telephone harassment over a bill I do not owe.
Complaint
Diane Davis White
Country: United States
What do you do when you start receiving constant phone calls from a company
claiming you owe them money? Yeah, its 'only' $14.95, but I don't owe it,
so I'll be danged if I'm going to pay it. Isn't there a law against this kind of harassment? I get up to a dozen calls a day, beginning at 7:00 am and running through through 10:00 pm
If I don't answer, they tie up my message machine with long-winded messages
that accuse me of theft and threatening my credit rating.
Who are these jerks? and more importantly, HOW CAN WE STOP THEM?
http://www.qtbill.com/ is their website.
Customer Support - online Sales or Customer Support...or call us at 1-866-9-qtbill (1-866-978-2455)
You don't get to speak to a live person at any of these numbers.
claiming you owe them money? Yeah, its 'only' $14.95, but I don't owe it,
so I'll be danged if I'm going to pay it. Isn't there a law against this kind of harassment? I get up to a dozen calls a day, beginning at 7:00 am and running through through 10:00 pm
If I don't answer, they tie up my message machine with long-winded messages
that accuse me of theft and threatening my credit rating.
Who are these jerks? and more importantly, HOW CAN WE STOP THEM?
http://www.qtbill.com/ is their website.
Customer Support - online Sales or Customer Support...or call us at 1-866-9-qtbill (1-866-978-2455)
You don't get to speak to a live person at any of these numbers.
Comments
They will probably try to deflect such accusations by claiming they are not "debt collectors" covered by FDCPA. In many states, however, such prohibitions are not restricted to just debt collectors, but also apply to the original creditor. See, for example, the California Rosenthal Act. They may also be covered under state unfair and deceptive trade practices laws.
File complaints with FTC, your state AG, and the Indiana Attorney General, including that you did not do business with this company, that you don't owe them any money, and that they are harassing you with a dozen calls a day from 7AM to 10PM, accusing you of theft and threatening to damage your credit rating.
Save your recordings of their messages from your message machine as evidence, and note the times and dates. Transcribe them so you can include the transcription of their threats in your complaints.
It would be interesting if you could post a transcription of one of their messages here, so others dealing with the same problem can see. By recording their message on your machine, they gave you permission both to make that recording, and to disclose the contents to anyone for any purpose, including submitting it as evidence against them in court.
Try www.naca.net
They should also already be aware that non-traditional payment channels are likely targets for fraudulent transactions due to the choice of their merchant customers to accept, and their consumer customers to use, such channels in place of more conventional payment mechanisms such as credit cards. On-line complaints exist that show accounts apparently opened, and charges supposedly accrued, with little more than physical access to a phone, exposing not only households, but businesses and public institutions to the possibility of fraud.
They claim to open "accounts" for consumers, using some patent-pending means to "identify" the party authorizing their extension of credit. Determining that there exists a person with certain identifying characteristics is NOT the same as determining that that person has, in fact, authorized a particular transaction. In fact, if some company can find whatever information they use to claim they have identified a person, then so can another person.
That is the fallacy that allows our current proliferation of identity theft, and "alternative identity verification" that does NOT make use of the 3 credit reporting agencies does not even allow for the existing mechanisms of "fraud alert" posting to deal with possible identity theft, as provided for in federal law.
Thus "alternative" identification for billing purposes exposes the biller to increased risk of fraud or error, and also exposes consumers to the consequences of such biller's resulting erroneous collection attempts. Knowing this, such billers should be careful that the manner in which they engage in what they may consider legitimate debt collection recognize the possibility that they are collecting in error, from the wrong person, or on a fraudulent transaction, just as responsible debt collectors do to comply with existing law.
Since it appears that such identification is resulting in spurious or erroneous collection attempts, is qtbill.com meeting the Patriot Act's "Know Your Customer" requirement, or is it creating another channel for illicit money transfer, since the same identification failures that allow erroneous billing would allow anonymous transfering of funds?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer
qtbill.com would be wise to learn from the mistakes of other "innovative" payment companies, that learned the hard way that when your business practices become a public nuisance, solutions will be found to limit the damage caused by their activities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qchex
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/10/qchex.shtm
File complaints with FTC, your state AG, and the Indiana AG.
not going to pay it either!!!
In addition, if they sent you a bill for services you never ordered, file a mail fraud complaint with the U.S. Postal Inspector.
In addition, if they sent you a bill for services you never ordered, file a mail fraud complaint with the U.S. Postal Inspector.
Start by contacting your state AG, and the Indiana AG.