Complaint Review: Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP

My husband received suddenly in the mail on April 30, 2020, a bill from Linebarger, etc. for $1,085.79, supposedly for the State of Oklahoma Tax Commission.  He has not lived in Oklahoma for many years.  There was no explanation in the initial invoice from them.  A lettr was sent asking for complete validation of the debt, which would include the return in question and all supporting documents.  They claim they have made many attempts to contact him, yet he had NEVER been contacted by either the state of Oklahoma Tax Commission nor their collector, this law (????) firm. 

Linebarger returned a threatening letter demanding the amount within 10 days, and in this one it said the total tax due and collection fee due was $391.43.  They sent NO copy of the return, any supporting documentation, or proof that they had EVER tried to contact him.  We contacted the state of Oklahoma and were told this was for a tax return for 2011, but Linebarger did not mention the year at all.  The support person at the law firm said he had filed the return and indicated that payment was made but it was not enclosed. 

Now, this could well be a mistake of that tax office, and evidently the bank needs to be contacted to get copies of statements around the date the return was signed, because it might well have been paid.  If not, all they had to do was to contact my husband and he would have checked it and paid it immediately.  They waited through his bankruptcy of August of 2015 to now, growing this to now nearly $1,100, while he had no knowledge of it at all - if a mistake was made.  He has no redress, no way to appeal it, no time to ask for the bank (if this is at all possible) to dig up a statement or two from EIGHT years ago to see if it was paid.  Since he never made a habit of not paying his taxes, it is most likely that it WAS paid as indicated. 

Now these thugs come along with nothing but threats.  Reading about them, their associations with local and state entities are the result of bribery and even provision of  prostitutes for politicians and local authorities use, according to a CNN Money investigation.  This is why they do not have to obey any kind of debt collector law - bribery of politicians.  This should not happen in America.  They should have to follow the same laws any other debt collector does.  They should not have the power to do anything they want to law-abiding people, without explanation or even a simple copy of what they are collecting.  My husband was forced to file bankruptcy in 2015. 

This would have been included if unpaid on his schedule of creditors.  Linebarger knows this, but they waited and waited.  I assume they got our current address from location information from credit bureaus.  Every other address he lived or stayed temporarily is there.  They could have contacted him YEARS ago when he still had copies of things we have no obligation to keep beyond a reasonable number of years.  Now it would take months to get proof of anything and they theaten my 72 year old husband with (what?) with their demands for an unsubstantiated debt.