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
The nature of those complaints points to a range of compliance problems by the debt collector, including routine use of harassing calls, abusive behavior, failure to validate disputed debts, use of abuse or deception to attempt to divert consumers from disputing, etc.
You have provided insight into why this continues, with all your excuses for why your harassment is somehow someone else's fault.
As for your claim that your calls are "(98% of the time) once a day", that is hardly credible.
If you are using autodialers, and people are receiving numerous calls a day, it is because your autodialers are programmed to do that. If they are programmed to do that, then that is what they are ALWAYS doing.
It appears to me that these folks are fishing, and it wouldn't surprise me if they are engaging in fraud. I applaud all the people that have chosen to sue these MFs, and hope that they're shut down sooner, rather than later.
I just got done dealing with RPM, and the first two guys that called me were very rude and refused to send me any information. They said they would send me a DN, but of course it never arrived. I told him that I would need to look over the original bill, and if it was valid, I would pay it. But he then freaked out and said "No, we don't have to do that, why don't you just pay it now over the phone." His education level must not have been very high, because only an idiot is going ot randomly give a credit card number over the phone just because some loser says to. I never got a bill for the said debt, so I wasn't just going to pay if I didn't know what it was for. Because of their harassment-like methods, I had no intention of paying, and if they pushed further, I had plans of suing (it helps that my family is full of lawyers, so attorney fees would have been zero).
Fortunately for RPM, I called and talked to a third woman who was extremely nice. She made sure I received a copy of the bill in the mail. I looked over it, and guess what...I PAID. Very simple. I'm hoping she received a commission or some sort of credit.
FDCPA is a strict liability statute. Their violation is independent of whether they eventually did the right thing, or whether any debt is even owed.
http://www.wargs.com/misc/kathleen.html
And again, what address you send your dunning notices to, or how much it costs to send them, is irrelevant, especially when you then start harassing the wrong person, and attempt to con them by telling them they "owe the debt" because they didn't dispute within 30 days of a letter they never got. Refusing to handle disputes is deception likely to result in conning people out of money they don't owe, no different than if you were some fraudulent telemarketer.
There is no law that says your business model has to be profitable, or that it is OK to cut corners, lie, or ignore compliance to make it so.
You may even be contacting the correct person most of the time, but your compliance issues occur when you are wrong. You have designed your tactics to collect money even when you are wrong, when deception would lead to fraud.
All your arguments are no excuse for how you are reported to handle your errors:
1) attempts to evade validation when you contact people who don't have a clue what debt you are talking about.
2) continued harassment of people you phone in error, even when you tell them you will remove their phone number.
At the bottom, add "cc: Washington Attorney General"
and the certified receipt number, "certified: nnnn-nnnn-nnnn-nnnn-nnnn-nnnn"
Mail it, then if you get any further calls after verifying their receipt of your letter through the USPS website, file a complaint with the Washington Attorney General, and find an attorney and sue them.
As you have found, they are reported to ignore verbal requests to cease communications, in violation of FDCPA. Add written notice, then log violations, to set them up for a lawsuit.
The nature of those complaints points to a range of compliance problems by the debt collector, including routine use of harassing calls, abusive behavior, failure to validate disputed debts, use of abuse or deception to attempt to divert consumers from disputing, etc.
Through your arrogance you have shown why complaints against your industry are growing at an exponential rate.
Sorry but I don't talk to anyone at anytime on the telephone about money I have, don't have or money I owe.
Once a bill collector is answered specifically about what is going on and what will never happen and are asked not to call back, they shouldn't be allowed to call back without it being harrassment.
Call us deadbeats, bums or whatever you please. Just don't get too offended when we tell you to get a real job and quit living off the misery of others to pay your bills.
On the other hand you have a stereo type built up that all collectors are the same, they are just out for you money, they are charging you interest, and they are the bad guys when you defaulted on your contract. I dont care what you ignorant dead beats say, but there are people who make $70k/year at RPM. Yeah, we are gettin paid to sit on our @$$ and talk to you. We get paid by the hour, you dont money as an employee every payment. You have certain set gross amounts you need to reach..
I cant believe I wasted my time on an un educated human being.
WHAT IS A COLLECTOR CALLING FOR? MONEY YOU OWE, WITH INTENT TO COLLECT IT. Your telling me its harassing to get calls over your debts? If they have the wrong number, make sure they remove it, its not that hard people.. There is a lot you need to learn about the FDCPA.
It doesnt take a genius to find out that the numbers they have one file are-
1. old #/alt# when the account was originally opened, it was transferred to someone else, or got disconnected
2. Relative, Friends, or a "REFERENCE on that account.
3. Old address #.
4. Some of the numbers have similar last name or affiliations to the debtor.
5. Most of the #'s are skip traced, some are from phonebook listings from TU or Acxiom, its pretty easy to find someone on the internet now a days..
But if someone calls you and tells you the last 4 of your SSN and you know you had the debt, dont pull that, OHHHH i dont trust you, your a scammer, I dont do payments over the phone.. You gotta man up to your bills and cut the excuses.
Your stupid, you should know, that disputes never work, you dispute the amount with the client, say credit one or verizon or whatever, because you got charged a late fee, or interest, or you didnt receive the service, or terminated your contract early.. People always say they talked to the client, and they were suppose to clear it up.. Well guess what they didnt, they sold it to a debt buyer, and you have 30 days to dispute the debt after the notice is received.. In general they arent effective.. The client has proofs of purchase and all that stuff. But BILL collectors dont have a BILL sitting in front of them. There is some info, but it is up to this so called "CONSUMER." to remember his debt... You gotta remember this is not customer service, your a delinquent debtor..
