I've been in and out of this board for the last 2 years and have learned a wealth of information!! Now I need some RUSH advice... Last night I recived a letter from NCO Financial collecting on a Verizon Wireless account I closed back in Dec and had been sending payments on the balance since. I sent last payment on March 13th, (to Verizon) and now this letter dated March 18th from nco. I called them and this very rude man indicated that I had to pay through them and that their was nothing else I could do, that the account would be reported as "paid in full " to collection agency..I told him I was not willing to deal with nco and that I would deal with Verizon directly..he said that Verizon wouldn't even speak to me...I hung up on him, called Verizon and sure enough the connected me with Fiancial Services and I was told that they couldn't do anything, that the payment I had sent would most likely be sent back to me...I was with the Rep for over 25 min and nothing..I then called back to Nco got the same rep and told him that I would put stop payment on the check I had sent and pay them if they stated in writing that they would not report to my CR..to this he said no way...that the best he could offer me was a 75% of the debt, but it would still come up as paid in full to CA...What should I do... See if Verizon cashes the check, send a Validation or Cease & desist to nco??? I am sorry this is so long but I wanted everyone to get the full picture. Any advise would be greatly appreicated. PS. NCO letter is dated 3/18..I have 30 days to think of what to do ..right? thanks in advance
I had the same situation with NCO 9 months back. Verizon will most likely cash the check. Then if they do, send a cease and desist letter. If not send a validation letter. NCO has a habit of not following rules and they have several offices that are not coordinated with each other. So it won't be too hard to catch them and then you will most end dealing with their legal dept in NY. I paid the original creditor who never reported it and the CA was left out in the cold and they could not do anything about it. Good luck!
How much more do you have left to pay on this accout? I'd say send the check to Verizon. Better yet, send them a cashier's check or money order (use either a postal money order or one from your bank--in case you need a copy of the paid item) and type in Verizon Wireless as the payee. Why? Because it would be very difficult for them to try and change the payee and add "or NCO." I had a friend who did that on an old health club accont. The club kept insisting that she had to deal with the CA. When she sent the health club a payoff check, they sent it to the CA who had added fees to her account balance. She got wind of all this because she got a phone call from the CA asking her for another check. When she asked why, they told her that her check had been marked "REFER TO MAKER" and sent back to them. She called her small credit union and they said they returned it because the check had "or CA" written on the payee line in blue ink...not the black ink like the rest of the check (mind you, this was 5 years ago when the credit union processed checks by hand). Well she sent the health club a replacement payment in the form of a money order from the credit union. They are nice too, you tell them you want an official check and it gets printed automatically. When she sent it to the health club's paymnt center, they cashed it! She got a copy of the paid check a week later and then threatened all parties concerned with a lawsuit for bank fraud, check tampering, forgery etc if they didn't clear her credit file. They went away quietly
