Verizon Bill
Complaint
John Banks
Country: United States
August 14, 2007
I receive a negative inquiry on my credit report from AFNI, INC for an original creditor Verizon. I have never had an account with Verizon. This company AFNI has made my life and credit score pure hell. This negative collection reporting has taken my credit score from 701 (good) to 573 (very poor) score rating. I am in the process of buying a house and I just keep receiving denials about my credit having a collection debt, which I knew this was not true. So I order my credit report to find out this company AFNI had put a collection of a bill for 1,846 from original creditor Verizon. I alert all 3 Credit Bureau of this company AFNI, reporting a delinquent account to my credit. Again I do not have an account with this company and further more I do not even own a cell phone or home phone number in my living area they do not even offer Verizon service. I spoke with a representative name Charlene with AFNI, per representative this was a bill in Lynchburg, VA for a phone number in 1994 I have not live at the address they provided nor had a phone number of 804 for Lynchburg VA. Lynchburg VA area code has been 434 for the past 10 years. When speaking to the representative she stated that Verizon brought out some company with this bill of 1,846.00 and they had the account open in January 2006 and recently reported the collection to the credit bureaus July 2007. Never once I had any type of collection nor any reporting to the bureaus about having any thing from Verizon or AFNI it all of sudden pop up on credit report; no statements, no itemized bill or nothing was sent to me. Speaking to about 10 representative of Verizon Wireless and Verizon as well as the fraud department they could not provide anything for the account number or my social security number. This company AFNI has made my life miserable as well as ruin my credit. The problem with Verizon they are allowing this company to use their name and to continue to practice fraudulent tactics using there company name. I have spent money and time just to clear my name and seem like I am not getting anywhere. Per Charlene she said the company take this information from a public record but would not provide me with the company that have such public record she stated it's only for collections agency. This is a complete fraud to consumers and ruining people credit reports and scores. Never once have I had a debt reported to the credit bureau in reference to any type of bill for Verizon or AFNI. Please Complaints.com let the publics know what this company is doing to people lives.
Thank You
John Banks, Virginia
I receive a negative inquiry on my credit report from AFNI, INC for an original creditor Verizon. I have never had an account with Verizon. This company AFNI has made my life and credit score pure hell. This negative collection reporting has taken my credit score from 701 (good) to 573 (very poor) score rating. I am in the process of buying a house and I just keep receiving denials about my credit having a collection debt, which I knew this was not true. So I order my credit report to find out this company AFNI had put a collection of a bill for 1,846 from original creditor Verizon. I alert all 3 Credit Bureau of this company AFNI, reporting a delinquent account to my credit. Again I do not have an account with this company and further more I do not even own a cell phone or home phone number in my living area they do not even offer Verizon service. I spoke with a representative name Charlene with AFNI, per representative this was a bill in Lynchburg, VA for a phone number in 1994 I have not live at the address they provided nor had a phone number of 804 for Lynchburg VA. Lynchburg VA area code has been 434 for the past 10 years. When speaking to the representative she stated that Verizon brought out some company with this bill of 1,846.00 and they had the account open in January 2006 and recently reported the collection to the credit bureaus July 2007. Never once I had any type of collection nor any reporting to the bureaus about having any thing from Verizon or AFNI it all of sudden pop up on credit report; no statements, no itemized bill or nothing was sent to me. Speaking to about 10 representative of Verizon Wireless and Verizon as well as the fraud department they could not provide anything for the account number or my social security number. This company AFNI has made my life miserable as well as ruin my credit. The problem with Verizon they are allowing this company to use their name and to continue to practice fraudulent tactics using there company name. I have spent money and time just to clear my name and seem like I am not getting anywhere. Per Charlene she said the company take this information from a public record but would not provide me with the company that have such public record she stated it's only for collections agency. This is a complete fraud to consumers and ruining people credit reports and scores. Never once have I had a debt reported to the credit bureau in reference to any type of bill for Verizon or AFNI. Please Complaints.com let the publics know what this company is doing to people lives.
Thank You
John Banks, Virginia
Comments
www.complaintwire.org/Complaint.aspx/BL6ADlQfXwAGogjJkKUatA
www.complaintwire.org/Complaint.aspx/DyQAN5MVcwCo5gjJe89XBA
If this is one of the accounts they bought from Verizon that Verizon got with their purchase of another telecom company, they were mostly old GTE accounts, which shouldn't even be reportable since they went delinquent over 7 years ago!