You gotta see it the other way around. 75% of america doesnt want to pay there debts, dont care about there credit, and dont intend to pay it.. They just sit there and complain and scream and yell and get rude and take it out on collectors.. You keep saying fraud but your the debtor who took the credit or used the services and didnt pay.. Kinda like stealing from the client. And all debtors want to try to sue or get a collector in trouble and not handle there $500.. People are crazy. especially you, if you think you know what your talking about.. Check my other 3 posts B!tch!
Like I said they verify the info off the bat to gain the debtors trust, but people know there DOB, ADD. & SSN# so im pretty sure they will be like OHHH %@#^@ They know its me.
The 30 day period during which if the consumer requests verification of the debt you must cease all collection until providing it begins on their receipt of your first letter. That is what FDCPA says, nothing about old or new addresses, change of addresses, or you get to ignore it if you "know" they owe it.
And when they don't update an address, you just find anyone with a similar name, and send your bill to them instead. Hey, they MIGHT be the same person, you don't know they are not! That's what your pattern of complaints is showing.
Providing SSN, DOB, or any other identity information proves nothing but that your have access to such information. Of course you have access to such information if you can pull credit reports or skip-trace. So do all the Indian and Pakistani "debt collector" con artists, playing "policeman" or "attorney", or whatever it is this week, pulling credit reports and trying to con people into paying phony "payday loans".
What you have in common with them is a lot of complaints that you are calling and harassing people who claim they never had such an account, never lived at the alleged address, and therefore do not owe the alleged debt.
How is that happening if you are supposedly always checking DOB or SSN?
Only possible way is you are searching on name alone, just like many other debt collectors, then either you aren't checking other information, or you are getting id info but not from the original creditor, either from skip-trace or credit report data. You aren't the only debt collector with high levels of such complaints.
FDCPA requires you to send proof of the debt obtained from the original creditor. Just telling your target their SSN or DOB, and that you don't have to send them anything, proves nothing, and is deceptive on its face if you tell them it does. But it probably works sometimes, since people might believe you, or don't know the law. Most people are unsophisticated and have seldom dealt with debt collectors, have no idea what information you have access to, and can't imagine someone would use that information to con them.
"You always verify this info before taking the payment, to make sure you have the right person,"
Maybe you do or maybe you don't. Unless you are independently audited, we will never know. Meaningless if your id info wasn't from the original creditor's account information.
"your bank has fraud protection,"
So if you defraud me into paying you, my bank will reimburse me? I rather doubt it. I prefer the other common talk-off: "Sir, it's obviously id theft, but since we have your name and SSN, you have to pay us, but you can always get your money back by suing the id thief!" Yeah, right.
"RPM will refund your money if there was ever a mistake"
Not likely. How does one prove there is a "mistake", when your tactics are designed to evade validation? Unless an Attorney General got involved, the consumer would have to sue, which would cost more than the typical fraud losses due to your "mistake".
"We identify the debtor,"
No. You always tell whoever you are talking to that they are the debtor, just like you call all people complaining about attempts to collect unowed debts, "deadbeat debtors". That is what all debt collectors do, even when they don't have a clue whether it's true since they haven't obtained validation.
Just like Star Wars: "You ARE the debtor we are looking for."
"If you ever have a problem with a debt, check your credit,"
Just because you put it on someone's credit report does not make it accurate.
Over half of all credit reports have errors, many serious. They are normally so inaccurate they have to have "VIP departments" to handle touchy cases such as celebrities, polititians, attorneys, where the rest of us get overseas contractors at overseas wages to "correct" errors through disputes reduced down to 2 letter codes. They do as much as they can to avoid spending money to maintain accuracy.
"you know what debts you owe"
Yes I do, and so do others. Most debts in collection are from a small subset of the population. When you make a mistake, most of the time you erroneously bill the larger part of the population that pays its bills. When you make a mistake they know it. What they need to learn is what to do about it.
Now if you belong to the part of the population with lots of debts in collection, it is probable that most debt collector contacts you get will be correct. It is also probable that you will have forgotten a lot of the details of all the debts you may not have paid, so you are a good mark to try to collect on the same debt every few years, even after you have paid it. You are a disorganized sucker.
"they verify the info off the bat to gain the debtors trust"
That is why it's a "CONfidence game". Point to the SSN you have, not validation documentation you don't, like any good magician. Verifying id info is not the same as verifying the debt with the original creditor, but if you can convince people that is all you have to do, and that they can't get the information to prove otherwise, you win.
If they say it isn't their debt, they are disputing it. If you then tell them ANTHING but how to dispute it, you are attempting to deceive them.
You never make any errors, everything is always perfect, and as Voltaire said, this is the best of all possible worlds!!!
Then why are you getting so many complaints, both for calling the wrong people, and for trying to collect alleged debts from people who don't owe them? Both types of complaints point to systematic flaws in your identification, validation, and compliance procedures.
Debt collectors routinely make errors. They cut corners. They often do not fix them until forced to do so. That is why FDCPA was passed, and that is why God made attorneys.
Failing to dispute an alleged debt does not make it owed, nor may any court assume that it is for such failure. That is specifically spelled out in FDCPA, which was written by Congress, a bunch of attorneys.
Banks are periodically audited by sampling their customer accounts, verifying with the customers.
Publicly traded companies employ independent audits to verify compliance and accuracy of accounts, to ensure their statements are accurate.
When was the last time you were independently audited, through a random sampling of accounts compared against original account data from the original creditor, and verified with the consumer, to independently determine the level of accuracy and reliability of your identification, collection, and compliance procedures?
Never?
(Unless, maybe, you were NCO, and got caught re-aging, or were CAMCO, shut down and put into receivership.)