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
That is a B.S. figure the debt collection industry likes to quote. It doesn't take into account all the damage they do to people whose credit they damage in error, most of whom never get any compensation for their damages.
Id theft wouldn't exist without the sloppy security of companies who give credit, combined with the similar self-serving policies of the credit reporting agencies, who could end id theft overnight by just allowing instant and free credit lock-down to all consumers. Instead, they profit from consumers who pay them to try to find what errors are messing up their lives, including running "credit protection" scams with deceptive advertising deliberately designed to fool people into paying money for reports they can order for free, and paying more for "credit scores" no creditor uses.
And what is this money the debt collectors are saving? Credit issuing companies already made a business decision to employ sloppy identification and credit qualification procedures, often ignoring even blatant fraud indications on credit reports, "as a business decision". Having made that choice, shoving the burden to clean up the fraud mess onto some consumer, the merchant or bank then "recovers" some of their fraud loss by selling the fraudulent account to a debt collector who will ignore all earlier fraud complaints, again shoving the fraud clean-up costs onto the already defrauded consumer.
They aren't saving anyone money but themselves.
BBB has "sanitized" their report.
I am also being victimized by your company fora bill that DIRECTV has no record of, as I turned my service off only ten days after I paid the bill. All of this vitriol and [***] and threats for $49? Give me a freaking break! Your company and the people who work for it are a bunch of petty garbage losers!
PEOPLE!!!! Pay your bills and you wouldn't have to deal with debt collection calls. I pay my bills and feel I earn an honest living.
I think people feel so negative about debt collectors is that it reminds them of their own failure to own up to their spending sprees and the guilt is just too much, so they blame the "collector".....KWIM?
A lot of collection agencies are buying up old, bad, or noncollectable debts to try and turn a fast dollar in the hard economic times we are going through.
Also, if contacted by telephone, get their name and employee ID number...(in case your disconnected...hehehe) then inform them of the following...
*UNDER THE FEDERAL FAIR DEBT AND COLLECTION LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES I HAVE THE RIGHT TO INFORM YOU IN THE SAME MANNER YOU HAVE CONTACTED ME, BY TELEPHONE, TO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN.*
It does NOT have to be in writing, only in the same manner in which they contacted you...
ALSO, note the time and date of the call. the VERY next contact is worth $500 in small claims court...(you have name and employee ID number) cost at MOST $100 to file it. Wow, $400 profit.
the 2ND time they contact you is $1,000. 3rd time is $1,500. and so on.
get the picture? and this is TOTALLY SEPARATE FROM THE DEBT OWED! this is for VIOLATING FEDERAL DEBT COLLECTION LAWS!!!!!
Have a GREAT year....
p.s. this information was given to me by a number one attorney from one of the largest foreclosure firms in the USA. it works!!!
There is nothing to prevent a debt collector with access to credit reports and skip-trace services like Accurint from faking a debt, including faking that your SSN and other id information was used to open the account. The original account might be real, even actually owed by someone, but if identity or address information was missing from the original creditor, but that is "fixed" by the debt collector to convince someone to pay it who does not owe it, that is an act of both identity theft and fraud.
There are a number of debt collectors that are clearly doing just that, using access to id information to get SSNs that they fraudulently claim "proves" some consumer "owes" some alleged debt.
There are also criminals engaged in the same practice, pretending to be debt collectors, but with consumer credit and identity information that they use to fabricate credible claims of "owed" debts out of thin air.
Using identity information from sources other that the original creditor to con people into paying unowed debts, whether by licensed debt collectors or criminals, should be called by its rightful name: fraud.
It is fundamentally a criminal act.
That would be statistically impossible. A lot of "debts" go to collection when the original creditor screws up, sometimes even when they have corrected their own records to correct a billing error.
Congress wouldn't have taken the time to enact FDCPA if there were not a lot of problems with erroneous or abusive debt collection.
"You only have 30 days to dispute the debt with the original client and 30 days from sending the DN. If you failed to do that, your screwed you owe the debt,"
Keep believing that, and you will keep getting sued.
There can be many reasons consumers might fail to dispute, and they include that you might have sent your letters to some other address, or that one of your debt collectors convinced them they had no right to dispute. More important is that failing to dispute DOES NOT MAKE A DEBT OWED.
FDCPA specifically states that failure to dispute may not be construed by any court as proof the debt is owed. In fact, it could hardly be otherwise. All your "debts" originated as contracts, in one form or another. When you go after the wrong person, there was no contract. Nothing YOU do will make one magically pop into existence, although you might still con them into paying you anyway. You demand amounts not allowed for in the contract, they are still not owed. In fact, you do that, and you violate FDCPA.
Your training is clearly erroneous. Go read the source, which you should have read AT LEAST ONCE, as part of your training:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre27.pdf
Or let Judge Brenneman explain to you why when the debt collector, "Melissa", told a consumer that they cannot dispute after 30 days she violated FDCPA through use of deception. (The consumer could have sued her personally, in addition to her employer.)
http://www.michbar.org/opinions/district/2005/092905/28863.pdf
"...
Thus, a debt collector’s statement violates the FDCPA if the statement misleads a consumer “into believing that if the debt is not disputed within 30 days, federal law, rather than just the debt collector, will assume the debt to be valid and owing.” McCabe v. Crawford & Co., 272 F. Supp. 2d 736, 745 (N.D. Ill. 2003). In short, the validation provision of §1692g(a)(3) “provides only that the debt collector may assume the debt to be valid.”
...
After viewing the factual evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, the court concludes that there is no genuine issue of material fact that the statements of defendant’s collector (Melissa) violated § 1692e(2)(A) and (10). Given the litigious
nature of our society, it would be neither bizarre nor idiosyncratic for the least sophisticated consumer to believe after listening to Melissa (1) that his failure to dispute the debt within thirty days of receiving the debt validation letter made him legally responsible for the debt and (2) that at this late stage only by proving fraudulent activity on the part of the bank could he show his “dispute was valid.”
"Most Credit Card debt is owned by Resurgent Capital Services"
Hardly, but LVNV, Sherman, and related companies are one of the larger ones. They also have a long history of complaints of sending deceptive "validation", mostly "affidavits" made by their own employees which have no bearing on whether the original creditor has validated the debt. Probably why FTC recently asked them for information as part of their investigation into debt collection problems.
TCPA violations add up fast, on a per call basis, since they were designed to stop telemarketing calls in violation of the Do Not Call list.
Contact your state Attorney General, or the Washington state Attorney General for assistance.
A substantial number of alleged debts in collection contain errors, even being entirely erroneous as a result of billing errors, or due to the wrong person being dunned. There are many cases (as you can see from complaints on this site and others), where debt collectors are attempting to collect on unowed debts, and consumers wish to dispute and request proof of the alleged debt before determining whether to pay it. Consumers have a right to dispute debts, as provided for by federal and state laws, notably FDCPA.
Debt collectors employ various deceptive or abusive tactics to try to evade such consumer disputes, knowing that most consumers do not know the law, or even much about credit reports. In fact, abusive actions or deceptive statements like "refusal to pay" are a red flag indicating that the debt collector knows there is something questionable about the alleged debt.
For example, the debt collector may know that they regularly send out collection letters to anyone with a similar name, including routinely sending letters to people who don't actually owe anything.
The proper legally compliant answer to a consumer disputing an alleged debt in a phone call is for the debt collector to provide their address and tell th consumer to send in a written dispute. Other responses are deceptive, run counter to the notices the debt collector is required to to send to the consumer, and aimed at interfering with the consumer's right to dispute.