RPM trying to collect a fake debt
Complaint
JP
Country: United States
On 4 Apr 08 I got a call from Receivables Performance Management (RPM) claiming that I owe $85 on a Verizon account from 2000. I know that I’ve never had a Verizon account, and that my phone account from 2000 (I forget which company) was paid properly. So I told the RPM rep that they were full of s**t, and that I wanted written proof that this debt is actually mine. They had the last 4 of my SSN and tried to pass that off as “proof” that their info was legitimate. I still didn’t fall for it and asked for everything in writing.
Fortunately I have records that go back that far. I also called Verizon to confirm that they don’t have any account information with my name on it. Surprisingly they have no record of me ever having an account with them. I then went online to find out if RPM is some sort of scam. They are a “legitimate” company, yet seem to be practicing what I would describe as predatory debt collection, or legal extortion. Unfortunately, there is not much information on the internet yet about RPM. However, there is a lot of information about AFNI, who seem to be doing the same thing.
So, after I found this web page, and read all of the information about AFNI, I downloaded the FDCPA and FCRA and read them. I’m sending RPM a letter in accordance with the FDCPA. I’m also sending the letter to my state’s AG and the WA state AG. (RPM is located in Bothell WA.) I also checked all of my credit reports to make sure that nothing has been placed on them. I’ll continue to monitor my credit reports very closely for the next few months. As this develops I’ll update this comment.
I’m considering contacting a lawyer to see if what RPM is doing is in any way actually extortion. It’s a crime that the max penalty under FDCPA and FCRA is only $1000 or actual damages. Obviously that small amount isn’t enough of an incentive to keep these companies from violating the law. I’m also going to contact my Congressmen about this. Maybe if enough of us complain the law can get changed?
Oh, and a huge thanks to the poster on this site TJ! His information and advice was invaluable!!
Fortunately I have records that go back that far. I also called Verizon to confirm that they don’t have any account information with my name on it. Surprisingly they have no record of me ever having an account with them. I then went online to find out if RPM is some sort of scam. They are a “legitimate” company, yet seem to be practicing what I would describe as predatory debt collection, or legal extortion. Unfortunately, there is not much information on the internet yet about RPM. However, there is a lot of information about AFNI, who seem to be doing the same thing.
So, after I found this web page, and read all of the information about AFNI, I downloaded the FDCPA and FCRA and read them. I’m sending RPM a letter in accordance with the FDCPA. I’m also sending the letter to my state’s AG and the WA state AG. (RPM is located in Bothell WA.) I also checked all of my credit reports to make sure that nothing has been placed on them. I’ll continue to monitor my credit reports very closely for the next few months. As this develops I’ll update this comment.
I’m considering contacting a lawyer to see if what RPM is doing is in any way actually extortion. It’s a crime that the max penalty under FDCPA and FCRA is only $1000 or actual damages. Obviously that small amount isn’t enough of an incentive to keep these companies from violating the law. I’m also going to contact my Congressmen about this. Maybe if enough of us complain the law can get changed?
Oh, and a huge thanks to the poster on this site TJ! His information and advice was invaluable!!
Comments
RPM Debt Collecting agency
1930 220 W street SE Suite 101
Bothell, Washington, 98021
---------or-------------
RPM
P.O.Box 1548
Lane, Washington 98136
I' ll write to you.
They may be deceptively using the offer of a "settlement agreement" to get some payment out of you, after which they can sell off the rest of the debt to another debt collector and deny any knowledge of any "settlement".
This is one common fraudulent debt collection tactic. Another is to get your account information, and run through charges for the full amount, regardless of what verbal "settlement" they offered. No evidence, no paper trail, no written check, just their word against yours.
If they have in fact sent a settlement agreement in writing, then there is no reason for them not to accept payment by mail.
"
Tj who you calling high school graduate? I was one of their top collectors, and I dropped out of High School and got my GED.
"Your brother might not even have any connection to the alleged debt, or it might have been paid long ago and no longer be owed. Or it might have been a billing error, corrected at the time, but due to a later merger, the new company sells off their old written-off account information (which could include both bad debts and corrected billing errors) for these low lifes to work through and see who they can con.
"
You forgot to mention that they could have just gotten bored and manufactured it with their computers from thin air.
Replies from employees of another debt collector, who shall not be named so as not to embarrass them, all appear to be incapable of spelling, writing in complete sentences, or using capitalization correctly. I have sometimes wondered whether they apply a maximum grading standard to a job test.
Perhaps I was giving RPM more benefit of the doubt than they deserve.
I was simply trying to illustrate how, by hiring the "right" people and providing the "right" incentives, you can motivate people to bring out not the best, but instead encourage the worst in them, and how this industry appears to be in a competition, or race to the bottom, to do just that.
Those who aren't good at it leave, those who are, stay. If you master the art of lying, cheating, and conning, what other career are you suited to?
Buffalo still has them beat, however.
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center/2009/sep/sep29b_09.html
I remember when I called people and told them this is officer kamal.
Ofcourse I wasen't lying. I really was an officer, a collection officer that was.
I remember talking to people and telling them "now I don't want to tell you what can happen if you don't pay this debt' and them telling me...."What could happen'?
And I would tell them that I heard a story of someone who didn't pay the MCI or PUD bill and them being garnished and sent to jail!!!!!!!!!!
Now technically that's not breaking the law. Technically thats telling them a story that I was told.
Technically I NEVER posed as a POLICE officer, only an officer.
Courts have had no problem recognizing that deception can be as easily accomplished by what is not said, or even by a series of statements each of which on its own is technically true, when as a whole they act to deceive. They also have had no problem recognizing that "hypothetical stories" can in fact be threats.
