In 2010, my father-in-law, took out a loan through GE Capital Retail Bank to pay for dental implants for his wife. The loan was made through an entity called
CareCredit and paid directly to the dentist,
BrightNow! Dental, in
Bellflower, CA. My mother-in-law had
Altsheimer's disease, and her doctor determined that she wasn't well enough to undergo surgery. Everything was
cancelled, and according to
BrightNow, the money was returned.
Since that time, my father-in-law has been dunned by CIR, Law Offices, a San Diego-based debt collector, for money he never received directly, on services that were never performed. We have provided the documentation we got from
BrightNow! showing that the funds
trnsferred from
CareCredit were credited back. (There is an issue that the amount
CareCredit sent to
BrightNow was not the same as the amount of the loan--but since my father-in-law never received ANY money, that is a problem for GE and
CareCredit to resolve themselves.)
My father-in-law is 87 years old, and in the last stage of prostate cancer. He cannot speak on the phone, because of a
laryngectomy that was the result of earlier bout with cancer. My husband has tried to resolve this problem through CIR, to no effect. The CIR lawyer, Mark Bennett, wants us to provide him with documentation that only GE or
CareCredit would have: that one of the two entities involved lost or
miscredited any money that was returned by the dentist.
We called CIR, trying to get the name of its president, in order to escalate the problem. Unlike most reputable companies, the receptionist at CIR refused to provide this information. We called the San Diego bar association, and CIR isn't a member. My father-in-law is an ex NYC police officer. He served in WWII and Korea. And, now, he's dying. It is sickening to have him harassed in his last days, by a company with a questionable reputation to collect money he doesn't owe a faceless corporate entity.