Ah, the joys of bill collectors (long)

The BBQ Pit
1

Is there anything finer than spending a few minutes talking with a bill collector? The witty repartee, the verbal thrust and parry, the ‘click’ as he hangs up on you …

First a bit of backstory. About 15 months ago, a $100 charge appeared on our home phone bill. It was due to two calls, both overseas, both to 900-numbers. Neither my wife nor I made the calls; in fact, we weren’t even home at the time the calls were made. We disputed the charges with AT&T, and immediately that worthy company dropped the debt from $100 to $70. However, the $70, they said, had to be handled by their 900-number division. Okay, we said, and talked with those folks. On two separate occasions, we were told the $70 charge would be dropped. Everything’s hunky-dory.

Fast-forward to January 2002. We get a letter from a collection agency. Apparently the two AT&T folks we spoke with in the 900-number department didn’t remove the charge, as they promised, and now we’ve been turned over to collections. We explain the situation to the collection agency via letter (including the names of the AT&T reps we spoke with who assured us the charge was being removed), and they don’t call us again. We think it’s handled.

In April 2002, we get another letter from a different collection agency. We go through the same thing, explain the situation again, and even send a copy of the letter we sent to the first collection agency. They don’t call again. End of story, right?

Wrong. On December 2, 2002, my wife meets me at the door when I get home. “We’ve got a problem,” she says. “There’s a message on the answering machine. It sounds like you’re being sued.”

Baffled, I listen to the message. It’s from “Investigator Coleman,” who leaves his phone number, a case number, and says he needs to talk with me right away because he’s “filing papers against me.”

I’m 99 percent sure that this is related to the AT&T debt, and this is yet another bill collector (even though he didn’t say so). My wife is very worried, though, and is sure I’m being sued for some reason.

So the next morning I call Investigator Coleman. He’s not in, so I leave a voice-mail. I get a voice-mail back from him around 12:30, but due to work commitments I can’t call him back immediately.

Around 2:30, my wife calls. She’s at home, sick. Investigator Coleman just called her, saying he can’t get in touch with me despite leaving three voice mails. She asks him if this is related to a bill collection, and he says no. Then he proceeds to give lie to that statement by telling her her husband has some 900-number sex calls he hasn’t paid for. My wife, who knows all about the situation, tells the guy he’s wrong. He refuses to listen to her.

Here’s where it gets good. I call Investigator Coleman after talking with my wife. I immediately ask him who he works for. He says “CRB.” I ask him what that stands for, and he gives me the name of a collection agency. I ask him why he told my wife he did NOT work for a collection agency. Initially he denies saying that, then he switches tacks. He starts talking about my sex calls, and how I need to pay the bill.

I try to explain that the bill is in error, but he won’t let me finish a sentence. Finally he tells me he’s filing papers with a credit bureau in an attempt to ruin my credit rating, and hangs up on me.

Well. I’m not going to sit around and take that. So I call him back. I get another “investigator” the first three times, despite calling Coleman’s extension. Finally he comes back on the line. I tell him that AT&T told us twice the charge wasn’t valid and was removing it. I get his address so I can send him the correspondence I’ve kept. (He doesn’t want to give it to me, but I insist.) I finish by telling him that I’m filing a complaint against him with my state’s attorney general’s office and the Federal Trade Commission.

That stops him. He asks me why I’m doing that. I explain to him that according to section 807, subsection 11, of the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act, he is required to tell me in his first communication that he works for a collection agency and that he’s attempting to collect a debt. He didn’t do that in his message left at our house Monday night, which was the first time we’d heard from him.

Suddenly he’s not as impatient to interrupt me when I’m talking. When I finish explaining all that, he says, “Sir, I’ve done this for seven years. I think I know what I’m supposed to say.” I reply, “Well, if you’ve done this for seven years, I’d hope you know better than what you did.” He reiterates that he’s filing papers with the credit bureau. I reiterate that I’m filing complaints against him. We hang up. I file the complaints immediately, grinning as I do so.

The funny thing is, I know a little about how collection agencies work. He (or his company) get a percentage of any money collected. If they don’t collect any money, they don’t get paid. I would have let the whole thing drop if he’d acted as the other two collection agencies did. They were polite and professional. But if he wants to be a schmuck, I’m gonna do whatever I can to nail him to the wall. I don’t know what the penalties are for violating a portion of the FDCPA, but I’m gonna find out. And so will Investigator Coleman.

2

Way to go Sauron!

I wonder how many folk would have just given up along the line and figured continued effort wasn’t worth $70?

3

Sauron, you rock!

Don’t forget to send your documentation to the credit bureau to dispute his dumbass “papers,” too.

4

Interesting.

According to the “Civil Liability” section of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, I could sue CRB and “Investigator Coleman” for up to $501,000.

