frud
Complaint
ramon jimenez
Country: United States
I received a collection notice saying that i have to pay 1369.75 of a phone bill that i never had in [NYC]in 1998, and I moved to massachusets in 1996.Are this bell atlantic people crazy or what.
Comments
https://complaintwire.org/Complaint.aspx/BL6ADlQfXwAGogjJkKUatA
They are not crazy, but they are deceptive. They lie, and they cheat. And then they lie again telling you how they are not lying or cheating, claiming there is nothing wrong with their lies.
Is it actually on any of your credit reports, or did you contact them, presumably by telephone, and they threatened to damage your credit?
They have been sending a lot of collection letters to anyone with a similar name, or even who once lived at the address on an account, for old alleged debts left over from Verizon's purchases of various telecom companies in the 1990s.
It looks like SOL on debt in NY was 6 years, either 6 or 4 years in MA. http://www.carreonandassociates.com/articles/collectionlaws.htm
And they can only put it on credit reports for 7.5 years, from the original date of delinquency in 1998.
About all they can do is threaten, and it wouldn't even be legal for them to do that.
If it is not your debt, it is not your debt, although they have been making a lot of deceptive statements to consumers to convince them otherwise.
Send them a letter, sent certified return receipt requested, disputing the debt, stating that this is not your debt, and requesting that they obtain written validation of the alleged debt from the original creditor and send it to you. Request that they cease all further collection activity, as required by FDCPA, until they have provided you written proof that you owe them.
Request that in addition to proof that you are the correct person that actually owes this debt, they provide:
1) The name and address of the original creditor,
2) The name of the party to whom the alleged debt is owed,
3) A copy of any judgement, if any,
4) The full name, identification, billing or service address, last statement and last payment amounts and dates from the account information of the original creditor.
5) An accounting for how they arrived at the amount they claim is due, resolving any discrepancies between the final statement and that amount.
Request that as it is inconvenient for you to receive their phone calls, they should restrict all contact to written communication via U.S. Mail. Make sure you get this letter sent within 30 days of receiving their first letter, which should have notified you of your right to dispute and request validation.
After you send your letter, confirm their receipt via green card, or thru the usps.gov website. If they continue to demand payment, or otherwise engage in collection activity without providing validation, they will be in violation of FDCPA, for which you can sue.
Since this involves an alleged debt from New York, and in particular, one where they are falsely claiming you are the debtor, using only skip tracing information that showed you once lived in NY, contact the NY Attorney General's office. They are reported to have opened an investigation into AFNI over many similar complaints they have received from other NY residents.
Also contact the MA AG, and particularly the IL AG. IL resently passed a new law that plugged a gap in their regulation of debt collectors collecting on purchased debt, and that law went into effect Jan. 1, 2008.