Ok, I have made a little progress. This morning I called Experion and asked them to remove the Helig Meyers because it was a paid off/on time account and should have been in good standing. They told me they would check it out and let me know within 30 days. So now I have to tackle the combined hospital bills of 1500.00. I asked for itamized statements of each bill and they only sent me one. This is from a company called Pro Com Services. The total that they are billing is for about 8 or 9 hospital bills over about a 10 year span. They did not show up on my credit report, although I have not recieved hubbys report yet. Here is my question, Do I write them a validation letter for these accounts?? How do I handle them? They are threatening wage garnisgment and demanding it be paid in 6 months of monthly payments. The thing is, we have insurance and I don't even know if the insurance was ever billed or anything. How do I tackle this?? Any help appreciated.
help You are going to need lots of help with this one, and I'm not going to take it up on this forum and get blasted by some of the others here for trying to help. Email me at bbauer1@netzero.net if you want my help and suggestions. One thing I will tell you in open forum is that you need to check with your insurance company and see if they were ever billed for this item. If they were, why didn't they pay? If they were not, then you need to take it up with the hospital itself. Why do they say you never provided them with any insurance carrier information, because that is most likely what they will claim. Then it will be up to you to prove that you did provide them with the information and that you did turn it in to your insurance company if that is true. Most of this stuff is just common sense approaches to common problems. yes, it can be awfully frustrating. Bill Bauer
Re: help Medical collection agencies are bottom of the scum-sucking barrel! Sorry to any on this board, but the majority of CA's handling medical collections have rotted the whole bunch. I have never had any dealings with a CA for medical collections that was even close to being nice. And I have had many, many calling me, threatening and harassing me over the last 10 years. Okay, here is the deal...they cannot garnish your wages without a judgement. This means they have to take you to court and obtain a judgement AND get the judge to order a garnishment of your wages. (Check your state laws, but most are in agreement with this). This is a civil matter that I can assure you is not likely to ever go to court. These CA's will say anything to scare you into paying them, and most of it is bordering the realm of the law. They assume, and are correct in doing so, that only 3% of the population know the credit law. So they say and do things to scare the other 97% who haven't armed themselves with credit laws. They cannot threaten legal action with the intent of never actually doing so. I have even gone as far as checking to see if these CA's who threaten legal action actually act on their threats. If they don't, and they usually don't, you have a lawsuit. What they are doing is illegal. Many people have sued collection agencies, and won, for tactics such as these. Send them a cease and desist letter and tell them you want validation of all the debt. At this point, a lot of the old debt is most likely unverifiable and probably past the statute of limitations. Have no fear and don't let them get to you. They are only using scare tactics to try and get you to pay them off. They cannot automatically garnish your wages and are completely off base for telling you they will.
One more thing I can't remember where I read it, but I did read somewhere, in a law book or maybe on one of the official boards such as the Fair Debt Collections Act board by the FTC that they cannot legally threaten to sue if they have no intention to do so, and that threatening without having already done so is proof of their non-intent. I don't even think that sounds right myself, but that's what I read somewhere. It's a point you might want to check out to see if my memory has served me correctly in this instance. But don't take my word for it without checking it out for yourself. Bill Bauer
Re: One more thing First, find out if the SOL in your state has expired. If he hasn't, then be careful because they can get a judgement against you. Next, think twice of whether you are willing to pay at this point.. if you pay, then the last activity date will be re-aged and the lines will remain another 7 years from that date. I would send validations telling them to validate the date. At the same time, I would also send the CRA letters that dispute these items on your CRA as INNACCURATE if they are not.. then go from there. Make sure you send everything certified at least, preferably return receipt requested.. have a paper trail. The C&D letter will make them stop contacting you.. but make sure the SOL has expired so they won't sue you either.
Re: One more thing "Next, think twice of whether you are willing to pay at this point.. if you pay, then the last activity date will be re-aged and the lines will remain another 7 years from that date. " Depends on when the debt occurred, after 9/97 they can not restart the clock.
Re: One more thing All good suggestions. I just wanted to make a point. Most collection agencies are not pleasant to deal with, but I don't think Medical Collection agencies are any worse than some others.
