Good evening My name is Jason and I'm approaching my thirties and am eyeballing a home in my future and have mistakes in my credit past. Nothing too drastic unpaid medical and 4 late payments mainly and my scores range from 550-650 currently across the 3 bureaus. Here is my current dilemma: about 1 year ago I cancelled a ATT cell phone and was stuck with a high bill and a cancellation fee to the tune of 600$ I was contacted today from a collections agency and was offered a settle ment for 250$. I explained to them I'd entertain any offer/payment plan in full if they can agree in wwriting that once the debt is settled that any derogatory information would b deleted from my credit report. They explained that they are in a sense employed by AT&T and cannot add oR remove from my report and I'd in fact have to speak with them directly. after a two hour chat conversation with AT&T and a little headway (unfortunately was disconnected with a rep that really understood me) I was pretty much informed that if I work with the collections agency they'd be more inclined to help with any information on my report. now I'm in assuming that once the debt is paid AT&T will be tough to deal with however I wanted anyone's opinion should I take the settlement set up a plan to pay in full or get something in writing from AT&T before I do anything any help would be appreciated thank you.
Welcome to Creditnet. Regarding AT&T: What/who is exactly reporting? AT&T or the CA (collection agency), or both? It sounds as though AT&T still owns the debt. Who is the CA? Regarding medical: Google whychat method.
Always get it in writing. The negative is reported by the CA so they have to be the ones to remove it. AT&T can say anything but are not responsible for the removal. Get a letter from AT&T stating any collections agency can remove said collection once paid. But honestly, the collections agency is feeding you BS. They now own your collection for less than a quarter of what your original bill was. I would call the collections agency and tell them AT&T said all modifications to the collection and reporting is up to you the collections agency and propose they cut the bull.
Remember that the phone is their weapon, they are trained to get you to shoot yourself in the foot. The best approach is to not talk to them on the phone. Ask them to only contact you in writing, and don't confirm anything. If you do talk to them on the phone, memorialize, memorialize, memorialize... (Sometimes if I need to have a good time, I call from a local payphone, so that they have no way to identify what account they called me about.) Best example: a CA called my cell phone recently, using an automated dialer, the representative got snippy when I asked them to spell out their company's name because it's a doozy... Asked to speak with a supervisor, the supervisor got snippy when I asked to speak with their compliance officer, when she refused to tell me what it's regarding... I call their corporate offices, speak with their president, and then fax a letter memorializing the two conversations with their reps, and the conversation with their president, and specify that I was demanding validation, and no further communications regarding collecting the debt to my cell phone. Now, unless they challenge the summary of the conversations in WRITING, the memorialized account stands, should the matter need to be litigated. Even if their computer account is different from the memorialized account, they each of equal weight...
A really archaic device which can devilishly be utilized to harass our harassers... It allows you to make completely anonymous calls...
Bottom line Jason do not agree to any kind of payment this will start the clock of statute of limitation and if a collection agency is contacting you they own the debt not AT&T. And if their contacting you on your cell phone that's a TCPA violation. Just remember you have no contract with the collection agency. there a third party vendor. validate the debt and wait for them to respond. Make sure you put your telephone number advise them not to call you, more than likely they will and that's a $1000 violation. Now they owe you money. Any questions contact me
Based on the above, HammerTime, it appears AT&T does own the debt. Without further clarification from the OP, the assumption here is he was either contacted by AT&T's own internal collection department, or whomever this CA is, they are assigned the debt and report back to AT&T. Collection agencies that are only assigned accounts do contact consumers.
Ownership of the account doesn't make the TCPA violation. TCPA requires two elements only, (1) they are calling your cell phone, (2) they are using an automated dialer to initiate the call. The only exception is if you've specifically given them permission to call your cell phone. It can also be a FDCPA violation for incurring the costs of the collection upon the consumer without the advance notice to the consumer of the collection nature of the communication.
