Complaint Review: Works and Lentz - Tulsa Oklahoma

 Like many of you I had some hospital bills that fell through the cracks and made it to this "law firm". The setup was similar to what others have reported... They needed all the money paid now. I did not have any money at the time as I just went through divorce and was paying off all of the marital debt. I asked if she could take $50 a month and was refused so I just hung up. Finally after serveral months of ignoring them I get a call agian and decided to speak to account manager. Once again she demanded an outragous monthly amount. We screamed and argued and I finally told her off. She said that they would just have to proceed with legal action. I got served a few weeks later and so I called them to once again try to set up payment arrangements but was told that I missed their deadline by 15 minutes and that thier "office policy" was once you were served that they did not work with you anymore. Well they went me to court and since I did not go they got a default judgement on a $700 bill that now was a little over $1000 after their fees. I did not want the garnishment to hit my paycheck so I was lucky enough to be able to take a profit sharing loan out and pay it off before the garnishment hit my check. When I went to their office 2 days after they got the judgement, the amount had grown to right at $1100 due to interest. I was of course furious - almost $100 interest in 2 business days. I argued with them some more since the interest penelty was clearly stated a 5% per year per Oklahoma Law. I was not getting anywhere so I just paid the whole thing. I was just glad that that bill was done and I was paying the interest back to myself on my PS loan instead of these leaches. After that I still had a couple of bills in collections with them. They once again started calling demanding payment. At this point I had read up on the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Oklahoma Consumer Protection Ace and knew that even if I was only paying $1 a month that they could not take me to court and also could not charge any additional fees or interest since I was making an effort to pay. I was assigned a new account rep around this time as well so jokingly I told my new rep that I could afford $1 a month. Well she wanted $100 and I told her that was way out of my budget but I could seriously do $25 a month. She finally accepted and since then I have not had the issues of the rudeness and unprofessionalism I experienced at first. I am now in a better finincial position and could pay off the entire amount in collections with them but since they jerked me around I am paying it off $25 a month and am purposly dragging it out. If you can get into an affordable payment arrangement (and good luck with that) do it so that they do not take you to court because they will and then stick you with a bunch of fees and interest that like others have stated, is borderline criminal. I know that collections are not fun and people try to get out of paying what they rightfully owe but doing it like this is just wrong especially when you (the debtor) try to do the right thing and set up a payment arrangement and are refused time and time again; and the legal system is abused to make the "law firm" get richer and the debtor falls even furthur into debt.