Complaint Review: ARA Collection

On June 19, 2017 I rec'd a request from ARA Collection requesting that I pay $8789.59 to them for a bad account opened in August 1998 and closed in 2007.  The agent, Mr. Justin Gary, said that the account was with Elder Beerman Department Store and that I had maintained the payments for 9 years.  Further, that the account was sold to them after several other collections agencies had attemted to collect the owed money.

I requested forward me a copy of the original papers opening the account and list of when and where the payments were rec'd.  I also request a record of how the payments were made.  He said he couldn't give me that information and the information would only be forwarded to Berkeley County (my county of residence).  When I asked what that meant and where in Berkeley County the information would be sent, he said he couldn't provide that information.

Mr. Gary then told me he would get one of his superiors to talked to me.  He left me on hold for a while and then said there was no one available and he would call me back.  I have not rec'd that call.

I have never heard of Elder Beerman Department and I certainly have never had a charge account in the $8K range.