ERRONEOUS BMG MUSIC BILL
Complaint
JERMY F
Country: United States
Yesterday I received a credit alert advising me that there was derogatory information reported on my credit report on 3/1/10 by a company known as National Recovery Agency (NRA). The debt was for $36. I called the agency and they advised me that this debt derived from an order that I placed with BMG music back in 2006. I advised them that this debit is erroneous and someone clearly used my name without my permission in order to obtain these goods. With the advent of online file sharing, I have not purchased a CD in over a decade.
I advised the agent that I was never informed of this outstanding debt from BMG music. It has been four years! I was never contacted by phone or mail. I never supplied my signature or my social security number. They stated that they were not legally obligated to prove that I authorized this transaction, so I just need to pay it immediately. This issue has caused my score to drop by as much as 60 points. Do I have any legal recourse in this matter?
I advised the agent that I was never informed of this outstanding debt from BMG music. It has been four years! I was never contacted by phone or mail. I never supplied my signature or my social security number. They stated that they were not legally obligated to prove that I authorized this transaction, so I just need to pay it immediately. This issue has caused my score to drop by as much as 60 points. Do I have any legal recourse in this matter?
Comments
Doing so within 30 days of receipt of their first letter subjects them to a prohibition against continued collection until they obtain and send you proof.
With these suspicious BMG "accounts", debt collectors collecting on them are showing a pattern of complaints consistent with fraudulent collection of bogus accounts. One (NCS) was caught by the Montana AG pulling the same scam against Montana residents over suspect "Hollywood Video" accounts, and immediately agreed to a settlement.
If you check complaints against them, you find a continuing pattern of complaints reporting illegal phone harassment, including third party disclosure, harassing relatives or neighbors, and evading and refusing to provide validation. They look like either e reckless nightmare, or an opportunity for your attorney, depending on how you look at it.
In addition, note numerous reports they collect for a number of deceptive "negative-option" marketers, which is consistent with the BMG/Columbia House marketing tactics. They may be deliberately using deception, abuse, and intimidation to avoid disputes of accounts arising from deceptive or fraudulently marketing.
https://whocallsme.com/Phone-Number.aspx/8662814135
https://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-800-557-2114
Check your credit reports, as debt collectors working old "BMG" accounts have been caught posting bogus collection accounts to credit reports. If you find one, dispute it through the CRA, and if they erroneously "verify", contact a consumer attorney.
If you want to contact a consumer attorney, you can find one in your state through www.naca.net
FDCPA and FCRA allow lawsuits for damages, including attorney fees, so there are attorneys who take these cases on contingency.
Get a consumer attorney. You might try www.naca.net
If you have ANY problem with getting resolution of a problem with Allied Interstate, contact FTC.
Here is my question for you, if you happen to know the answer to; I obviously do not want to confirm ANY address with them or even provide them with a current address because I don't want them trying to attach an invalid debt to my name, etc, however, if I am wanting them to try & send me documents showing what they are trying to collect on, so I can then prove it is a bogus claim, I have to give them some sort of address, correct? They won't email it to me and they wont fax it to me. I did tell the lady on the phone that if I find ANYTHING on my credit report from them, I will file suit after suit after suit until the company is sorry they contacted me.
Do you think I should move forward with contacting the FTC now or try & contact Allied again & provide them with an address? If they have a new address on file, won't it be easier for them to attach this bogus debt to my name? I am already dealing with enough stress in my life and trying to deal with harassing creditors and filing claims, etc...all while trying to work my normal 8-5 job....so much more emotional stress than I want to deal with. I am so not going to just pay them the $28 though...they can kiss my BUTT on that one.
It's odd because it was an attempt to deceive you, to imply that you couldn't dispute this bogus "debt" as part of conning you into paying it anyway. The non-sequiter is because she is working from a script, "caller demands proof, you say this...", which is common with frauds, particularly shakedown scams. It shows systematic organization and training for purposes of deception. A little verbal "sleight of hand", but oh, so deniable...
"When I continued to ask him who he was, where he was calling me from and what he was calling me about, he would not tell me. "
Another attempt to control the conversation, steer it away from your attempts to "dispute", as is your right.
"More I finally was able to get him to tell me he was calling me from Allied Interstate about an old debt from BMG and then he hung up the phone."
He doesn't want to talk to you unless he's in control Indicates intent to defraud, again, deniably. Debt collectors are required to not deceive, to identify themselves, and to notify you that they are collecting a debt and that any information will be used for that purpose. He attempted to obtain information without providing such notice.
"She was trying to tell me I owed $28 for an account I had with them back in 2005-7,"
And now you see how the "music clubs" run this little racket. Some sucker may have had an account in 2005. Who knows whether they paid or not, might even have been a fake "account" created by the scammy marketing of the music club sending a couple CDs to young adults from sucker lists, but in 2007, through "fine print", maybe they piled on a "termination fee", creating a pretense for resetting SOL, even FCRA reporting period, and making the "account" valuable as a prop in these shakedowns, which they all know are as good against total strangers as the original sucker.
You already can see from their responses that they are prepared with scripted answers for callers who believe they are being scammed, who never had "music club" accounts. Regardless, they proceed to attempt to get money anyway, knowing what the victim doesn't yet know, that they've already trashed their credit, and without even any liability for doing so until they get caught and get a dispute.
Allied Interstate is subject to a consent agreement with FTC over alleged phone harassment and attempts to collect "debt" from people who didn't owe it. FTC made an example of them, they paid a $1.7 Million fine in that settlement, and they agreed to comply with FDCPA and other requirements.
Such FTC settlements generally include clauses requiring the collection and maintenance of consumer dispute information, ensuring they don't collect unowed debt from those who don't owe it, and allowing their compliance to be tracked and audited. Contact FTC to report the fraudulent collection attempt on the unowed "debt", the failure to promptly identify themselves when directly asked, and the attempts to evade validation by statements implying you had to pay an unowed debt.
When they talk, they lie.
They were supposed to send you a letter within 5 days of their first call, notifying you of the alleged debt and that you could dispute it and request proof you owed it. Failure to send that letter violates FDCPA, and you can sue.
Check your credit reports, to see if they are trashing your credit. They commonly do this with this "erroneous collection" racket.
If you find an erroneous collections entry, send the CRA a dispute. If the DF (the collections agency) "verifies" an erroneous posting, you can sue them for violating FCRA.
You can find a consumer attorney through www.naca.net
To be clear I also have never signed up for this, I was only 18 at the time and have never heard a word via mail, phone, email, nothing. All the sudden I get this call and eventually because she would not stop talking over me I had to end the call, it was going round and round, not moving forward unless I paid. She called right back with a completely different number on the caller ID. I didnt answer and havent heard from them again yet, it is within 30 days since I last had the call...
That said, there are reports that a number of the CAs running this racket not only post bogus "accounts" onto credit files of people who don't owe them, but may also be re-aging such posts, to "accidentally" continue the damage. The high rate of consumer reports of collection of unowed "accounts" combined with credit damage suggests that this is a deliberate strategy, that "errors" are being made to profit from the "accidental" spill-over damage most of which would affect older, more credit worthy victims than the original ones, who would be easy targets for "nuisance" collection fraud.
As always, keep an eye on your credit reports, and respond with fraud complaints and legal action if they post false "accounts". You can find a consumer attorney in your state through www.naca.net