I am hugely frustrated. I have been trying to rebuild my credit life only to run into crap like this. I am at my wits end with this collection agency - J J Mac Intyre Co., Inc. I had a debt with Cedars Sinai for a visit for my daughter. Unfortunately at the time (Jan 2007) I was unable to follow through on my obligation, albeit small. I moved a couple of times and in the series of mail forwarding, finally received notices from their in-house collections billing department. In December 2007, I paid the OC - Cedars Sinai - through my bank's Billpay for the full outstanding balance of $125.40. In Feb 2007, I began subscribing to credit monitoring. There I saw CA - J J Mac Intyre - on my report for my Cedars account at an amount double ($255) what was owed. I promptly disputed it with the CRAs and all of them came back verified. How could this be? I paid the OC and my account was clear and paid in full. I then called the CA and requested that they remove the listing because the account was paid and cleared with the original creditor and that I had been unaware that there was a collection agency in the mix. They claimed Cedars had not informed them that the account was clear. I was asked to fax to them a copy of the payment which I did. I received a phone call acknowledging receipt of the fax and to call them back. I didn't call. I wrote because I wanted everything in writing. I sent another fax demanding removal of item. Then I sent them a DV letter hoping to make them contact the creditor so that they would be forced to follow through. Here's what I've received from them: As of March 19, I received a letter from them stating that they were "asked to respond to a credit inquiry by the CRAs on behalf of my past due account. We will inform the credit bureaus upon receipt of your payment." And they again are looking for $255 from me. I am absolutely livid. I called Cedars and got them to fax to me a statement of account reflecting the paid account in full amount which they promptly did. I want to sue the pants off these people. They are recklessly wreaking havoc on my credit report. Can someone please help me and guide me through what to do next to take them to court? Can I sue the CRAs as well? They can't possibly be doing their jobs if this happens, can they? Please! I feel so violated. Sorry this was so long... Thought you'd need to know background.
Have you told Cedars to fax the information to the collection agent and to remove the collection account from your credit report? You're likely to go farther faster if you have Cedars talk to the CA instead of having you talk to them. Get the name of the billing dept. supervisor and explain what happened (calmly). You paid the bill but, for some reason, it is still in collections even though it has been paid and you'd really appreciate it if they could remove it from collections. Then, write that person a letter recording what you agreed to over the phone. Send the letter CMRRR to show proof of receipt. You should get some traction this way. Your real beef is with the hospital. The CA is "only following orders" from them so you have to go to the source.
Assumptions CCbob, thank you for your reply. I hadn't considered that Cedars hadn't already sent a release to the collection agency. I had assumed that they automatically follow through. I will contact them first thing in the morning and follow your suggestions in informing and sending a follow up letter to the person I spoke to CMRRR. It was so frustrating to have spoken to someone at CA stating that they would follow up with the hospital regarding the payment only to have them turn around and send me a collection notice. Thanks again. My spirits have lifted at the prospect of having this resolved once and for all.
Good advice ccbob, staying calm is key. In the event, that gbfaith continues to monitor this for removal (after she follows your suggestion) and the collection agency doesn't remove their reporting; what are your thoughts on faith sending copies of her request and proof of payment in full to the State Attorney Generals office where the agency is located?
I wouldn't send this to the SAG office. It's simply a case that Cedars didn't pull the account back. gbfaith has been trying to deal with the CA. As ccbob said, what she needs to do is deal with Cedars. Once they pull it back from collections (this is what you want them to do), the CA will have no business reporting. If they continue to report after the OC has pulled it back, then there is a cause of action against the CA.
LOL Dumb Bob..about as funny as spending more money than the ca is reporting, to take legal action (if they dont remove it).
All good points. The goal here is to get Cedar's to submit a communication to the debt collector that the account was submitted to them in error. This forces their hand so to speak.
I don't know what the situation would be with legal efforts, doesn't the law provide for lawyer fees to the winning party? It does with the FDCPA. I admit I don't understand why more lawyers aren't jumping on this stuff. I'm just not convinced that anything will happen if you report violations to the state AG.Feel free to do it because if there are enough complaints, you know what they say, maybe they'll take a break from playing lawn darts or whatever and do something about it.
From some of the cases I researched, there is some pretty big money in fees that can be awarded in trial. Maybe not as big as a personal injury suit, but some reasonable bang for the buck. My guess, however, is that very few cases have sufficient evidence to go to trial and that many that might get screwed up by the debtor doing something that unwittingly messes up the case (e.g. not sending a DV letter, or not recording an abusive call). So that actual number of solid cases is a small percentage of the possible total. As far as the AG's office goes, I have to say the one in my state (WA) was VERY helpful in obtaining a lot of documentation from the CA that took my shaky case and made it a very solid one. And they did it very quickly. So, I have nothing but good things to say about them.
