Afni

Years old bill paid to sprint, wrote them with documentation and cleared this up now billing again. Beware all!

This is no Joke. A company called AFNI, Inc. P.O. Box 3472 in Bloomington, Il. 61702 is a third party collections company. They buy old worthless, incorrect and often out of statute of limitations debt portfolios.

Recently, ANFI, Inc. sent out a second notice collection bill on an old phone account through Verizon California Inc. they said I owed from 2001. Note I never received a first notice. They offered to settle for half of what they said I owed, about $45.00. Dumbfounded I knew I never had any account of any kind with Verizon, so I called Verizon Cal. Inc. and spoke to Eric, Feb. 2008. He looked in his data base for my name, SS and the phone number. He said there was nothing about me in any of their files. He also said the phone number wasn't even a Verizon number. So I did a phone number search at my own expense and found out what I already knew, it was not mine.

I checked my credit reports and found in violation of the Fair Debt Reporting Act they also placed this bill on my consumer’s credit reports without ever notifying me, and re-aged it from 2001 to 2007, which is also against the law. If you receive one of these bills from AFNI, Inc. and you know that you had never had Verizon; or if it is a bill you never heard of before, check your credit reports right away.

I checked other web sites and found out a lot about AFNI, Inc. scamming people, not just a few but hundreds, thousands across the USA. I then disputed the bill by Certified letters. Also, I filed with my state’s Attorney General and the IL. A.G., the FTC, and the BBB and every web site I can to get the word out on these ###. The IL. BBB says that AFNI, INC. says it is my bill from 2001, but they have not validated it yet. Even if it were mine, it is out of SOL in California. I am not sending them one red cent and will sue them if they continue to report this on my CR or sell this worthless paper to another debt agency.

I have heard to NEVER, NEVER call AFNI, Inc., as they will capture your phone number and start calling and harassing you; AND NEVER give them your Information as they will use anything against you. For More Information on the AFNI, Inc. scam check BudHibbs.com or simply type in consumer complaints AFNI, Inc. into your search the web box. There are hundreds of complaints against these scam artists.

Only by banding together and filing reports against AFNI, Inc. can consumers shut these guys down.

Best of luck everyone!

identity theft! I never had an account w/alltel as they claim. I attended college in North Carolina many years before they claimed the account was opened. I didn't even live in North Carolina at the time they claim the account was opened. They are lying. They are destroying my credit based on a fraudulent claim. Should I go to the police? Which agency would handle something like this... Plz advise smb!

I received a collection and settlement letter(s) at the same time from these people about a week ago. The First letter stated that I owe Verizon $340.00 for a telephone account that was paid off and canceled back in 1999, the second letter receive at the same time sated that they (Afni, inc) will be willing to settle for $170.00 half of the original amount. I called Verizon to dispute and find out about this so-called debt, but they could not give me any information because they only keep information for 7 years and older accounts 8 + years that owe money are sold to Afni or other collection agencies, my account was sold to Afni. I still puzzled why my account was shown as open with a balance. So preceded to contact Afni and the rep was only interested in collecting the money and not willing to listen or help with my problem, instead he started to intimidate me saying that if I decide not to pay they will report the debt to the credit agencies and/or sue me. Anyhow I started to inquire about this collection agency on the web and find out that my case was not the only one, according to this web page and others containing complains about Afni there is something very suspicious about this collection agency, now I do have a couple questions, according to the statute of limitations in my state any for debt considered Open Accounts is 3 years this means that Verizon had the chance to collect this debt from the last time the account had any activity until 2002. My current credit nor my old credit reports show anything regarding this supposed debt with Verizon, however, I did notice but not payed close attention to the fact that Afni had inquire on my credit report back in 2006, why? I wonder if that is legal since they do not give credit or extend loans. A dispute letter was sent out to this collection agency and still pending a reply. I would suggest anyone having this type of problem to first not to agree to pay or settle with this people unless of course the debt is valid, second request a copy of the history from the original creditor and third dispute the debt in writing (you can find more info here http://www.debt-n-credit-letters.com/) hope this help people facing this problem and help stop this collection agency.

I received a fake bill from verizon stating that i owed verizon $391.29. I never received a bill from verizon stating that i owe this amount. I was informed that this was a bill from 10 yrs ago. I told the representative that i have had the same telephone # for 20 yrs now. I did not know the number on the bill.

I just received a bill from AFNI concerning a phone bill stating that I owed Verizon phone service over $1300.00 from over 11 years ago. When I called them they were rude, and the only thing they were concerned about was the money. I have never had Verizon phone service to begin with. I ended up hanging up on them.