Dinsdale, my wife raised that very question Monday night – “Wouldn’t it just make sense to pay the $70?” She doesn’t want our credit rating to be trashed over this. I honestly don’t know how much damage this one incident could do to my credit rating. I have several other accounts in excellent standing (and yes, I’ve checked my credit rating recently), including a mortgage, a car loan, and a credit card. However, it’s the principle of the thing that gets me. AT&T agreed that we didn’t owe this money more than a year ago!

ENugent, thanks for the kind words. You know what? In part it was the Dopers that gave me the intestinal fortitude to go toe-to-toe with this guy (so to speak). I wanted to be able to rant on here about the experience, but I knew I couldn’t do that if I wimped out at any time.

5

Hey, if you successfully sue him for half a million, will you care what your credit rating is?

6

Go get ‘em!

A collection agency got me all riled up the other day with some similarly scummy tactics. My girlfriend received a letter from a collection agency demanding payment of $95 for a closed MCI account. The only problem is that she has never used MCI at any point in her life. She calls the collection agency and, after the requisite 5 minutes of menu navigation and 10 minutes of being on hold, gets talks to someone about the situation. Turns out they were looking for someone with the same name, and since they had no current address information for this person, decided looking it up in the phone book was an acceptable practice. Now this may work if she had a name like Irma Scroddenecker, but her name is the equivalent of “John Smith”. There are no less than 22 people in the Chicago phonebook with her exact name. So WTF? Did the collection agency just send out threatening collection letters blindly to everyone just hoping to stumble across the right person? Sounds like it. I’m sure that this has to be in violation of the FDCPA.

OK, you’ve inspired me to go check this out. Now I’m all annoyed again.

7

Speaking as a lawyer - litigating over principle can be pretty expensive. And I’m not just talking about money. While I would hate cutting a $70 check, I value my private time quite highly. Moreover, I get little to no pleasure from engaging in phone/mail hassles such as this. It might be worth $70 to me to simply take a nap instead!

Another problem is the legal system is ill-equipped to compensate your damages. What has it really cost you? A couple of letters? A couple of phone calls? So multiply that by any reasonable hourly rate, and you still only have a couple of hundred dollars.

But as I see it, you were caused mental distress and uncertainty - through no fault of your own, and despite your best efforts. Hard to put a dollar value on it, but certainly your mental peace and good name (via your credit report) is worth more than a nominal amont. Moreover, there is a multiplier effect, as time spent on this unnecessary and unpleasant task, cannot be spent on more pleasant or profitable things. And I see blame directed at both Coleman and ATT.

I wish you the best of luck.

It is this type of seemingly endless hassles - each relatively minor in itself - that gets me down on certain aspects of modern society. Where, in your story, is there respect for the consumer, or the attempt to provide a quality service for a reasonable price?

I do not see YOUR - the consumer’s - existence enhanced by any aspect of this story. Although I DO see opportunities for various folks to try to make money in a purported “service” economy. When you got the first call from Coleman, you should have been able to make one call to ATT, obtain their immediate and profuse apologies, assurances that THEY would take care of this immediately and inform you of their actions and the resolution, and probably some credit on future services for goodwill. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

8

AIUI, if the “collection agency” puts an incorrect default debt on your credit report, and such incorrect info causes you not to get a loan, you can sue for big bucks.

I think your next step is to contact AT&T, and ask them why collection agencies are hassling you at their request when they told you the charge would be dropped.

9

pipper:

It sounds to me like the collection agency you’re dealing with violated Section 804 of the FDCPA, to wit:

"804. Acquisition of location information [15 USC 1692b]

Any debt collector communicating with any person other than the consumer for the purpose of acquiring location information about the consumer shall –

(1) identify himself, state that he is confirming or correcting location information concerning the consumer, and, only if expressly requested, identify his employer;

**(2) not state that such consumer owes any debt; **…" (bolding mine)

In essence, that bill collector mailed 22 letters, at least 21 of which went to the wrong person, and in those letters indicated that “John Smith” owes MCI $95. That’s a violation of the law.

ivylass, your information and viewpoint is most appreciated. While I seriously doubt I’m gonna sue this guy or the company, it’s good to know the level at which they can be punished. I’m hoping they’re at least a little nervous right now … or if not now, that they will be when they’re contacted by the FTC or the Alabama Attorney General’s office.

Couple of points to make:

  1. “Respect for the consumer” was nowhere to be found in any of my conversations with Investigator Coleman. When I would pin him down on a certain item (for instance, the message he left on our machine), he would revert to “You don’t need to worry about that. You just need to pay for your sex calls.” Trying to explain to the man that I didn’t MAKE any sex calls got me exactly nowhere.

