Are you receiving collection notices or calls? It may or may not be legitimate according to new studies. An alarming number of collections are being conducted either in error or by out-right fraud on the part of some collection agencies.
Are you paying a scammer collection agency?
In the cases of fraud, unscrupulous collectors are simply “assuming” a person’s debt. It works like this: Without actually representing the original creditor or by purchasing the debt from the original creditor, these collectors can “see” debt on a consumer’s credit report and simply initiate collections for that debt; they simply begin demanding payment. The unsuspecting consumer may believe the collector actually owns the debt and will often pay the collector. The problem is the collection agency that does have a right to collect the debt will still contact the consumer for payment even if the consumer paid the “assuming” collection agency. You, of course, will say it was paid, but the argument will mean absolutely nothing to the unpaid collection agency. Ouch! Money has been paid to the scammer and the debt is still owed.
Sometimes fraud is not involved. With close to 100 million people owing a debt, it follows that there are a lot of debt collectors making many calls. Sometimes, those calls target the wrong people. There are plenty of reasons why this might happen. Perhaps the debt has already been paid, but the consumer has not been properly credited. Perhaps identity theft is to blame. Sometimes, there’s an honest mistake — data processing — that attaches an incorrect phone number to a debtor’s account.
A particularly pernicious wrong-consumer problem involves recycled phone numbers. Just like every other dwindling natural resource, America is running out of phone numbers, meaning telephone companies end up re-issuing old ones. A Federal Communications Commission study from 2011 says 37 million numbers were recycled annually, a huge jump from a decade earlier, due to the increased number of devices with numbers that consumers have.
How Can I Make Collections Stop?
Regardless if they are legitimate or not, debt collector calls are a real hassle. So how can you stop them? Stopping collection calls and letters can be difficult at best. Some consumer-help companies have suggested police reports, calling the FTC, contacting the CPFB and the list goes on and on.
Even if you were successful in stopping the calls and letters, the debt may still be owed and nothing short of paying debt can stop a possible law suit.
Unless you do this: Contact us. We have a fool-proof method that will stop collection calls and letters immediately. This is true whether they are fraudulent or not. And this method has an added benefit:
The Heritage clients automatically have our attorney review the collection efforts that are taking place. This second benefit often results in collection agencies being sued for noncompliance. This can result in not only the debt being eradicated, but also a nice cash award for you as well!
To learn more about this process please see:
https://heritagecreditgroup.com/credit-counseling-debt-counseling/