Fraudulent Verizon Bill
Complaint
Larry F.
Country: United States
I received a letter from Afni Inc. claiming I have an unpaid bill from Verizon from 1995. It's 12 years ago. I've been with Verizon for the past 7 years, and never missed a bill, and certainly was not their client 12 years ago.
The phone number listed on the notice is not familiar to me. I called Afni, and a recording told me to give them my credit card number to settle the debt, and would not give me a real person to talk to.
This bill also never appeared on my credit report. I seriously doubt It's my debt. I searched the internet and found many complaints on Afni. I strongly suspect that it might be a fraud, because I don't recognize any information they gave me about this bill.
The phone number listed on the notice is not familiar to me. I called Afni, and a recording told me to give them my credit card number to settle the debt, and would not give me a real person to talk to.
This bill also never appeared on my credit report. I seriously doubt It's my debt. I searched the internet and found many complaints on Afni. I strongly suspect that it might be a fraud, because I don't recognize any information they gave me about this bill.
Comments
They both have a long history of complaints indicating they send out mailings to guessed "debtors" and even when they guess wrong, they may try to stick them with someone else's debts.
Both have been caught using deceptive and abusive collection tactics attempting to deflect consumer disputes and coercing people into paying unowed debts. Allied Interstate, in particular, settled with FTC a year ago over collection of alleged debts from the wrong people, paying a $1.7 Million fine. They are now subject to a consent agreement, which has the force of a court order.
Your strongest position is always to maintain your FDCPA rights so that you can sue when they violate them. With Allied Interstate, they also have the settlement agreement hanging over them. If you dispute within 30 days of receiving your first letter from a debt collector, under FDCPA, they must cease all collection activity until they obtain proof from the original creditor and send it to you.
Send a letter to Allied disputing the debt, and include both that this is not your debt, and that you have never lived at the address on this letter. Mail your dispute certifed for proof of timely mailing, and get confirmation from the USPS website of the delivery date.
If they continue to harass you over this "debt" you do not owe, contact FTC to file a complaint, and get an attorney. You might try www.naca.net
As you have substantial money at stake if this derails your mortgage, get an attorney. You might try www.naca.net
So no matter how much we complaint, this fraud company survive for all these time. Gov dont do anything to them.... ???
They lost a 3 state federal class action lawsuit over sending out a deceptive letter in response to consumer disputes.
Congress forsaw that consumers and their private attorneys would play a key role in enforcing the law. FDCPA allows consumers to sue for violations, and courts to award actual and statutory damage as well as attorney fees.
The Minnesota AG has sued them, and after reaching a settlement over illegal collection of suspect old Verizon accounts, they were investigated a year later over similar problems with old Qwest accounts.
NY AG has reportedly investigated them, as has the FL AG.
You can find one in your state through www.naca.net
It may appear that this is some case of "id theft", but they can just look it up.
If they obtained those numbers from some source other than the original creditor, and used them to try to convince you to pay some unowed debt, then they are illegally using deception to collect a debt, violating FDCPA. They can easily obtain that information through skiptrace databases.
This is a fraudulent collection tactic, and they have been caught using it many times. It's a "con".
There are numerous consumer complaints that they supposedly skip-trace some debt to the consumer, in error, and then try to convince them to pay anyway, or that it was somehow "id theft" but too much trouble for the consumer to prove. Their use of this illegal tactic in 2007 completely skewed FTC's id theft complaint statistics that year, making Verizon the #1 company reported in connection with id theft, and AFNI #2, in a study of FTC id theft complaints.
Also be aware that if this account originally went delinquent 8 years ago, it is illegal for them to post it to your, or anyone else's, credit file. If they do so, they are violating FCRA. If they threaten to do so, another violation of FDCPA.
Get an attorney, and sue for deception collection. You can find one through www.naca.net
Based on other consumer complaints, you can expect AFNI to now tell you that AT&T's records are not "accurate" yet theirs are.
What AFNI appears to understand is when you get an attorney.
Good luck.
For a FCRA lawsuit to survive, you must first dispute through the CRA.,
File a dispute of the information through the CRA.
Send it by mail, mailed certified. Do NOT do it online.
Dispute both the collection account, and the erroneous address.
The CRA will then notify them of your dispute, giving them the opportunity to correct or remove the error.
If AFNI "verifies" the error, get an attorney and sue them.
Keep track of any notices you receive from other creditors, notifying you of any reduction in credit lines, or that you have been turned down for credit. If you receive any, request an adverse action notice, which will tell you what credit report information from what CRA they used in their decision. Get a copy of that credit report to document the error that resulted in this financial damage to you.
If you don't want to play their game by their rules, get an attorney.
You can find a consumer attorney in your state through www.naca.net
The original creditor should handle the issue and collect damages if anything can be collected.
These collection agencies are total idiots, very indiscriminate and dont care who they hurt, innocent or not.
Booooooo Hisssssss
AFNI sent out MILLIONS of collection letters in 2007, supposedly for old Verizon accounts that resulted from Verizon's many mergers with other telecoms, then stonewalled consumers disputing the bogus "accounts".
Thousands of consumer complaints during this period reported receiving bogus bills, and often also reported that AFNI employees fed them a line of bull when they called to dispute. The "id theft" complaint levels received by FTC during this period were actually skewed so much that Verizon was the #1 company associated with "id theft", and AFNI #2, in a study of FTC complaint statistics for 2007. (For comparison, in 2006, banks topped the list, with only a few large collection agencies way at the bottom of the "top 25".)
From consumer complaints on ripoffreport.com, you can see that AFNI employees were telling consumers calling to dispute the "erroneous billing" for "accounts" they never had, that "it was obviously id theft", as a brush-off to try to collect anyway by forcing consumers to file police id theft complaints, hoping that consumers would pay if they could be convinced they couldn't disprove what AFNI was making up.
In some cases, AFNI employees are reported to have skip-traced and looked up some relative in the city where the "account" supposedly had been opened, then claimed that relative had "stolen their identity" and was somehow behind the suspect "account", with no evidence. This little ploy was apparently aimed at deceptively leading consumers to think they had only a choice between accusing a relaitve (with no eviedence) or paying an unowed "debt". You can still see the many complaints on ripoffreport.com, immortalized for all time.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/Search/AFNI.aspx
"Wayback Machine" looks at AFNI, ca. 2007.
Note the numerous complaints consistent with bogus billing and reaging.
http://www.ripoffreport.com/Search/AFNI.aspx?p=8
In 2008, they got sued in a 3 state federal class action lawsuit filed by Edelman and Combs in Chicago, and the judge found that their "brush-off" dispute letter responses, written by Lisa Anderson, were materially deceptive and violated FDCPA.
Similarly, the Minnesota Attorney General investigated and filed suit against AFNI for collection of bogus unsubstantiated Qwest "accounts" after complaints from Minnesota residents.
In response to your CRA disputes, they've "verified" the account falsely, which is the first step in establishing liability for damages under FCRA. Get an attorney and sue them. If they have any sense, they will "blink" and settle quickly, since in dealing with the various lawsuits, it's hard to credibly deny knowledge of the unreliable account records they are working from.
You can find a consumer attorney in your state through www.naca.net