A month or so ago (October 2007), I began receiving "fishy" messages on my voicemail work phone number. "Fishy" in the sense that each message sounded like it was cut and pasted together (part automated message, part "live" person, part English-accented woman, part American-male), and it was garbled and choppy. The messages stated that I had an "Important business matter" and that I needed to call 1-877-317-1200 during business hours to address it. One woman identified herself as Kelly Smith on one of them.
I suspected a rip-off, so I Googled the alleged contact number that they left for me to call (1-877-317-1200), and the search results went directly to the complaints board for ER Solutions--a debt-collections agency. From reading the complaints board, it seemed as though there were other people having many horrible experiences with ER Solutions: rude behavior and high pressure situations forcing people to pay for bills that they were never delinquent on (illegitimate claims). Also seemed like most accounts that ER Solutions had were with previous phone or TV companies. One common theme throughout was people were being accused that old or closed accounts were in collections, and that when they agreed to pay they just kept getting more and more notices to continue paying for additional late charges and miscellaneous fees that held no water, just allegations. It basically sounded like once ER Solutions got the personal information needed to get paid, they just kept distributing more bills and continued collecting on charges that people never agreed to. The other characteristic was that most customers were never notified from the true service provider, (Cingular, Verizon, Dish, etc.) that their account was getting turned over to collections. Having read all of the bad news about ER Solutions, I just assumed it was a scam and ignored it.
However, a week or so later, a woman from ER Solutions contacted me on my work phone. She said that my Cingular Wireless bill has been in collections since March and that I owed $25.44. When I asked her what her name was she replied "Sam Bryant with ER Solutions out of Renton [WA]." She insisted that I paid the balance over the phone immediately with a credit card or else she'd "ding" my credit. I told her that I was convinced that this was a scam, and she reassured me that it was not , that it was real, that she'd been working for ER Solutions for 6 years and it was a reputable company. When I told her that I wanted all of the information that she had on me she gave me the last 4 of my social and also my cell phone number (didn't include the area code).
As I kept insisting on not paying it she started getting more ugly, and started talking to me like I was a 5 year old child-really slow in a monotone voice-I did manage to interrupt her and told her not to talk to me like I was a retard, and that she was not very professional. She kept saying that it's only $25 and that I was dumb for not paying it now. I just kept resisting, and also questioned why I never received any info from Cingular that my account was going into collections and she couldn't answer. Although she had some very personal info on me, I still refused and told her that I wasn't going to pay it unless she could prove to me that I owed the $25.44, like showing me a copy of the original bill from Cingular. She said that they do not keep any original records, and that something was sent to my house 6 months ago (which I never received). But, she did give me a 9-digit Cingular account number that she had in her system linked with the $25.44, as well as an ER Solutions account number linked to my debt in their database. She told me that she'd give me 5 hours to cross-reference the Cingular account number she just gave me with one of my previous Cingular bills having the same phone number, and that they should match. She threatened to "ding" my credit if I didn't get back with her within 5 hours also.
When I cross checked the account number that Sam Bryant gave me with one of my old Cingular cell phone bills, the account numbers didn't match--they weren't even the same amount of numbers (Cingular bill account numbers are 8 digits long, hers was 9).
None of this even makes sense... even if I did owe this amount, as little as it might be, it seems as though any outstanding balance would've rolled over into my new AT&T account (after Cingular got bought out by AT&T). So I called AT&T and reached a friendly employee named Juliet Dominguez. I told her about everything that was going on with me and ER Solutions. She ran my information through the AT&T database searching for info about me being in collections and and verified that I was current and not in collections. She also verified that ER Solutions in Renton WA does exist, and that they were contracted with AT&T for collections.
Then, Juliet from AT&T put me on hold while she questioned an ER Solutions employee named Julie. Jule verified with Juliet that there was nothing in the ER Solutions system about me being in collections, and that Sam Bryant was not on the ER Solutions employee list (which she should have been on if she worked with that company). She also said that the phone number that Sam Bryant gave to me (1-877-317-1200) was not in the AT&T system as a contact number for ER Solutions. From what I could gather, AT&T verified that my record was clean at their end with them, as well as with ER Solutions.
All I can conclude is that either there are criminals that have some of my personal information and are posing as a real debt-collections agency in an attempt to obtain credit card or bank account information to scam some money out of me, or ER Solutions is a real company but is poorly run, and has incorrect information on some of the debts that they are trying to collect.
Also, I recently obtained a copy of my credit report and there was nothing on it about any open accounts being in collections. I'm just glad that I didn't provide ER Solutions with any personal information over the phone. Either way, I never owed them anything. |
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