collection bill
Complaint
nai
Country: United States
Wth.. I'm getting a bill from 2006 from collection agency for bmg saying I owe for a cd from 2006. I don't know who the artist is just cd title long road. Music I don't listen to. I called the agency and no one gives me a number just go to website. Its a nasty scam .... I paid them off five years ago and now they're coming back for more.
Comments
Those CAs then used them to "collect" from anyone with a similar name, while witholding any information from the victim that might reveal the deception, basically stonewalling the victim and depending on credit damage to coerce payment. They hid behind the "plausible deniability" that "it was a mistake" if they were caught demanding money from the wrong person.
Companies engaged in this little scheme include NRA Group, Thakur, National Credit Solutions, and several others.
Several of them also got caught "accidentally" collecting on suspect Hollywood Video "accounts", which resulted in lawsuits by state AGs, and ultimately a 50 state settlement with the holders of the bankruptcy assets to restrict collection on these "accounts". Note the similarities in target victims, product, and collection tactics.
https://doj.mt.gov/consumer/movie-gallery-lawsuit/
Although you'd think that if this "debt" was so important, the "customer" would have been contacted when it became due, yet these collection agencies always seem to show up late. In the "termination fee" shakedowns, waiting 5 or 6 years is actually part of the game. It helps make sure that most people will no longer have any records to rebut this "termination fee", certainly not the mobile, unsophisticated victims targetted. Given that, who knows what is real, what made up, whether it's made up by Columbia House as part of it's order cramming or "sloppy" accounting for "commitment credit", or whether it's being fabricated by collection agencies buying the old records en-mass.
Look through the complaints against "BMG" on consumeraffairs.com. Note the many reports of fraud, both by the music club, as well as by collection agencies who appear to be systemtically recycling and recollecting old "accounts", ignoring FCRA's 7 year reporting limit, and renewing credit damage on each round. This is an organized, systematic racket, and it even spills over onto people who were never customers.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/entertainment/bmg.htm
They really aren't very bright, however, only good at fooling the unsophisticated. They commonly violate FDCPA (typically evading validation, and deception by claiming the consumer can't dispute), and they violate FCRA every time they "re-age" damaging credit information.
First, send a written dispute letter, mailed certified return receipt requested, to the collection agency. Also check your credit reports. You will probably find a damaging "collection account" being reported, as that is typical with these shakedown collections. File a dispute with the CRA, but don't be surprised if the CA "verifies" the false information. They could just remove it, but if they "verify" it and it's false, that's one of the requirements you need to sue them for violating FCRA.
Also file complaints with FTC and your state Attorney General.
Then contact a consumer attorney in your state. You may be able to sue them for violations of FDCPA or FCRA, and the potential damages caused by false credit reporting could be far greater than these trivial "accounts". You can find a consumer attorney in your state through www.naca.net Many will review your case for free, and take such cases on contingency, since both FDCPA and FCRA allow courts to award damages AND attorney fees if you win.
Regardless of whether you have to sue, a letter from an attorney will make them go away faster, and get your credit file fixed faster, than acting like a sucker. They know what they are doing, so they know when they have to cut and run.
I'm thinking that a CD is going for thing, oh, $15.00 per. In the future, I'd ignore anyone calling you about this. It is more expensive to actually file suit against you - even in small claims court - than it is to forget about it. So, seeing as how the entire motivation here is making money, they won't do it. The return possibility is too low, even if they actually did show up to the hearing and obtain a default judgment. They aren't going to be any closer to getting money from you. Besides, most of the folks running these scams have too much baggage to allow themselves to be seen in the light of day - they won't risk a legal maneuver when they, themselves, are operating outside of the law and likely to be found out if they take you to court.
So, if you get some scammer trying to run you up for a $15.00 debt, tell them to go ahead. It'll be their loss.
They are getting it by placing damaging information on credit reports, often not even sending letters but just waiting for the consumer to find out about the damage, which usually occurs when taking out a loan.
Although their gambit is basically a nuisance or "chicken" play, the damage can be in the thousands of dollars, and they are basically depending on the fact that most consumers have never filed lawsuits. Some complaints report screwing up home purchases or mortgage refis.
Consumer complaints report such damage to people who never joined any music club or bought any CDs (maybe 30% to 50%). There are also complaints reporting fraudulent "account" creation, apparently by just sending unsolicited CDs, and then sending bills. Complaints report these "accounts" often weren't pursued at the time, but instead aged to became "delinquent accounts" in the hands of these debt collectors years later, after consumers are likely to no longer have records. This pattern of old "debt" collection through credit damage, combined with stonewalling disputes, shows up across most consumer complaints, and is different from the normal pattern of consumer debt collection.
That paints a profile of organized mail and collection fraud, with the illegal practices apparently well known among several companies engaged in this.
So $15.00 is enough to cause a lower interest rating?
Don't give these goons anymore power than they are already trying to claim.
FICO scores look at the number and how old negative items are, but ignores the amount.
Similarly, it looks at debt to credit limit ratios, but ignores actual dollar amounts.
It's blind to absolute dollars, to be unaffected by widely varying incomes and costs of living, which would be very difficult to correct for.
In addition, most mortgage lenders require all reported delinquent "debt" to be paid before closing, so anyone caught by this scam as they are trying to buy a house or refi a mortgage get stuck into paying even false "debt".
That allows them to easily game the system.
Same pattern is visible across all collection agencies handling this type of "debt".
They take it for granted that it doesn't matter whose credit they screw up.
Best response is sue em.
Let em help buy your house.
Actually, it's not.
If you had a thin credit file, maybe several years of good credit, a single "collection account" could kick you from the low 700s into the mid 600s. Relative to your limited good credit history, one black mark would make you subprime.
National Credit Solutions, and the other usual suspects in the "music club" shakedowns, were also caught up in the Hollywood Video fiasco. Same M.O.: Old "debt", trivial amount, credit damage before any contact, no proof, records tainted by "confusion", yet "collected" as if God himself had sworn to them.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/41390483/