Complaint Review: Paramount Acceptance

My wife signed on for a two year membership with Riviera Fitness which is owned by Paramount Acceptance.  PA is also a collections agency thus taking care of all of the billing.  We signed up for an auto bill pay plan that was a $25 month charge.  About 4 months into the membership, we notice they started to withdraw an additional $75 a month from our account and had done so for two months before we cought the error.  I contacted PA and told them that they were over-charging me and asked for a refund.  The customer service agent said that I was being billed for a new account we had oppened.  I asked who's name it was opened under and they told me a name and address of someone I had never heard of who lives two states away from me.  I told them that there was obviously an error here and that I was being charged for someone elses membership.  The customer service agent said that I was "lying" and that they would continue to bill me for this other account.  I asked for them to send me a copy of the aggreement that I was being billed for and I was told that I already had a copy and they would have to charge me $25 to send me new one.  I next called my bank and had to file a fraudulent charge claim and got my money back that way after having to get a new bank card and file a report and the whole nine yards.

PA then starts calling saying that I owe them for this account plus late fees and service charges.  They threaten to damage my credit if I do not pay up.  I then calculate the amount owed to settle the account for the remainder of two year aggreement as it was made, told an agent I would pay them that amount, and would settle the account so there would be no more billing needed.  I pay the amount needed to settle the account and think I am done.  THEY WERE JUST GETTING STARTED!

about 3 months goes by and I get a call from their collections department saying that I have overdue payments.  I asked for an explanation because I had settled the account previously.  The agent told me that they could not explain it but they thought it had something to do with late charges and I owed them $81.40.  I told them they would not get another red cent out of me.  They called back about a week later and this agent said that I owed $109.50.  Again the agent is unable to explain the charges but demands payment immediately.  Later that day I get a call from another agent saying I owe $43.03.  They then start calling multiple times a day often 3-4 times in a row and I had to stop answering because they were harassing me so much.  Of course anytime I answered and asked to speak to a manager, I was told no manager was there.  I left mesages with the manager constantly, none of which were returned.  I at one point was told by an agent that all of the money that was overdue were late charges (thought I was never late and my payment history reflected that).  I asked him to remove the charges because I was never in fact late.  He told me that they were not allowed to remove service charges of any kind anymore no matter the reason because they had been losing too much money to charges getting removed. 

I then mailed them a certified letter to cease and desist from attempting to collect.  I showed detailed payment history and bank statements reflecting all of my payments.  The calls did not stop.  I finally got closure after I went after them at Riviara and sent faxes an letter spam to all their location managers, employees, and customers explaining they were literally trumping up charges on me and were attempting to steal from me or they would damage my credit.  I got a call from a head manager from PA the next day.  Within two days I had a signed letter from the manager saying my account was settled and no more money was due.

I probably invested 40 hours fighting this.  STAY AWAY FROM RIVIARA FITTNESS OR ANY COMPANY THAT USES PARAMOUNT TO COLLECT.  THEY WILL LITTERALLY STEAL FROM YOU AND HOLD YOUR CREDIT SCORE HOSTAGE.  THEY WILL HARASS YOU AND DO NOT COMPLY WITH FEDERAL COLLECTION LAWS OF CONDUCT.