Hello All, I'm a newbie to this forum with a question to pose. In 1996, I settled an outstanding $650.00 American Express debt that had been referred to a collection agency. The agency provided me with a letter stating that the debt was settled in full and the matter was considered closed. In July of 2007, the internal collections area of Amex contacted me via phone and letter to attempt to collect the same $650.00 that was PAID in 1996. I stated that the debt was indeed paid and I even faxed over the collection agency confirmation letter as well as the cancelled checks from '96 to prove that the account was settled. I then demanded that Amex send me a confirmation letter stating that this debacle was over with once and for all. After receiving all of the damning documentation that I provided to them, the collection associates became belligerent (obviously because of the embarrassment) and refused to provide a letter. Last week, you guessed it, the internal collections area of Amex contacted me via phone and letter to try to collect the same $650.00. This is beyond absurd. They are attempting to collect a debt that is over 14 years old and was paid while totally disregarding the collection statute of limitations for my state (which is 4 years) and assuming that I would be ignorant of the law and my rights. The collections associate had language difficulties but freaked out when I threatened to report them to my state AG and demanded to be connected to his manager. Has anyone else had similar experiences with Amex? I fail to believe that their internal collections department can be so incompetent and unethical. At this point, I am angry enough to file my own lawsuit against them because I have a ton of documentation that clearly shows how and when I settled this debt and my state AG will definitely be informed of this obvious violation of state and possibly federal law.
Only in a couple of states is it a violation of law to attempt to collect an out of statute debt. With that being said, why do you think it was internal collections? Amex doesn't sell their debts, but they do farm it out to 3rd parties as assigned debts. Have you tried to call Amex customer service directly?
I live in Illinois and it is my understanding that you cannot attempt collection action on a debt where there has been no account activity for four years. I know that this is the internal collections area at Amex because they have identified themselves as such in phone conversations and in their correspondence to me. After speaking with them, Amex Customer Service claims that they considered the matter closed last year after they were 'embarrassed' but the Amex Collections Dept. states that they were "forwarded" the account from "another internal dept." for collection proceedings and that they cannot amend the status of the account despite the volume of data that I provided to the corporation previously. Finger pointing from all areas of the company where one hand doesn't know what the other is up to.