Such excuses have been no defense, for example, in the criminal prosecution of telemarketing fraud, which deceptive collection resembles in many respects.
What you are describing is deceptive, it was intended to deceive and obtain financial benefit from that deception. Furthermore, under federal law (FDCPA) you have a duty not to deceive, just as you have a duty not to demand money from people you know don't owe you.
Misleading people IS deception. Deception to collect a debt IS illegal. Using deception to obtain money from someone who does not owe you is FRAUD.
Since the debt collector (as a company) knows that they are routinely sending collection letters to people who may not owe the alleged debt, any use of deception to obtain payments some fraction of which are known not to be owed, is an act of fraud.
Your skip-tracing is not so perfect that if you engage in deception, it is only with people who actually owe you, and you know it. Therefore, systematically using deception as part of such a collection scheme involving contact which people by mail or phone that you know may not actually owe you is mail and wire fraud.
The deception you are describing is not aimed at any court or law enforcement agency, who would recognize it for what it is. It is aimed at the consumers themselves, and works not because it is legal, which it isn't on its face, but because it is deceptive enough that consumers don't know it is illegal, or that there is any recourse. To the extent it works, it works because it is deceptive, and to the extent it is deceptive,it is fraud.
Technically, it IS breaking the law, at both state and federal level, but you got away with it.
As for the "Officer" bit, there are a number of debt collectors and extortion gangs pulling that one. Cuomo just had a bunch in Buffalo led away in handcuffs.
"September 29th
ATTORNEY GENERAL CUOMO ANNOUNCES CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST 12 BUFFALO DEBT COLLECTORS
Employees Posed as Law Enforcement Officials and Threatened to Have Consumers Arrested if They Didn’t Immediately Pay Debts
Charges are Part of Cuomo’s Ongoing Probe into Abuses in the Debt Collection Industry
BUFFALO, N.Y. (September 29, 2009) - Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today announced the filing of criminal charges against 12 employees of several Buffalo-area debt collection companies for posing as law enforcement officials and threatening to have consumers thrown in jail unless they immediately paid off the debts that they supposedly owed.
All of the individuals charged today worked for one or more of the debt collection companies owned by Buffalo resident Tobias Boyland, which were shut down in June under an order obtained by Cuomo’s office. Since announcing that case during the summer, the Attorney General’s Office has compiled more than 1,000 complaints against Boyland and his companies. Today’s charges and arrests are a part of the Attorney General’s ongoing probe into unlawful debt collection practices.
“The tactics allegedly used here are some of the worst of the worst in the debt collection business," said Attorney General Cuomo. “The defendants’ alleged lies, deceit and intimidation caused many innocent people to pay money they didn't owe just to stop the terrifying calls. My office will continue to seek out and punish companies that prey on consumers and violate clearly written laws regarding debt collection.”
According to the felony complaints, the defendants stole thousands of dollars from consumers from across the country by using the threat of criminal charges and incarceration to collect debts that often did not exist, had passed the statute of limitations or had been previously discharged through bankruptcy. The collectors also regularly inflated the amount owed on an actual debt and would falsely tell consumers that they were being sued in civil court.
The complaints allege that the collectors used false law enforcement identities to coerce and cajole terrified consumers into agreeing to make the payments. Frightened at the prospect of arrest and humiliation, consumers authorized withdrawals from their checking accounts, wired money, or sent money orders to the collectors. Consumers were intentionally given misleading names, addresses and telephone numbers that led them to believe the businesses were located far from the Buffalo area.
The 12 individuals were charged in Town of Cheektowaga Court with multiple counts of grand larceny in the 4th degree (class E felony), which carries a maximum sentence of 4 years in prison for each count. The following individuals were charged today:
Tina Almond, 30, of Marsdale Road, Cheektowaga
Marcus Brown, 32, of Hoyt Street, Buffalo
Andrew Brzyski, 25, of Mary Lou Lane, Depew
Boris Burch, 49, of Kenmore Avenue, Buffalo
Rhonda DeSousa, 44, of Thornton Avenue, Buffalo
Jeremy Hapka, 22, of E. Rouen Drive, Buffalo
Kenneth MacGregor, 33, of Hodge Avenue, Buffalo
Danielle Miller, 33, of Highgate Avenue, Buffalo
Tracey Pritchett, 39, of Humboldt Parkway, Buffalo
Jammiea Simpson, 35, of Elmer Avenue, Buffalo
Bennie Davis, 47, Howard Street, Buffalo
Meghan Williams, 30, of Hussey Avenue, Buffalo
According to the criminal charges and a civil lawsuit filed by Cuomo’s office in June, Boyland and three other individuals - Kayla Pritchett, Dellian Sharp and Dorian Wills - operated numerous collection companies in at least four locations in Western New York. The debt collection agencies operated under several names across the Buffalo area, including: Central Resource Management, Final Claims Asset Locators, Final Control Asset Locators, Interchange Payment Solutions, Next Step Services, Portfolio Asset Assurance, Silverbay Services, and Teleport. Boyland was recently indicted by an Erie County Grand Jury on weapon charges.
The federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the New York State debt collection and consumer protection laws prohibit the following conduct: posing as an attorney, threatening lawsuits or other legal action which cannot be taken, saying a consumer committed a crime or will be arrested, and talking with third parties except to get location information. The law further requires collection agencies to send a written notice within five days of initial communication with the consumer explaining how he or she can dispute the debt. If properly disputed, the collection agency must stop all collection attempts and send verification.
The arrests and charges are part of an ongoing investigation by Attorney General Cuomo into unlawful debt collection practices. In recent months, Cuomo has shut down multiple debt collection companies and required others to reform their deceptive practices. Lawsuits against several other collection companies are pending.
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