I know many of us are receiving "opt out" forms from our creditors and membership companies. A friend who I am helping to get her credit back on track, received an opt out form from a collection agency. Is this legit? Should those forms be completed and sent back? No where on it does it say anything about "an attempt to collect a debt". It recites about the "Federal Financial Privacy Law, 15 U.S.C." If not sent back, it states that they may disclose "nonpublic personal information about you" (I would imagine to other collection agencies). The only info on the return form is name, address and phone # (yeah, like she'll add that...LOL). If she sends this in, should she send it return receipt. Any advice from the great people of this board would be appreciated!
Well, I think I would have to agree that it's probably a trick or a trap. And with that idea in mind, I'd first of all check carefully to see if it's a collection agency known to you. If it is, I'd have an awful tendency to load the envelope with a piece of scrap steel and send it back to them. A rusty old piece of flat strap iron works pretty well as long as it isn't too heavy and as long as they sent you a postage paid envelope so they end up paying the postage. A piece of tin that's fairly heavy and cut to the size of the envelope is about right. Write something on it with a marker pen. Like maybe "Argo jump in the lake" or "Argo fly a kite" Of course, you don't want to put any return address on it and you want to dump it in some public mail box. Might want to put duck tape around the edges so it don't cut through the envelope and fall out too. And if there is no postage pre-paid envelope then I'd want to call them up and ask them if you owe them any money. Don't give them your name, just your address. If they can't come up with you owing them money from the address alone, they don't need your money very bad. If they ask you why you want to know, just tell them you got an opt out letter and yo want to know what account they have on that address to make it reasonable for you to return the opt out letter to them. Tell them they must have an account for that address because if they didn't have then why else would they have sent the letter to that address. Then if they say they don't have one for that address, tell them to take that address out of their records because you don't want any of their junk mail and if you get any more of their junk mail you are going to file a complaint on them with the Post Office. Have some fun with them.
And if there is no postage pre-paid envelope.? Send it any way in a regular env. with just their address . It sure ain't gonna come back to you this way!