IME it is a big waste of energy to file a complaint, as I did, had ALL the hard evidence and it was like they had blinders on. They ignored everything I gave them and I even OUTLINED and NUMBERED all paperwork to make it easy for them. When I filed the complaint one was the fact that I had sent CRRR a letter demanding validation and I included a copy of the green card dated and signed by the JDB. The JDB wrote back to AG that he never received anything from me ever! I called the AG and it was like DUH DUH DUH. AND there had been a lot of publicity with the AG and this and several other JDB's and they were fined. My take on all this is unless they can make a big deal about it and get lots of positive publicity as "how great is this AG's office" they do nothing. Woofer
You're right Woofer . . . it is about spin. In addition, lawyers don't jump all over this type of stuff because damages are hard to ascertain and juries aren't that sympathetic. Some of the law is hard to digest when someone actually owes the debt. The risk is more often to great in light of the potential award.
Yes, I also have found that NO NACA lawyers have taken a case for contingency as they all have wanted money up front, and that many NACA lawyers don't want to take cases at all. Odd too, as all the cases I did pro se I won, and some I got money not that much ,just shy of 10K, BUT the lawyer could have gotten 30 percent at least of that with not much work. This is why I really feel for many people that have not the personality or the money to fight these bullies. Myself, I try to do what I can to tell people about their credit reports and violations,also what to do if they are dunned,but most just want to ignore it even though they don't owe the amount.
Suggesting a letter to the AG is inexpensive and effective. If not effective, then your dealing with inexperienced CA staff. Due to the size of the balance I'd really pursue the cheapest route possible, since the likelihood of being sued over it is low. All I can say about your win win cases Woofer, is that your smarter than the average bear (probably have balls as big) and must be full blooded Irish : P) Careful though, you may meet your match someday, and their pockets are usually bigger than the consumers.
Update Well, my reservoir of patience is running thin. I've called both Cedars and the CA and left messages. I followed up with a letter of request. No response from either, yet the open collection still exists on my credit report. I feel jerked around. It would be bad enough to have a paid collection listed on my CR but to have a paid account listed as an open collection is just plain evil. At this juncture, IMHO, there's no way the CA doesn't know that the account was satisfied with Cedars. I feel like they're trying to be punitive because they didn't get any money. And the people in the billing office at Cedars are at best half baked. Should I contact the AG and/or file a suit against them in small claims court? Or maybe in Superior court for limited civil action that would require them to obtain a lawyer whose hourly fee would be double what I paid ($125.40) on my account? I believe I have sufficient documentation to substantiate my claim of FDCPA and FCRA violations and defamation of character. It's not that I have all the time in the world to do this but I'll make time to make a difference if it nets positive results. What do y'all think?
I don't know how long you've been pursuing this but patience might be in order. When I was chasing down a medical collection, it took about 2-3 months to finally get someone's attention and have it removed. The trick is finding the right person at the right time. A trick that I still need to master
I have dealt with two offices. One in MN., which definitely was DUH, and then in MA., who did reply back and we spoke several times, but they are not organized and are just paper pushers IMO. Quite frankly I think me filing a complaint was not good for me as the CA had to respond and despite the fact I did not OK the AG to ssend them off my complaint they did. I believe this only opened up a hornets nest and NOT in my favour despite the facts and paper trail I sent off: ( Everyone that knows me thinks I ALWAYS get tot he bottom of things and am wicked tenacious. I also know that forget about smarts, you just can't be lazy and many JDB and CA's are,because people have made it so so easy for them to get a judgement against them. So say some. ; ) HAHAHAH NOT A DROP, at least according to my lineage. So far so good,but I have that damn NAF thing and it is taking up a lot of my time to figure out HOW to not let them get the award affirmed.If I get out of this I will be puffing out my chest for sure : ) BUT it doesn't look so good... UGH In matches it is always good to figure out what the weakness and strengths of your opponent are and I have a sixth sense about such, and did I mention I am lucky? ; ) And I am the type of person that never backs down, NOT a good trait probably but it has worked well so far for me. Woofer
RFLOL Woof...I don't back down easily either, but its good to take a step back and look at things from different angles from time to time and then ask yourself if its really worth it. There's nothing like having a really good case and know your right, but the Judge doesn't agree. Besides, there's alot of things that can factor into this (in the scheme of things a small issue- not to be taken lightly, but small none the less). (i.e. Trans misreads the CA's validation for the return dispute, and the correction doesn't get applied. The rep at Trans is bombarded with a zillion same requests). Could be a # of things that could HONESTLY go wrong in the dispute process. Think of one fish in an ocean of many. So I couldn't agree more with ccbob on this one. Persistance and patience are key. If on your own it doesn't work, atleast try the AG.
Hey I know that. I have been in the Pre Trial with plaintiffs lawyer and judge and the judge told me to "pay up" as obviously I owed this,and oogled the blonde bimbo plaintiff attorney. I persisted in my doggie way,and went to court after almost a year and that judge dismissed the case with prejudice and it was to the tune of 30K. In fact each time I have been to a pretrial conference the judge is the voice of doom. I don't get excited about disputing TL's as I have found as you and ccbob, that one day you will get the tradeline removed or changed to your satisfaction. Just the other day I got a Chase TL that was negative removed because I disputed a not correct amount .I am more into getting all my debts done with and have managed to weed it down to two from many times that. I sincerely doubt you would say that if you dealt with Massachusetts AG. Oh glad I made you ROTFLYAO ; ) Woofer