Did AFNI send you ANY collection letter? If so, did they notify you of your rights to dispute and request validation of the debt within 30 days?
Have you sent a dispute and validation request, mailed Certified Return Receipt Requested, to AFNI? If they sent you a letter, did you send your letter within 30 days of receiving their letter? This is necessary to have legal standing to sue AFNI under FDCPA for continued collection if they have not validated the debt. IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO, DO SO IMMEDIATELY! SEND ALL COMMUNICATIONS VIA U.S. MAIL CERTIFIED RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED!
Do you know the full extent of what they are reporting? PULL ALL YOUR CREDIT REPORTS AND CHECK! Have you disputed the false credit reporting in writing thru each credit reporting agency that shows it on your reports? Has AFNI "verified" the false information? This is necessary to have legal standing to sue AFNI under FCRA for reporting false information to credit reporting agencies. IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY DONE SO, DO SO IMMEDIATELY!
SEND ALL COMMUNICATIONS VIA U.S. MAIL CERTIFIED RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED!
Also, immediately file complaints with your state AG, with the Illinois state AG, and with the FTC, indicating that AFNI has put false information on your credit reports, that you never had the account they allege you had, that you have verified with Verizon that there is no account under your name and SSN, and that their actions have dropped your FICO scores from 701 to 573, resulting in repeated denials of credit from all lenders and blocking your attempt to buy and finance a house.
SINCE YOU ARE BUYING A HOUSE, YOU NEED TO CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IMMEDIATELY! You have already been damaged by their false reporting, and your house deal may fall thru, whether you pay AFNI a debt you do not owe to try to rescue your home purchase, or not. In fact, if you pay them at this point, your financing will probably be based on your current depressed FICO scores, since recent paid collection accounts do not raise FICO scores compared to recent unpaid accounts. You need legal advise, and quickly, to ensure you at least extract as much damages from AFNI for what they have already done. At this point, they may be able to get away with what they have done scott-free!
"Per Charlene she said the company take this information from a public record but would not provide me with the company that have such public record she stated it's only for collections agency. "
They are probably using Lexis-Nexis Accurint, or possibly ChoicePoint, to "skip-trace" a Verizon account. They appear to have an account with Lexis-Nexis: http://www.lexis-nexis.com/clients/afni/
They are notoriously "sloppy" at it, and may even be attempting collection from multiple people from sloppy matches on the same account, or even from just address matches, since they have been known to send collection letters even to people whose past addresses coincide with some account though their name is not on it. They have a pattern of proceeding in this collection activity as if their location information is actually correct, including placing negative information on credit reports.
You need an attorney with experience in FDCPA and FCRA litigation, both to see if you can shock them into fixing this immediately, or if not, to ensure you can effectively sue them for the damages they cause.
You might try:
www.naca.net
Or you might contact one of these attorneys and see if they can refer you to someone with this expertise in your state:
www.pennlawyer.com
www.alabamaconsumer.com
www.edcombs.com
Most press stories on debt collection focus on abusive and threatening phone calls, which are more dramatic and fit easier into TV show format, with only occasional annecdotal reports of collection from the wrong consumer.
Understanding the full extent of AFNI's activities takes analyzing hundreds of consumer complaints to follow the patterns, especially to find the cases where their allegations lack all credibility and their employees' actions betray their claim that these are accidents, and show the extent of their deception and the organized manner in which they conduct it.
Your likely loss of your home purchase, due to entirely false reporting, fits the press model of reader interest, as it exceeds mere nuisance levels of damages. The press as defender of the innocent plays well to their self-appointed role.
The last thing AFNI wants is for the full extent of their activities to be fully visible to the public, and to the regulators who should be policing them. They have managed so far to keep complaints muffled, except on the consumer forum sites, and you won't find even a hint of the nature of their activities on state AG sites, or even on the BBB site despite the many complaints supposedly "resolved". Their perception as legitimate is very valuable to them, since it affects both their chances of collection even when they contact the wrong party, and their chances of getting off for free when they get caught. See, for example, their BBB report, which shows "satisfactory", and that they are a member (as of May), even though they have had over 400 complaints since January. BBB has no warning that they may be sending collection letters to people with no relation to alleged debts, despite that this is the primary complaint detailed on consumer forums.
