulled your report (and obtained your SSN in the process)?
I told them I was not giving them any money until I had verification after a decade they are attempting to collect money . I will be checking my credit history and already sent them letters. BE CAREFUL
I told them I was not giving them any money until I had verification after a decade they are attempting to collect money . I will be checking my credit history and already sent them letters. BE CAREFUL
It is also past the 7 year limit for putting it on your credit reports. They also know that, but usually word their responses to imply that you should want to pay it (even if you don't owe it), to protect your credit. That is deceptive, and use of deception to collect debts, and threatening to take actions they cannot legally take, is a violation of FDCPA.
Their goal is to evade your disputes or requests for validation, and get your money. That is why they offer you the "half-price" deal, which is no deal if you don't even owe anything.
"they were quick to give him my social security number for verification"
They could care less about the security of your identity information. They either want you to believe it really is your account, or that this is identity theft. It might have been your account (which may or may not have any balance due), or an account owed by someone with a similar name, or even just someone who lived at an address that you once also lived at. Having your SSN proves nothing, since they routinely pull credit reports of people they send collection letters to, allowing them to obtain SSN information from the report.
Many consumers have reported attempts to collect debts, allegedly in states they never lived in, on phone numbers they never had, or from addresses they once lived at but for dates years from when they lived there, where true id theft is highly improbable, yet they have their SSN and claim it proves it is their account.
If you dispute it as not your account, they would love to send you on some wild goose chase trying to prove it, filing police reports, digging up old rental agreements or utility bills, etc., shifting the burden of proof onto you, instead of providing any proof there even is a debt in response to your validation request. They will of course refuse to provide you with any information on the original account that might make it easy to show it is invalid.
If a debt is 10 years old, past SOL, and can't be reported, there isn't really much they can legally do to force you to pay anything, whether or not you owe anything. About all they can do is threaten, preferably on the phone and not in writing, to make it harder to prove in court.
Make sure your dispute and validation request letter was sent certified, return receipt requested. They might still try to put this on your credit reports, or claim it is more recent than 10 years, so you want proof that your letter was sent within 30 days of receiving their first letter, and proof that they received it, to preserve your FDCPA rights.
They wanted him thinking "Damn it. Well, maybe she did forget this one. She wasn't that good with money before we met. The SSN matches, so it's probably her account. And they are willing to accept half to be done with it. Well at least it's only $200. I better pay it now, or it might cause us some problems with our credit."
SSN means nothing, and proves nothing. All it does is divert you from questioning the validity of the debt. As long as you are talking about $400 vs. $200, you are headed toward payment, and not even looking at whether the debt is even yours, is valid, or is so old you can tell them where to go.
In some respects, you have to admire their training, as they have a canned response to a wide range of challenges, all designed to evade validation.
When a magician shows you something, you know that isn't where to look. That is what deception is all about.
I have google it an easily found the name of the actual owner with a different address than mine, but close to my home. So the number, the name and the charge don’t belong to me.
I sent a dispute letter today with the above info and a warning to avoid further contacting me on this regards or other incorrect charges, pointing ID thief, legality under FDCPA and enforcement of all local and federal laws otherwise.
Of course, it costed me more than 5dlls because I certified the letter with delivery confirmation.
I hope this is enough to get me out of further trouble. I didn't call Afni Inc since I personally consider all as spam and carefully didn’t provide SSN or any other personal info.
Since you mentioned "id theft", they may respond asking you for a bunch of information "before they can investigate your claim", and ignore your request for validation entirely. Of course, based on your ease in locating the named party, it's probably not actual "id theft", just their usual negligent or malicious collection of any similar name. I wonder if they are actually getting payments from several people per account.
If they have already claimed this is an old account over 7.5 years old, it should be straightforward to keep this off your reports, whether it is yours or not. If the original debt is recent, even if they have misidentified you, they may already be damaging your credit.
Was the letter dated 12/13/07, or was the number allegedly disconnected 12/13/07?
Other than the name and phone number not being yours, what other information did they provide on the debt? Date of last statement? Original address?
I just wanted to give you and update on this issue. As I mentioned, I sent my written complain about the collection note with research results, via certified mail. See previous publication.
Finally after a couple of weeks, I recently got a letter confirmation stating that in deed my case would be removed from credit record since Afni Inc. found no connection with me on the charge or my SSN, even offered a small apology.
So, I encourage people that truly believe are falsely charged, prove it first by researching on-line and to dispute in writing before any other action, include your conclusions. This will save time in both sides.
The best always
If you had called, they probably would have tried to use your own credit report data to try to convince you to pay, probably offering their "half off" deal.
Keep their letter in your permanent files. If you have a common name, don't be surprised if you get another letter on some other account and have to repeat the whole game.
Pull your credit reports and make sure they didn't put negative information on them, in particular if they were claiming this is a recent bad debt. Ridiculously, they aren't legally liable for putting negative information on your credit reports until you find it and dispute it thru the credit reporting agencies.