Today is 2/25/2008 and I have just received a bill from Afni stating I owe on an old Verizon account; in the amount of $90.86 and that they will settle for $45.43. This is very intresting because I have never had Verizon.
They have never appeared on past credit reports. So I checked my all my current credit reports and found them listing that I owe them.
Of course I called the number they listed, and yes it was disconnected. I called Verizon and they said that that isn't even one of their numbers! I visited Budd Hibbs and [redacted] on the WWW only to find out that this agency was scamming me.
I E-mailled the BBB, FTC, State attorney generals office and next I am going to file mail fraud with the USPS; and I even paid to do a search on that phone number with no results!
I am really upset about this bogus claim on my credit report and have never had the phone number they claim I had, nor have I ever had a Verizon account. I owe nothing to Verizon or these people and I am not giving them one red cent.
I want an apology from Afni, Inc on their letter head signed by their owners and managers; and I want them off my credit report as well as print outs at their expense of the corrected credit reports.
What gives them the right to steal my identity and make up a bogus bill?
How many more California people have been scammmed by this outfit?
Someone needs to shut these type of rip off artists down and fine them big time.

I received my debit card bank statement, and had a 82.49 charge from AFNI Inc-Trust along with a reference number. I did not even know what this was, so I contacted the bank. The bank stated that the charge went through, and that I would have to contact the company in Bloomington, Ill. This company does not have a number or site address for me to contact them. I never authorized them to charge anything, and do not know how they got my debit card number.

I recieved a letter in the mail from Afni stating that I had an unpaid account with US Cellular for $307.00 from Sept 2005. I have never had a cell phone with US Celluar. When i called them all the information they gave me sounded very odd. This company is trying to scam people out of their money.

I want to add my complaint to all of the people making note of a problem with Afni Inc.. I have also had a problem with them due to a false claim by them about a phone bill from 1997. I never lived in the city where the bill was from nor have I been there. I also have reported my trouble to both the police and the Federal Trade Commission. A very common thread here with Afni seems to be old Verizon bills. The officer who investigated my report called the phone number in question. It went to a church office not an apartment as Afni claimed. The person at the church claimed that the phone number had been used by the church since about 1995, two years before I was supposed to have had it. I was told to report this to the Attorney Generals Office. Everything that has been discovered since I reported the ID theft to the Police has brought about more questions about the validity of Afni's claims as well as making me very suspicious of the operations of this company. If we all start reporting these problems something will be done about them.

I received TWO collection letters from Afni Collections for Cingular, stating two different amounts. I have NEVER had a Cingular Cellphone in my name, yet the ignorant fellow that I spoke with claimed that I this phone and paid on it from 1999 to 2003. He asked if I knew a person whose name I did not know and associated me with an address I never lived at, but knew my entire Social Security number. I told him that I would not pay the bill and he asked if this was how I handle all my debts.

As I said I have NEVER had a Cingular phone in my name nor did I pay for such phone ever.

I'm so glad i found this website! I received a second attempt collections notice from Afni Inc today. Whats weird about it is that i never even received the first attempt! I've been with sprint ever since year 2000 and the collections notice i got today is in regards to a past due account in 2001. So i called sprint today and they said that there is four things wrong here. 1) The full name on the past due account is missing "ONE" letter. 2) The social security number on the past due account is different by only "ONE" number. 3) The address at the time of the past due account is an address that I've never even lived at. 4) The past due account number did not match my current account number. Remember now, that I've been with sprint and had the same account number for the last 8 years. The people at sprint thought that was very suspicious. They even pulled up my payment history and saw that I'm current on my bill and has never been sent to collections! Sprint suggested that i call AFni Inc. So then i called Afni Inc, and talked to a guy named Robert. I could hardly understand the guy. It seemed to me like he had a middle-eastern country accent. By this time i had a gut feeling that Afni Inc is trying to scam me! So i played along liek this was my account and got the guy to tell me the address on the past due account and the social security number that he had on file and came to find out that i was right! This is a scam! I called the Social Security Office and they suggested that i report it to the credit bureau and the federal trade commission. Here are the phone numbers: Trans union Credit Bureau 1.800.680.7289 and Federal Trade Commission 1.877.438.4338. I'm going to call and report my case to them. Maybe if all of us come together and complain, Afni Inc will get shut down and put in jail for fraud and identity theft.
So if you get a collections notice from Afni inc, make sure you check those four things listed up above. And then report them!

A collection notice appeared on my credit report by a company called AFNI which was for $42 and claimed to be owed to verizon. I haven't had an account from verizon since 2001 and have never received any notice from them about an outstanding bill. I decided to sue them and googled them. I was delighted to find that several people had already posted on this site about the exact same thing. An outdated verizon bill that they didn't even knew existed. Thank you! I'm still trying to find their street address to serve them legal papers.

