Rae
Small Town,#2Consumer Comment
Wed, August 16, 2006
It sounds like your account has been sold to a debt buyer. A LOT of these places are vultures who will use any and every tactic they can think of to scare you into paying the debt and a bunch of high fees they tack on. Do NOT let them bully you! Read up on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. If they threaten to sue you when they have no intention of doing so, they are violating Federal Law. You can turn around and sue them! The way I understand it, when you let a card get out of hand, the first step is for the card company to send it to their own collections department. If they can't collect, then they will send it to an outside collection agency. If that agency is unsuccessful, the original creditor might pull your account back and give it to a differenct agency. It could go back and forth like that for a long while. Finally, they will just charge off the debt and sell it for pennies on the dollar. These buyers are usually the ones who will try anything to get you to pay, because they get to keep everything they get! (But some collection agencies can be just as bad, from my experience.) Good luck. I hope you get everything worked out!
Toby
Crestview,#3Consumer Suggestion
Tue, August 15, 2006
I too had prior dealings with this company. They are a well known junk debt buyer. The statute of Limitations for credit cards is 5 years in Illinois. If it has been over 5 years since you made a payment, no worries. They can file a suit but you can claim expired SOL as defense. Do not call them or talk to them on the phone. Send them a certified letter, return receipt requested and inform them this debt is outside the SOL for collections and they are no longer to contact you by any method other than US mail. CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report.