Aug 18,1998 through Oct 1998. here what I see on the document
Aug 18,1998
GTE Basic Service Charges $56.19
Total Current Charges $56.19
Total Amount Due $1395.64 No Long Distance detaled document
Sept 18, 1998
Amount of Last Bill $1395.64
Amount Past Due $1395.64
GTE Basic Service Charges $56.88
Total Current Charges $56.88
Total Amount Due $1395.64 No Long Distance detaled document
Oct 04,1998
Amount of Last Bill $1452.52
Previous Bill Amount $1452.52
GTE Basic Service Charges $47.44-
Total Current Charges $47.44-
Total Amount Due $1,405.08 Once again no Long Distance detailed
Document provided. How can they come up with that figure when there is no long Distace detaled records. All I see is standard basic service charges like taxes what you will usally see on a basic phone bill.
Make sure your cease contact letter was sent certified return receipt requested, and save the green card when you get it back. Staple it to your file copy of your letter.
Keep all letters, documents, and green cards in your files, in case they resume collection again in a couple years (violating FDCPA), to allow you clear proof for use in AG complaints, or a quick legal response.
Keep in mind that your position is now that this matter is closed, permanently.
A couple questions, just to examine their methods:
What, if anything, on the document indicated it's source?
Anything to indicate it was actually forwarded from Verizon, rather than just printed by AFNI from electronic data already in AFNI's posession? Or is that only implied in their own letter?
What, if anything, have they provided to indicate any of this has any connection to an old account that was actually yours? Not just your speculation based on dates, or their verbal "suggestions". Any dated GTE-labeled statement with your accurate name, correct billing address at the time, correct phone number?
How do the dates on the documents provided match with your knowledge of when you actually closed your account, moved, etc?
In addition, what's up with the Oct. 4 bill, compared to the Sept. 18 bill? The amount carried forward doesn't even match the prior bill, and then they make some adjustment to back out the basic services? Some belated adjustment to reflect that the account should have been already closed? And no statements showing actual payments?
Why would you have long distance charges on a phone you were not using for long distance? And why would the phone company have let such charges run up so high without shutting off your service, or attempting to collect them at the time? Although you can speculate about others connecting to your phone line, you didn't receive this bill at the time you were actually at that address, so it could be anything. Billing screw-up, fraudulent account billed to your name, fraudulent third party billing, crammed charges, maybe even a trojan modem long distance cramming scam, whatever.
If they can't or won't provide itemized charges (which you could at least compare against numbers you might have called) to convince you that you actually made some calls that would add up to $1400, then at this late date, there is no reason to believe you ever owed them any of this.
Their validation was insufficient. They can't report. SOL is past. You sent them a "cease contact", and indicated that the debt was disputed. Stick to that.
All irrelevant at this point. "Cease Communications", and move on.
This showed up on answerbag via Google search, but only the cached google page still existed.
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:0FtrBZoI ... lnk&cd=12&gl=us
" I am a business reporter for Gannett Newspapers and I am interested in speaking with people who have had problems with AFNI?Verizon. I can be reached at adrury@thejournalnews.com or at 914-694-5069. "
The name and phone number check out, and match other stories by Allan Drury, as for example, here:
http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071023/BUSINESS01/710230443
Note that the cached page was marked "PROBLEM: This question has been rejected. spam/offensive", although there is nothing visibly offensive about the wording of the question, and indeed it is quite neutral, and the e-mail and phone number does in fact check out. Either some AFNI troll spiked it, or it was blocked solely for containing an e-mail or phone number.
Since there are comments dated 2-13-08, this is a recent request.
If you are having, or have had problems with AFNI's collections methods, and you would like to talk to a business reporter apparently working on a story on the subject, you might contact him:
Allan Drury
The Journal News
adrury@thejournalnews.com
914-694-5069
Gannett Newspapers publishes a number of newspapers, including USA Today.
http://www.gannett.com/web/newspapers.htm
http://burbsbiz.lohudblogs.com/author/adrury/?loc=interstitialskip
As far as I know, they don't have a New York address, but they do claim to have a license in New York City, and there have been a number of other complaints against them in New York state, essentially for sending out bogus bills. A NY state senator requested an investigation by the NY AG back in the fall, and some people have reported that on contacting the NY AG, they confirmed an investigation was underway.
Send in a letter disputing the debt in its entirety, indicating that you have never had Nextel and never lived at the address they claim is on the account, and requesting that validation of the debt be obtained from the original creditor and sent to you, in accordance with FDCPA. Be sure to send your letter certified, return receipt requested, so you have proof they received it.
Since the alleged debt is from 2003, they may have put negative collection information on your credit reports. Once you confirm their receipt of your letter (by receiving the green card, or checking on the USPS website), pull your credit reports to see if they have put their collection tradeline on any of them.
Be aware that they may have pulled your credit report, and thru it obtained your SSN, DOB, and past addresses. They may also have past address information thru skip-tracing databases, some of it of questionable accuracy. If you were to call them, they may claim your SSN is on the account, making it either your debt or "id theft", although they may have obtained that SSN thru your credit report.
They have been reported to actually lead people to believe an account may be due to "id theft" rather than their own "erroneous" identification, since they then claim the burden of proof is on the consumer, and they start demanding a bunch of proof and paperwork, attempting to get payment when the consumer begins to think it may cost more to fight them than to pay them a debt they don't owe.
Alleging "relative id theft" is one of their favorite claims, since many people will pay a debt they don't owe just to avoid reporting a relative to the police, although there have been a number of reports that these allegations are deceptive "suggestions" where AFNI had nothing to prove it, and the consumer did not believe the claim.
Contact the New York Attorney General's office.