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
Verizon pretends they have washed their hands of thie crap, but they are as much a cause of this fraud as the low life debt buyers. The debt collectors who buy this junk pay very little for it, and know most of it will never be worth anything.
They spend little locating the correct alleged debtor, and have no intention of spending any more proving the debt is valid, if they can even get any records from Verizon. Instead, they use it as an excuse to con anyone they can find with a similar name into paying it. The result is they are getting money from a lot of people who don't owe any debt.
A number of current Verizon customers receiving these bogus bills have stated in complaints that they are leaving Verizon over this, since Verizon will not even defend its own customers subjected to collection of bogus Verizon debt.
When caught in this fraud by news reporters, Verizon piously backs them up. AFNI is collecting on a much larger portfolio of old Verizon debt (several million "accounts") than RPM, but this is typical of Verizon's response to this problem of bogus debt collection created by their selling off old account information as supposedly valid debts.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/04/afni.html
"...
The reason most consumers say they never were a Verizon customer, is likely because they weren't, but they may have been a customer with one of the many companies that became Verizon, said Bill Kula, Verizon spokesman. Verizon took over many companies through mergers and acquisitions that include Bell Atlantic, MCI, Nynex, GTE and other companies.
Along with those mergers came millions of delinquent accounts which Verizon sold to Afni over the past year and a half. And even though the acquired companies no longer exist, Afni insists the debts have survived intact.
Both Kula and Deborah Ciskey, Afni's director of compliance, said consumers are probably "confused" because the debts are from a service with an older carrier. Kula said many people who purchased dial-up Internet many years ago from their old phone company may be getting these bills and just forgot that that they did have a delinquent account with MCI, for example.
However, some consumers say there is no mistake and they have no debt with any phone company.
"I received a collection notice from Afni Inc., stating I owe them $280.05 for a disconnected phone service for 718-584-5895," wrote Pamela of Danbury, Conn. "I have never owned that telephone number. Also, on the notice, it states that the original creditor is Bell Atlantic. I never had phone service with Bell Atlantic."
Consumers say that despite their protestations, that Afni posts the debt to credit agencies.
..."
If some consumer finds your erroneous tradeline on their credit report and calls you, never having received your letter that you sent to some other address, then you have 5 days to send them a notification letter, informing them that they can dispute and request you to verify the debt.
If when they call you to find out what your account is doing on their credit report, and you attempt to convince them that they cannot dispute it or request proof because you sent some letter somewhere else, or that "the debt is valid because they didn't dispute within 30 days", then you are engaging in deceptive collection and violating FDCPA.
Having sent your letter to some other person at some other address does not relieve you of your duty to send a new one within 5 days of first contact with your new apparent victim.
Debt collectors can't just add interest or fees of their own making, not allowed by the original contract.
Doing so without disclosing that that is what they are doing, just lumping it into a total, is deceptive.
See Seeger, et al. vs. AFNI.
Capital One is reported to keep ownership of most of their bad accounts, assigning it to debt collectors rather than selling it, so they may have easier access to old account information than some other companies.
If you can confirm there isn't even any account under your name, not even due to id theft or merger, you can proceed against this miscreant knowing they are trying to con you.
If the times do not match, it may be an indication either that it is actually someone else's account, or that they may have changed the original date of delinquency to attempt to extract payment by reporting it past the FCRA's legally allowed 7 years.
Regardless, send a dispute and validation request letter, certified return receipt requested.
Doctoring recordings has been common practice in telemarketing fraud for years. Just look up business directory scams, where such fraudulent activities are routine, either by Google search, or on the FTC site.
If someone is attempting to defraud you in one way, they are likely to be attempting to defraud you in other ways as well. The main predictive indicator of any particular type of fraud is some other attempt at fraud. It reveals the goals and tactics of the adversary you are dealing with.
It would be illegal mail fraud to send phony bills to a bunch of strangers demanding money, but you can get away with sending bills to as many similarly named people scattered around the country as you can find, as long as you have even mangled debt data to say someone might owe it.
That the alleged account is no more than a prop is confirmed by repeated refusal to obtain validation, and the extent they will go to evade it. If the debt collector actually believed the account was valid, and that the debtor contacted owed it, it would pay to obtain that validation to assert their claim.
It is still a con game, but having the right prop can keep you out of jail.
Also, be aware that under the consumer debt protection laws it says that a debt starts from the time of the last activity. That means that if you succumb to a creditor just to get them off of your back the debt starts over for 7 years. It may not be a popular stance but you really need to weigh whether or not it is to your best benefit to make a payment. If the last activity is past the statute of limitations in your State or over 7 years old you can write them and insist they stop contacting you and leave the bill alone.
As I said in the beginning most people would pay their debts if they could. Also, the collectors keep talking about "your signed contract"--most credit card debts do not have a signed contract.
Even if the debt is legitimate you DO have rights as the debtor. It is in your best interest to know those rights.
Of course you don't, if you are covering your a$$e$. The Verizon accounts you are collecting on are part of the old mangled accounts from the Verizon mergers. It is common knowledge that AFNI bought a bunch, and complaints against you show that you have too. They are past 7 years, and if you have any shred of honesty, you know they are full of errors as well. That hasn't stopped you from trying to collect them anyway from people who do not owe them, and that is where they cross the line into scamming.
Most complaints against you on this site are from people who claim you are harassing them over alleged debts they do not owe, for accounts they never had, with companies they never had an account with, and that your callers are abusive. Most debt collectors do not have that sort of complaint record. You do.
Your abuse and harassment is spilling over into the lives of people who pay their bills and should not have to deal with your made-up garbage. You keep doing it not because they owe you anything, but because you can get away with it and it pays. Some state Attorneys General (such as Andrew Cuomo) are starting to get wise to the antics in your industry. You have become a public nuisance and it is time to change that.
Consumers claiming they are attempting to collect unowed debts: 14
Consumers claiming they are repeatedly calling them in error: 2
Consumer claiming they sold a debt to another debt collector
after they had already paid off a debt: 1
http://dockets.justia.com/search?q=Receivables+Performance+Management%2C+LLC.
There are also a number of complaints of continuing harassing calls asking for people consumers claim they have never heard of, with the company ignoring repeated requests to stop calling.
An ex-employee claims that their skip-trace database that they use to find contact numbers is years out of date, resulting in large numbers of erroneous calls.
A Christian