I am a newbie, and I read most of the, "why don't newbie's read this, or that" posts. But it is still most confusing to me, because I am not up to speed on the vernacular. But my question is this: I was a customer of alltel, and before they were bought out, I closed my account with them, due to military over seas deployment. I had automatic payments set up to be with drawn on the first of each month, I called to close on the 28th of the month, and explained the situation with the auto payments and they assured me that it would not take out. The customer service rep on the phone then gave me a total balance of $130 to completely close my account. I paid it then and there on the phone, and sure enough 2 days later they withdrew the same auto payment amount again. I called and they said take it up with your bank. I went to the bank, they had me close the VISA card account, and they re credited me the money while the card company, VISA, did and investigation to verify if the debt was valid. They received no response from Alltel, and told me to keep the money that VISA had credited me. A few months down the road, Alltel pops up on all three reports as uncollected. I was beside myself, since not only do I not owe them money, but they stole $130 dollars from me. I have since been battling them, and I thought it had went away. But no. Now it is on my CR from verizon. While disputing while it was still alltel, I disputed with the big 3, they FTC and the better business bureau. Alltel would send it to a CA, and I would dispute with them, and they would send it back to Alltel, and Alltel would just send it to another CA and on and on with 5 different CA's. Then when Alltel was bought out, it was all removed from my report, so I thought it was over. But no way! While disputing with alltel, they refused to give me any bills, or documents saying why or how I owed them the money, while in all my dispute packages that I filed with everyone, I included the bank statements showing the double withdrawal. SO, 2010, its not verizon trying to collect the debt, I have not contacted them as of yet, I just received a letter from the first collection agency, and I am going to call verizon first, and somehow try to convince them that not only is the debt not valid, but they in fact owe me money. But I am sure I will never see that money again, ever. My concern is the charge off on my credit report. Its been reporting as charge off since Nov 09, I want that off. And even though they are offering me to only pay 30% of the debt, which is $40, thats not the point. I don't owe them anything, and they are reporting a debt falsely and damaging my credit and subsequent interest rates. I would really like to take them to court, but not sure what type of lawyer would handle this. And I mainly just want if off my report truly, not paying them and admitting that i owed them money, because that is not the case. Before I go re disputing to all the big 3 and verizon, what are some better steps and what should I know? IE, validation, alltel refused to show me bills showing that I owed them X amount of dollars. Isn't that against the law? Seems like it. What I did learn from talking with a rep at Trans union, is that when we ask a CRA, trans union in this case, to investigate a debt. All they do is ask them if its valid, and the company says, yes,,,, that's as far as it goes. They told me they do not require proof of debt because they are an accredited business. That's ridiculous. I know this is a long post, I'm jus tired of going to war with no bullets. What's worse is I was active duty military at the time, and this closure of account was under the soldiers and sailors civil relief act, which basically says, anyone going to war has to be allowed to be opted out of any contracts. And these low lifes are still trying to rip me off.
Do you still have a connection with the military? My first stop would be JAG. In fact, I would have gone to the JAG when it all started. If you don't still have a connection with the military, call the JAG office and find out if there's any way they can help you or give you a referral since it started while you were on active duty. They deal with this all the time and should be able to tell you what to do.
No, no affiliation with the military anymore, and the JAG wouldn't even give me the time of day. They can't help now that i am out.
Will they give you the name of an attorney that might be former military or have some military ties? I know when I had to do some legal action against my ex, that I was told that there are reservists who are lawyers, and they are often willing to help. You really need someone who understands the Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act, because that's really what you need to fall back on. Maybe the state bar association even has that kind of info.
I don't think i can do anything from the military side. But that doesn't really change the fact that they withdrew 2 payments on the same day, when they were only owed one. They let me out of contract without early termination fee, but they charged me twice. Thats more the issue for me.
Talk to a lawyer. You may have to file a suit to get their attention. Or you can just file against them in small claims court. That usually isn't very expensive. As long as you have the proof of the withdrawals and your payment, you should be fine. While you're at it, include the amount of any termination fee they charged, and bring up the Soldiers and Sailors Act in court. You may get that back, too. I hate seeing our military ripped off.
