What we now have is a market for cheap "debt" where the playing field is tipped in favor of those most willing to break the law. We also have conditions where "old debt" may never go away, even when paid. Once it exists in electonic form, it can be repeatedly "sold", since it is only an electronic record, and since once it is in the cheap, OOS debt category, no validation will be attempted to erase it. It is simply a "chit" for future debt collection harassment. At some point, between the CA that has bought a legitimate old debt, located the address thru credit reports, and dunned them in compliance with FDCPA with notice of their right to dispute and validate, and the CA that buys the cheapest "debt", already worked over, matches names against regional phone books or other databases because it is cheap, and mass mails anything close, a line is crossed. The CAs know the corners they are cutting, and the likelyhood of that resulting in collection of erroneous debts, but after weighting the rists, they decide to cut those corners to their own benefit. That line is not just from legally compliant collection, to FDCPA violations, but crosses into what most consumers would consider outright fraud. What is the difference between: 1) a criminal enterprise that mails fraudulent "invoices" to consumers or businesses for products or services they never ordered, and 2) a "debt collector" who cheaply buys the "get-out-of-jail-free" card of a bunch of computer records of OOS debt, and does the same by mailing out dunning letters to all addresses obtained from similar names in phone books in the region? What is the difference between: 1) buying stolen goods, operating, say, as a pawn shop, finding out they are stolen, and instead of notifying the authorities, which might result in a loss from having to give up the stolen property, quickly unloading them on someone else, and 2) buying a portfolio of debt, trying to collect and finding the "debtors" you contact all claim the accounts were already paid and settled, and instead of notifying the authorities, unloading them on another CA? What is the difference between: 1) stealing someone's identity, opening accounts in their name, and running up a bunch of fraudulent charges, and, 2) obtaining a bad debt account, arbitrarily picking a consumer with a similar name that may or may not be the same person, and using information obtained from their credit reports, including their SSN and past addresses obtained from that source, to trying to convince them that this is their account and that they are liable for and must pay off a debt that may not actually be theirs? No one would be that brazen? What about this: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/12/camco.htm "In papers filed with the court, the agency charged that as much as 80 percent of the money CAMCO collects comes from consumers who never owed the original debt in the first place. " There were reports in the Rockford Register Star from ex-employees of CAMCO that they often used only name searches for identification. and were instructed to target collection activity to geographic areas based on lower income level, since that would imply the people they contacted were less sophisticated and therefore easier to pressure. Or this: http://www.ct.gov/ag/cwp/view.asp?A=2341&Q=320402 "The complaints allege that the law firm tried to collect un-verified or time-barred debts and/or failed to provide consumers with evidence that they owed a debt. " In an earlier settlement Connecticut had previously denied this company a license to collect in the state. Nonetheless, they continued to collect, resulting in this injunction and fine. It's easy to win if you don't serve the defendent: http://www.thenewsherald.com/stories/072405/loc_20050724019.shtml What is the point? If you see something, and there are a bunch of reports of the same activity, you are probably looking at the tip of the iceberg.
Here is an article, part of a recent series, that is interesting both for the companies mentioned, which are common in consumer reports of problem debt collection, and for the repeated failure to terminate erroneous collection, which is an indication of either the lack of effective systems in place to deal with misidentification, or the intentional disregard of their legal obligation to do so. In particular, it is interesting to see confirmed in a news article Sherman's shuffling of disputed accounts off to another related CA, instead of validating consumer disputes, just as has been reported by many consumers, even as they deny intending to do so. Shell game with multiple corporate names, but on the Internet, the pattern comes out. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/09/13/debt_collectors_hunt_the_innocent/
I hear you ontrack. I think that the business of junk debt buying is ripe for major scrutiny. You can't have that much blatent disregard for peoples rights, and the damages that you cause (especially those that are completely innocent) without it someday catching up to you. Maybe when they get dragged down into the mud the spotlight can be focused on the CRAs as well. Just a note to let you know I haven't given up, I was just traveling, and since I will now have jury duty for two weeks and therefore will be doing all of my own work after hours, I will be proceeding slowly for a bit.
"Actually, it just occured to me that I am filing complaints based on the assumption that they are not going to repond to my validation request, which the green card indicates they received 9/24." It is now 11/03. That makes over 30 days since they received your validation request. Have they sent you anything? Is your credit report still not showing "consumer disputes"? More important, have you confirmed with your own records, or with ATT, that there is no ATT account with your name and identification attached?