When confronted, they tend to back down and claim it was an innocent mistake, but they have still not stopped damaging consumers despite over 500 of complaints in the last 6 months. Even so, it may take several months to get them to back down and remove errors, so in your case the damage is probably done.
http://afrocentriconline.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=44276
If AFNI is sending collection letters to anyone with a similar name to an alleged "account", then people with common names will be getting screwed at a far higher rate.
I am in California from 1997 and never used Verizon and I paid all phone bills to New York Bell phone company before I moved to California. I have never at anytime ever owed New York Bell and Verizon this amount.
Send them a dispute and validation request letter, certified return receipt requested. See what, if anything, they send.
If they continue attempts to collect without sending any legitimate validation of the debt obtained from the original creditor, file complaints with IL AG, FTC, and your state AG. You might also then send them a cease communications letter, again certified return receipt requested.
If not, send AFNI a letter disputing the debt and requesting that they send you validation, written proof obtained from the original creditor that this is your debt. Send it promptly, within 30 days of receiving their first collection letter, and send it certified, return receipt requested, so you have proof of when you sent it, and proof that they got it.
They advise anyone disputing that it is not their debt to file a "fraud report", primarily so they can keep demanding additional "proof" to try to collect even from the wrong people. Most consumer complaints against them are that it is not their debt, which would be absurd if these were all actually "id theft" cases.
They appear to be using the "fraud complaint" path as a tactic to evade consumers' attempts to dispute and request validation as provided for in FDCPA. If you send them a prompt dispute (within 30 days), they have to stop all collection activities until they send you validation, or they have violated the law.
If they can get you to fail to assert your validation rights, past 30 days, they can claim they can assume the debt is accurate and don't have to send any validation. It still wouldn't make a debt that is not yours be yours in a court of law, but most consumers wouldn't know what to do about it.
They are basically trying to shift the burden of proof from them, where your validation letter would put it, to you, where they can keep finding things "wrong" with your proof that it isn't your debt. This is particularly easy if they haven't sent you any copies of original bills, etc, since you don't even have reliable written evidence of what name, address, phone number, or time period this account was under. They can keep changing their information, or keep demanding additional records (copies of tax returns? rental agreements or utility bills from years ago?) until they find something you can't provide to use to pressure you.
All the while they sit back and smirk as you run around filing police reports, trying to dig up records, pay your bank to research and copy old checks, pay for and send notarized affidavits, and worrying about id theft by a company you already have no reason to trust, or give up and pay a debt you don't even owe, possibly even resulting in damaging entries on your credit reports that you would have difficulty removing since by paying they would claim you "admitted" it was yours.
As you probably already suspect, most of these complaints probably originated from just sending out collection letters to any name or address that partly matched their old junk account data. Who knows how many people got a letter on this particular "account", and how many paid?
If you already sent a validation request letter, and if (as many other consumers have reported) they replied with a letter claiming they can't validate, but YOU have to send them your DL, SSN, etc, then they have NOT validated, and any attempt by them to collect is illegal until they do. File written complaints with FTC, your state AG, and the Illinois AG, including a copy of both your letter, and their reply letter, and indicate that this account is not yours, is for an address you never lived at, and that they have not sent any validation in response to your request but are still trying to collect, in violation of federal law.
What time period do they claim this account was from?
What state was it in, and what state are you now in?
I hope this will work for you as it did for me...
DIspute letter below...
Afni, Inc month/date/year
404 Brock Drive
Bloomington, IL 61701
PO Box 3427
Bloomington, IL 61702-3427
1 888 257 1585
Fax 309 820 2614
www.afnicollections.com
My name is _____________ and I dispute the validity of the debt on the Afni, Inc Account # 0000000. I received a collection notice on 00/00/0000 which states that I owe AT&T $00.00 for an unpaid bill, and I believe that I do not owe this dept.
This will serve as your legal notice under provisions of federal law, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), to cease all communication with me in regard to the debt referenced above. If you fail to heed this notice, I will file a formal complaint against you with the Federal Trade Commission who is responsible for enforcement, the States Attorney General office and/or the American Collectors Association or local State Bar Association.
You are also notified that should any adverse information be placed against my/our credit reports as a result of this notice that appropriate actions will be taken. Give this very important matter the attention it deserves.
