Sprint

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• 0

  tj

  18 Oct 2009

  As you may have already found out from searching for similar complaints, AFNI has been sending collection letters to many people who do not owe their alleged debts, often to people who only have similar names.  They were sued about a year ago by the Minnesota Attorney General, for attempting to collect from the wrong people and failing to send validation.
  
  You should also know that if you just pay someone else's debt, you will end up with that paid collection entry on your reports, possibly for years.  A paid collection account will kill your scores as much as an unpaid one, and will probably affect your borrowing terms from other creditors.
  
  You might contact Sprint's fraud department to determine if they show any accounts under your name or SSN.  You might also ask them about this account number.  You may find that they show nothing under your SSN, in which case you know you aren't dealing with "id theft".  It can help to know your adversary's hand.
  
  
  Send one additional letter, again certified return receipt requested, notifying them that the alleged debt was not your account, that what they sent included no proof that you owed this alleged debt, nor did it include any documentation at all from the original creditor, and demanding that they either send proof obtained from the original creditor that this debt is owed by you, or remove it from your credit reports and cease further attempts to collect it from you.  Attach a copy of what they sent you.  (Keep copies of what you sent, along with the certified receipts, etc.)
  
  On confirming their receipt of your letter, either via receiving the green card or checking with the USPS website, check all your credit reports, and send a written dispute of their "erroneous" collection entries to each credit reporting agency that is showing it.  Include in each dispute that this is not your debt, and include a copy of the credit report page showing the incorrect entry.  
  
  AFNI's addition of someone else's account to your credit reports may also have added that person's address information.  Check your reports for address errors, and dispute those indicating you never lived there.
  
  If AFNI "verifies" the erroneous information with the credit reporting agencies, you can then hold them liable under FCRA for their mistake.  If they send you additional collection letters after receiving your second letter without sending you proof of the debt (not just their own printed creditor and account number) you can hold them liable under FDCPA.
  
  Proceed to file complaints with FTC, your state Attorney General, and the Illinois Attorney General.  (Skip BBB, as they are just assisting AFNI in smoothing over consumer complaints.)  Indicate in your complaints that AFNI is attempting to collect someone else's debt from you, that they have failed to provide any proof that you owe it despite repeated requests, and that they have put it on your credit reports and refused to remove it, damanging your credit scores.
  
  Keep track of all notices from creditors notifying you that they are raising your rates, cutting your credit lines, or closing your accounts.  If you notice a change in terms, request an Adverse Action Notice, which is a written notice they are required by law to send you on request indicating what information, including which credit reports, they used in making their decision.  Start to document damages.
  
  Then start looking for an attorney with experience in FCRA and FDCPA litigation.  You can try www.naca.net, or contact any attorney practicing in this area and they may be able to assist you with finding an attorney licensed in your state.
  
  One attorney known for representing consumers in FDCPA and FCRA matters is Pete Barry, who is also known for training other attorneys in this area of law.
  http://www.lawpoint.com/
  http://www.lawpoint.com/index.php?option=com_ ... tid=5&Itemid=35

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• 0

  tj

  19 Oct 2009

  As you noted in your ripoffrepot complaint, AFNI has been known to send collection letters based only on some alleged "address match", probably obtained through Lexis-Nexis/Accurint.  
  
  AFNI has been found to send collection letters based on loose name matching (ignoring first names, ignoring misspellings, etc), but also based only on address matching, resulting in people getting collection letters for accounts supposedly in their name, that were apparently active years from when they lived at some old address.  
  
  AFNI may be "fixing" their alleged "account" data, even changing the original name to other names they find associated with some address, and sending collection letters to those people at whatever address they now find them.  This type of widening of collection activity beyond who can be reaonably identified with an alleged account has resulted in the highest rates of FTC consumer id theft complaints of any debt collector for the last several years, probably because of AFNI employees trying to explain away consumer disputes of unowed debts as "id theft".  
  
  AFNI is known for playing up the difficulty of filing id theft complaints to get fraudulent accounts closed, which suggests that this is an apparent ploy to turn their "misidentifications" into collection opportunities.
  
  Skip-trace databases collect "information" from many sources, public records, as well as various mailing lists.  They then provide "tools" to ignore the differences, attempting to link multiple sources of disparate datak, including data entry errors, back into supposedly the same person.
  
  Since they are not linking anything by any identification as specific as a SSN or even a DOB, once all this junk "information" is thrown together, you could find yourself the first cousin of your neighbor's cat.  AFNI actually billed a dog in Sacramento for a Verizon account of someone on the east coast when the dog's owner got an "authorized user" AmEx card in the dog's name as a joke.  That revealed what they were doing.
  
  http://www.kcra.com/station/16839043/detail.html
  
  http://ripoffreport.com/Collection-Agency-s/AFNI-INC/afni-inc-sprint-phone-bill-th-2dce4.htm
  
  "...
  Well I contacted them first and explained to them. They said they validated the debt based off of my address which was a PO box which I never had.  They said that I was receiving mail there so it was my address. I provided them with an updated adress so that they can validate the dept.
  ..."
  
  
  You never had the Sprint account, you never had the P.O. Box, and they don't have your SSN.  The "account" isn't yours, if it even existed, since they have sent you nothing from the original creditor.  
  
  By the way, even if they had your SSN, it wouldn't prove they got it from the original Sprint account data.  They could have got it from your credit report, or from Accurint.  As long as you never have to show your cards, you can claim anything.
  
  
  They are trying to con you into paying a debt you don't owe, while damaging your credit for the "honor".  Proceed according to the outline above, to ensure you can take legal action should they fail ro promptly close this bogus "account".

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