I have not heard a peep from the CA. ATT was unable to find any account linked to me in their system when I called, and now, after attempting to check my reports online via the CRAs own sites, the only one I was able to get access to, Equifax, not only has not marked it in dispute, but has changed it from "paid" to "unpaid" for some reason. I am getting a code via US mail to access my account online with experian, I think I cannot get immediate access because I entered incorrect information (according to them) for my personal verification. Regarding transunion, I can't seem to locate on their site where to get a simple credit report without signing up for truecredit....I may have jetlag, but I'm usually able to figure these things out...
Regardless of all the CA's BS, do you have any reason to believe you have any outstanding unpaid ATT phone account? If push came to shove, and you went to court, are you sure that they could not produce documentation of any account that you had actually owed? Is there any reason not to just file complaints against them, or sue, for deceptive collection, and erroneous reporting, etc, and let the chips land where they will? In other words, based on both your own knowledge, and ATT's information that there is no account in their records in your name, file a complaint with your state AG that they attempted to collect on an alleged account that ATT says does not exist, demand your money back, and sue for damages based on their demand for payment was to the wrong party, and that therefore their reporting of any collection account on your reports is erroneous, and must be removed?
According to both ATT (a search in their system using my sss#) and my own knowledge, I never had an account with them, nor owed them any money. There is no reason that I can think of not to sue them, except for the chance that I may lose for some strange reason and have legal costs.
Have you disputed their collection account on your credit reports thru the CRAs? If so, did they "verify", resulting in the account remaining? Sorry, I looked back thru the old entries. You already disputed thru the CRAs, and they already "verified".
There would appear to be no reason not to file complaints with all applicable agencies. You would want to include that they demanded payment from you, that you paid based on the misinformation from the CRA that the various cell phone companies often collect on each other's accounts, but on checking with ATT, there never was any account in your name and under your SSN, nor did you ever have any such account with ATT. You might include that you believe that they are just sending out bills to consumers who do not owe them, or are sending bills with no attempt to determine whether they have identified the actual debtor.
That is where I may have dropped the ball...I had letters and the accompanying paperwork for CRRR to be mailed out by a friend who helps me out with errands and dogsitting etc, when I go away, and I have a feeling that either the letters went out to the CRAs but not CRRR, or that they didn't make it out at all. I won't know til I speak to her over the weekend.
One further thing you might check on is to call the CRA and determine what identifying information the CA provided on this account. If they reported the account WITH your SSN, but ATT has NO account under your SSN, who decided to attach your SSN after the fact to this debt? Doing so would be a fraudulent act, requiring obtaining YOUR SSN from some other source, since having NOT opened an account with ATT, you never provided your SSN to ATT. If they did not report the account with your SSN, then basically they are just mailing letters to a bunch of people with approximate name matches, finding addresses from various databases, or maybe even screening likely targets like CAMCO did. Since you never had an ATT account, you also never had one at your current address, so they could not have obtained your current address from ATT along with the data on the alleged debt. If your credit reports never had the original address from this alleged account, posted by, say, ATT, then they could not have "verified" your identity as matching this account by that address either. If the consumer fails to dispute promptly, they assume the debt is valid and post the collection account based only on name and address to which they mailed the bill, which may not even be the address tied to the original account, so it is not any "identification" of the debtor. The CRAs treat "verification" in response to CRA disputes as the CA's responsibility, and in any case once they have attached a consumer's current address to a debt, they can "verify" that debt to the CRA via the same information they used to post the original collection account. No SSN is needed to put an account on a credit report. You initially treated their first letters as erroneous attempts to bill the wrong party for an account that was obviously not yours. They treated your failure to dispute as an opportunity to proceed with collection from you whether it was your debt or not. As long as the consumer has not disputed within 30 days, they figure that they have little liability for damages caused by their additional collection activities against even the wrong consumer, whether or not they make any attempt themselves to avoid billing in error. It is this attempt to shift the costs of dealing with even erroneous collection that results in substantial collection activity and payments from consumers who do not actually owe debts, that is a basis for complaints to regulatory agencies or AGs that such practices are "unfair and deceptive business practices" even beyond the requirements of FDCPA, and deserving of regulatory action.