Sincerely,
Type name here
Certified Mail # ________________________________________________________
Date 00/00/0000
Notice: This is an attempt to make a debt collector obey the law. Any information obtained will be used for that purpose.
Cc: Federal Trade Commission
Cc: Texas Attorney General
The only reason I payed anything to Afni was that they were doing other investigations concerning Altel.This gave me the hope of clearing my credit rating.And,being a single grandmother raising three grandchildren it hurt financually.I don't know why I did'nt do some investigating of my own before paying out all this money.I still call with no luck of getting through to anyone.
AFNI was not "investigating" anything. It was simply another ruse to get you to agree to pay them when you claimed you didn't owe it, just like their "half-off" deal they offer when consumers claim they don't owe a debt. It was deceptive, and it is a violation of FDCPA for a debt collector to use deception to collect a debt.
http://www.9wsyr.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?v ... .com&navCatId=5
text version of the story
http://www.9wsyr.com/content/news/your_storie ... D8502A&gsa=true
"I told them that it was not my bill, but they kept telling me that it didn't matter who's bill it was because it was in My Name and with My SSN#. "
This is a common tactic reported to be used by AFNI to get money from people who do not owe their alleged debts. Their claim that it is in your name and SSN may be entirely fabricated, and they might actually have some other SSN or even no SSN at all on the original creditor records, hence they would be engaging in deceptive collection.
In addition, if your SSN wasn't actually on the original account records, but they obtained it through pulling your credit report or through skip-tracing databases and are using their unauthorized access to your SSN and identity information in an attempt to defraud or extort you, they may have engaged in criminal identity theft.
They are reported to be sending collection letters out to any one with a similar name, with no effort made to determine whether the "Jim", "John", "James" or "Jane" Doe are the correct "J. Doe" they might actually have on the alleged debt. The address mismatches, widely reported in other complaints, is more likely an indication of their shotgun mailing collection tactics, rather than true "identity theft". They have been reported to be among the top 2 companies listed in 2007 FTC consumer "identity theft" complaints in one recent study, which is absurd.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1152082
Here they sent a bill to a dog, and you know the dog could NOT have had the same SSN or address as the actual debtor on the opposite coast with the same name.
http://www.kcra.com/station/16839043/detail.html
"They did say I could go to the Police and file a complaint and sue whoever used my name and SSN#, but I still had to pay the bill. "
FDCPA violation for deceptive collection. They know your addresses don't match, so they claim it is "identity theft". If it is id theft, by law you don't owe it. But instead, they want you to pay them anyway, even if you file an id theft complaint with the police. FACTA provides how they must handle claims of id theft, and requires that they cease collection on fraudulent accounts substantiated by your police report and fraud affidavit.
Furthermore, under a recently enacted Illinois law (AFNI is headquartered in Illinois), there are specific requirements on how they MUST handle claims of identity theft. It specifically requires that debt collectors, including junk debt buyers, assist id theft victims in filing id theft complaints and affidavits, and requires that they must cease collection from the victim on such fraudulent accounts. Deceiving them by telling them they have to pay anyway and somehow track down this mysterious "id thief" to then sue, is directly contrary to what the Illinois law requires.
http://www.ag.state.il.us/pressroom/2007_09/20070917.html
You cannot trust "legal advice" offered by your adversary in their own self-serving interest. They are clearly NOT complying with either state or federal law.
Send a letter disputing the alleged debt and demanding that they send you proof that you owe it obtained from the original creditor. Send your letter certified return receipt requested. If they refuse to disclose where to send it, you can get their main address through bbb.org.
http://heartofillinois.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report ... 24&firm=9000349
Then contact both FTC and the Illinois Attorney General to report their FDCPA violations, and apparent attempt to extort payment for what THEY claim is a fraudulent account, and that you know is not YOUR account.
Include in both complaints that you never lived at the alleged address on the account, and that although they claimed it must be identity theft, they also claimed you had to pay them now anyway, and that your only recourse was to file a police complaint and sue the "id thief". Contact them initially by phone, and follow up with a written complaint outlining the details of their calls.
Also send a written complaint to the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation, responsible for licensing of Illinois debt collectors. They can revoke the license of debt collectors found to have violated Illinois or federal collection laws.
Department of Professional Regulation
320 West Washington Street, Third Floor
Springfield, IL 62786
(217) 785-0800
www.idfpr.com/