John
Louisville,#2Consumer Comment
Mon, November 07, 2011
You just learned a very painful lesson in how not to deal with debt collectors.
Never, ever give debt collectors your bank account #'s under any circumstances.
- Never assume that any legal threat for debt collection is a real legal threat. Debt collectors love to pretend that they are (or work for) attorneys to scare you into paying and to get your checking account numbers. There's a quick way to fine out. Next time they call and make a legal threat, ask for the full name of their attorney and their license number in the state bar association. If they refuse to give this info to you, then the legal threat is bogus
Honestly, in your case it's probably too late now. The only thing you can do now is close your checking account...otherwise they'll just try to debit it and it will go even further in the negative.
You might want to contact your bank and see if you can get any of your money back for an unauthorized ACH debit.
For your reference, debt collectors by themselves have no legal power over you whatsoever. Most of the time they are bluffing with legal threats...which unfortunately worked in your case.