Complaint Review: Afni - Bloomington Illinois

Just as an FYI - after ABC's report last friday nite on collection agency abusers, I contacted a local TV station and told them to take a look at this site and specifically AFNI and Verizon - it should be interesting .. by the way read updated AFNI on budhibbs.com

Joshua, That 30 day thing means absolutely nothing at all to the debtor or the debtors rights. If a debtor NEVER responds to a collection notice at all, his/her rights are not affected at all. This comes straight from the FDCPA. Read it! Just more jibberish from an uneducated collector.

Steve and Sherri are both correct in there reply You company can not and will not aid or do anything in a fraud investigation, i know this for a fact, even when you get a fax from a police dept., on there letter head. you either won't respond or you claim you need a release from the person, with there ssn# and d.l.#, still trying to obtain that information on them. especially, when you know the debt is uncollectable. Telling people that if they don't fill out a fraud affidavit, that you will continue collection activity, well that's another violation. I bet for every 1 bill, you sent out a dozen, collection notices, with the same account number or 1 digit changed to people in different states. These no way a home phone, will be allowed by the phone company to reach 1000+ dollars as afni is claiming people owe. with a 5% late fee, that is charged by the phone company, it won't add up to that amount. what your trying to do is intimidate people with a real high bill, so you can get them to agree to a smaller amount, thinking the bill is over. What should be illegal, with all these collection notices you are sending out, the ones you can't validate, you sell to another collection agency, having the people deal with this all over again. Tell me joshua, what do you really do with the fraud affidavits, that you receive? do you just sit on the information, then when you sell the debt, you include that information.

It is NOT the alleged debtor's obligation to prove that he/she doesn't owe the debt..it is the job of you and your "collections specialist" ilk to prove that they do. Why you never, ever, fill out your "fraud" packets: 1. You are giving the bottomfeeder information that they would already have if the debt were legit. 2. Bottomfeeders are notorious for manufacturing in-house "documents" using the information provided. 3. Signatures have been known to mysteriously appear on documents that never existed before. From what I got from a consumer protection attorney friend of mine, AFNI will be crashing card and much sooner than expected.

Well by not filing fraud you are taking responsibility of the bill. Unfortunatley within 30 days of not recieving the information that gives the company the right to pursue further collection activity. They have the bill for a reason and it's because its owed unless other wise. AFNI didn't take your social and set up phone services in your name fraudulently so why take it out on the company? So why don't you do the right thing and get it taken care of?

I'm sure there is no connection between Afni and Verizon. Afni just picks a huge company and says you owe money, it could have been Cingular, Sears, or any large retailer since so many people have accounts there. And don't complain to the BBB (about worthless). If you got a phone call, then report them to the FCC, if by mail contact the Postal Service.

Vince, The practice of selling off bad debt is commonplace and not illegal. The obligation of due diligence is solely on the collection agency. And, it is our responsibility to hold them accountable every time they cross the line.

I've been reading the many, many reports on AFNI here. Clearly these guys are con artists and extortionists. Sooner or later they may do jail time. But the real culprit here is Verizon for giving them a reason (however wrong) for attempting to collect from people. Verizon should be held to account for this mess. If you hire mobsters to extort money from people you are criminally responsible for the actions of the mobsters. AFNI is just Verizon's mobsters.