  2. I called AT&T back in January 2002, when I got the first letter from a collection agency. Their response was that since it had been turned over to a collection agency, they no longer had control over the debt. I’m sure that if I pursued legal action I could name them in a suit, but as you said, it’s hardly worth it. (Although, you know, I live in Alabama, famous for its ridiculously high damage awards to victims of corporate shenanigans …)

Found out something else interesting in perusing the text of the FDCPA; Investigator Coleman, for all his talk of ruining my credit rating, legally cannot send information to a credit agency without noting that I dispute the debt.

10

But if they acknowledged that you did not owe the debt, and they turned you over to collections, aren’t they guilty of at least conspiracy to commit harrassment?

Quit laughing, I’m not a lawyer, but if AT&T admitted you don’t owe the debt, they had no reason to turn you over to collections.

11

Someone please reassure me that I’m not the only one visualizing Gary Coleman working for a collection agency!

Good luck, Sauron - hope you get this straightened out and can put it behind you.

12

Yeah, I’m not sure what the deal is with that. We had spoken to the AT&T folks around October/November 2001 and got this all squared away (we thought). The charge kept appearing on our phone bill, which meant we kept calling them. Twice they said it was being removed, and wouldn’t show up on our next billing statement. In December, we got an offer to switch to another long-distance company and did so.

Then, in January, when we got the first collections letter, we called AT&T back. They said then that once it was turned over to a collection agency they couldn’t do anything about it; essentially, they’ve written it off. Apparently whoever was in charge of collections at AT&T didn’t stop our account from going outside AT&T for some reason.

My guess is that if we hadn’t switched from AT&T when we did, they’d have removed the charge. But once we switched, we became a delinquent former customer, so they didn’t care anymore.

13

Good luck fighting them…if you do get $501,000, can you buy me a beer :wink: ?

14

I worked for a few collections agencies while I was in college.

One thing to keep in mind is that the vast majority of people they are talking to are total scumbag deadbeat debtors. These people are suck fucksticks that have quarter million dollar credit card debts that can’t be bothered to declare bankrupcy or even answer a phone call about the subject. Not that any of this makes the way Coleman treated you ok, or anything. I just thought a little defense of the collections people was in order.

That having been said, IIRC you don’t need to prove damages to get them to suffer. People that would contact us via an attorney with a recording like that of a clear violation of the FDCPA would usually cost us $1500. I am not sure if that is a fine or if it went to the consumer. You would just hear it from the management about the expense, not where it was going.

15

Hey, Sauron, is there a website that gives info on the law related to debt collection agencies? You seem to have all the relevant regulations, and it is nice to know what one is talking about when on the phone with these morons.

16

You know what? I just realized I was reading Dinsdale’s second post in this thread and attributing it to ivylass. Dunno why my brain did that.

Apologies to both of you.

17

mhendo, try this one. It’s the Federal Trade Commission’s section on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. It includes the actual text of the law itself (which isn’t terribly hard to read, in my opinion), along with other information.

In addition, this site gives some good information on how to respond to debt collectors.

I am by no means a legal scholar, but it’s amazing what a little information can do for you when you’re talking to a slimeball debt collector. (Not saying all debt collectors are slimeballs; the first two I dealt with were quite nice.) These folks thrive on intimidation and bluff; it’s rather liberating to realize how little they can actually do, if you don’t fall for their hyperbole. Having info at your fingertips regarding the law will really rock some of them back, I’d wager.

18

Thanks for the links, Sauron.

Just after i arrived in the US to live a couple of years ago, i got a call from a debt collection agency. My experience was similar to pipper’s, in that they didn’t know where their debtor was, so they just called eveyone in the phone book with the same name. When it happened the first time i didn’t worry too much - i explained that i’d only been in the country for two months, and therefore could not possibly owe money for a hospital visit in Baltimore over a year before. It was when i received the second call that i got pissed off, because obviously no-one had bothered to note that i was not the guy they were after. This time, i reamed out the caller and then asked to speak to her supervisor, who i also called some choice words. Never heard back from them again, so it was a happy ending.

19

Wondering about a situation like pipper/mhendo’s.
If the collector basically spams everyone with the same last name, what happens if someone other than the debtor decides to pay them off just to avoid the hassle? Or more than one? Sounds like a neat scam!

Don’t collection agencies essentially retain a percentage of what they recover, giving the remainder to the comapny that hired them? If so, would they be able to retain the entire amount they receive from a second person paying off an already-retired debt?

20

That’s a good question, Dinsdale. Obviously the company couldn’t legally keep the money in that situation, because they’d obtained it illegally. But if no one calls them on it, you can bet they’re not going to tell anyone voluntarily.

Collection agencies do indeed keep a percentage (a fairly large percentage) of what they recover.