"We are closing our file"???

Yes they can and will sell the account. It has not been sold as of yet. The company contacting you is a contingency agency, ie. paid a fee for whatever they collect, they do not own the account. The OC will usually use 2 or so 2nd party agencies then sell off to a 3rd party.

 

Is your SSN on the account? If so, you'll need to file a fraud report with the police, regardless of how old it is. Have you contact the cell company to determine what the account is/from dates? How old is the debt?

 

What CA is this?

 

When you called the cell company did they tell you there was a ssn on file? If so, they need to verify that. If it is your ssn they have on file and you truely have never had their service you will need to file the police report to make it stop. The account is still in stats assuming your information above is correct until March 2008.

 

They will not respond to a request of SSN in writing. You'll have to do it over the phone.

 

Regardless of what you would do, almost everyone else who opens cell phone accounts under a contract provides their SSN. The only exceptions would be "prepaid" accounts, and they would not have balances due and be in collection.

Call Cingular, ask for their fraud department (not just "customer service"), indicate that some CA has been after you for a Cingular account you never opened, and give them your name and SSN to find if any accounts in their system are using your identity.

If they have no account under your SSN, and the CA claims your SSN is on the account, they are not only trying to collect from the wrong party, they are using deception to do it. Sue them under FDCPA, and maybe even under FCRA for pulling your reports without permissible purpose.

If it turns out there IS an account under your name and SSN, then you will have to file a police report for id theft, and send it with an id theft affidavit to both Cingular, and any CRA that is showing the fraudulent account. That should force the CRA to remove any information associated with that account, and block Cingular from sending the account to collection or selling it. If you have any further problems with either, contact your state AG, or sue.

If you don't catch this at the OC, then you will be dealing with it as it bounces from CA to CA.

 

In my opinion, if you give them all of that then they will make it your account saying they have validated it is you. Maybe make them provide the identity of who they think you are. When someone stole my identity in the past I just disputed it and indentified what charges were not mine and they asked me to send them an affidavit stating it was not mine. Charges were all deleted . Of course, this wasn't a cell account.

 

When the account is current sure that is the normal process, but when you in collections it's a whole different story.

 

True, true.

 

"When someone stole my identity in the past I just disputed it and indentified what charges were not mine and they asked me to send them an affidavit stating it was not mine. Charges were all deleted . Of course, this wasn't a cell account."

That would be the procedure for disputing unauthorized credit card charges, under FCBA.


"I contacted their Fraud dept and they want me to fax them a copy of my driver's license, ss card and a utility bill?! I'm thinking this could just be a way for them to "invent an account"

Your risk of this is probably lower with Cingular than with some CA/JDB. If they did fabricate an account in your name, they would themselves be committing felony id theft, etc, and you would have documentation (FAX transmission confirmation) of where and when they got the documents to do it. They still would have NO contract with your signature (unless they lifted it off your DL, in which case it would be too close a match), and all their billing records would still show statements sent to some other address you never lived at, which would indicate the nature of the fraud. All of the above would be accessible thru discovery, as it would be Cingular's own business records.

Since you know you didn't open the account, you know you can call their bluff. They would have to be very stupid to get caught in the web of their own lies. It just wouldn't be worth it.


Your FAX would include that, as you discussed with their Fraud Department on xx/xx/xx, you have found an erroneous or fraudulent Cingular account on your credit report that you did not open. You are requesting all information on accounts that may have been opened with your identity.

You are looking for 1 of two possibly replies from Cingular, and you want it in writing:

1) "We show no accounts under your name and SSN (your identity)." You use that to force any future CA that gets this account to stop collection against you, get erroneous CR TLs removed, etc. If the CA claims your SSN is attached to the account, you file AG complaints against THEM for id theft, and sue for their FDCPA violations (deception) and fraud.

2) "We show this account under your name and SSN, but at this other address." You file a police report for identity theft, fill out a fraud affidavit, and send copies to Cingular, any future CA, and any CRA reporting the account. They either remove, or you file AG complaints against them and sue under FACTA.