They may have recorded it with the “this call may be recorded for training purposes” recording at the start of the talk.
You may or may not have set yourself back a notch by doing that but all is not lost. You have to listen to the semi-pros here and follow the directions exactly.
Do you know the credit reporting agency that the collection agency reported the debt to (it will be either Transunion, Equifax or Experian)?
If so, go to their web site or call the relevant reporting agency and dispute the debt. Use the specific phrase ‘no knowledge of this debt’ during any inquiries. You think you may owe it but we don’t know that and you don’t know that for a fact either. The insurance company should have paid it in the first place. Medical billing mistakes all the time so you don’t need to demonstrate any conscience in disputing a bill like this. They were the ones that screwed up the billing. Do not admit any further knowledge of the bill at all not even the fact that someone in your family may or may not have been taken to the hospital in an ambulance any time within the last two decades.
You are protected by law at that point. The credit reporting agency has to launch an inquiry to the collection agency and they have to document the debt to you in writing within 30 days. If the collection agency refuses to do that, the debt is gone forever. If they maintain the debt is valid and cannot produce strong evidence that it is valid within 30 days, it is also gone forever. The chances of one of those two things happening for an older debt of this type absolutely outstanding. There is absolutely no downside to you for disputing this debt in the way I just described.
In the unlikely case that the collection agency does document it and prove that you personally owe it, you still haven’t lost completely. All you need to do is make them send you a letter saying that they will remove the delinquent entry from your credit report for some amount of money that you think is fair (half the original amount is generous, one-third or even less should be acceptable). Once you get the letter, pay them or not and then make sure they removed the entry from your credit report. If they didn’t, just scan of fax the letter to the credit reporting agency again and dispute it once more. It has to be removed forever at that point.
Remember, you aren’t paying the people that you originally might have had a debt to. You are paying speculators that bought debt at a few pennies on the dollar in the hopes that they will get a large gain off of a percentage of people that will fall for the scam because of intimidation.
This game is so easy to beat it is unacceptable that so many people fall for it. We are giving you the cheat codes to win quickly so take them.
Interesting. A month or so ago, I got a few calls saying my loan application had been approved. At least once they left a voicemail message, and once I talked to a person on the phone because I thought it was someone else calling. I knew it was some sort of scam, since I’ve never applied for any loan, and definitely not anytime recently. I wasn’t quite sure how the scam worked, I figured they’d try to get information from me, so I just hung up on the caller.
So I called a disputing agency and they said that there is no record of the debt from the collectors. Does that mean I am in the clear? (At least with them, apparently I have a towing bill I didn’t know about…)
Not all three of them will have matching records. Collection accounts often only get reported to one of them. If it hasn’t been reported, then no harm has been done and you can ignore the collection agency until it appears at one of the credit reporting agencies. You can dispute it then.
That is why I mentioned www.annualcreditreport.com You should be reviewing the free credit reports available there so that you don’t get blindsided by things like abundance or towing charges the next time you need credit. You can stagger the requests throughout the year and you can get a different free one every 4 months. Did you dispute the towing charge? You might as well start there to learn how it is done.
No, that could have been that someone had stolen your identity and was using it to apply for a loan.
One thing I have used that always stumps the collector is simply to ask for verification that they own the debut. “my client’s contract and debt, if any, was with Sears. You’re not Sears. My client doesn’t know you, and never did business with you. For all I know, we pay you and Sears says we still owe them. Please provide verification that you own this debt, and we can then discuss.”
Not once has a collector ever provided verification. They have several times sent a copy of the original bill. I write back and say, “that’s not what I’m asking.” Eventually, they go away.
FYI, I have a flu right now so getting back to this debt thing might take a few more days but I plan on responding once I get better. Thanks a LOT so far for the helpful answers. 