Today I received a settlement letter stating that I owed verizon 123.90 for a phone service I never applied for. I was not aware of this matter until I received a letter asking me to pay of a disconnected phone bill. Apparently I had a phone put in my name and the account is past due and verizon has turned this account over to this collection agency. I have never applied for this account nor does this company have the correct spelling of my name. They spelled my name Coletta Sacosa. The account number shows up in the collection agency records how do I fight this company for taking fraudulent actions against me? Plz advise smb!

I received a settlement letter from these people about two weeks ago. The letter stated that it was one of the many letters sent to me about some debt with Sprint from 5 years ago. First of all, first letter I've gotten from these people. Second, I've never have had Sprint in my life, and at that time I was 15 and didn't even own a cell phone. So, I'm pretty suspicious and decide to call em. I deny that the debt is mine and some guy says it's ok... it happens a lot so they'll take my name and address out the system since they had a completely different SSN. I was glad to supposedly get that over with, but I still felt something was off. I called Sprint just to see if there was ever anything in my name, address, etc. They confirmed that they had no clue what Afni was talking about and suggested I call them back and tell em that Sprint has no records for me. So, I call em and find the guy before lied: my name was still in the system. This other more professional sounding man pretty much told me that I needed to fax them a copy of my driver's license and SSN card to prove that I'm not the person who they're supposedly looking for. That sounded a bit shady, so I looked them up and lo and behold found all these other complaints.

I sent them a certified letter saying I'm contesting the debt and want it verified that I'm the person they're looking for, etc. I also contacted the BBB and my Attorney General to give them the heads up. So time goes by and I finally get a response from them. Their "verification" is pretty much a copy of their original letter: the name of the creditor (Sprint) and the balance(369.19). However this time, they included an SSN number... too bad it's X'd out. So, they didn't comply to my request and now are stating since they responded they can collect once more. I'm pretty much at my wit's end and don't know what to do. I'm probably going to check my credit to see if they've affected it so far. But after that, I'm not sure what to do aside from perhaps sending them a final letter stating I refuse to pay them since they got the wrong person.

My parents received a letter from AFNI (from Charter comm.) about a week ago. My father called me and gave me all the information from this letter. The weird thing about all this is that my parents have moved in to a new house since I left the house, and they do not receive any other mail for me. When I called Charter they said they didn’t have my account; which seems to be the classic sign that the account or file was sold to some trash collection agency.

I called AFNI and I tried to be nice about this whole thing since niceness usually gets you a bit further but with these guys it wasn’t true… right off the bat they started out rude and were not willing to answer any of my questions, they instead wanted me to give them the classic personal info which I refused to share. They said the debt was owed from an address that I had never heard of. I have a very common first and last name, so I asked them how they got my parents new address which they would not answer. It seems to be that I’m not the person they were looking for and instead of doing some research they just looked for all the people with my same name in Fort Worth TX and sent them all letters including me which is weird because I have never lived at my parents new house.

I will be filing a complaint and I plan on doing a search on the internet of my name and calling all the other people with my name which will take some time, but if my theory is true they could be in some deep doodoo.

Anyone owing money to these people do not pay them, once you pay them you open a can of worms. For example if they say you owe $1000 and they settle with you for lets say… $100 that’s you admitting that you owed $1000 and once they get their $100 they will try to get the other $900. If you’re not the person that owes money but they contact you please file a quick complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. This will take an hour of your time but it’s worth the time and can help take a crappy business out.

I have reviewed a recent copy of my credit report and found out that my name is in collection with you guys. I don't know what for I have never been in collection with anyone before. The amount on my credit report says $90+ that AFNI is trying to collect and there's no information about anything about it in my credit report besides the Name AFNI and how much is in collection. I hoping you can shed some light on the matter.

I received a bill for a phone I don't own requesting payment of $533.55 on a Nynex cellular line. I tried to contacted to file a fraud compliant and the phone number listed 888.257.1585 if bogus as well.

ANYONE WHO HAS A COMPLAINT ON THIS AFNI, INC. SHOULD IMMEDIATELY OR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE REPORT THIS TO THE POLICE AND I WOULD LIKE EACH AND EVERYONE OF US WHO HAS A COMPLAINT AGAINST THIS TERRIBLE CRIME OF FRAUD OF PEOPLE WHO ARE STEALING OUR IDENTITY & MONEY SHOULD STOP!
THERE ARE MANY MANY OF US COMPLAINING ABOUT THIS THIS IS A TERRIBLE CRIME THEY ARE DOING AGAINST US I WOULD LIKE ALL OF US TO TAKE THIS MATTER INTO SERIOUS CONSIDERATION BY CALLING THE POLICE AND EVEN BETTER TO CALL YOUR LOCAL NEWSPAPERS, AND MEDIA TO TELL THIS TERRIBLE SITUATION AND FOR THESE CRIMINALS TO PAY FOR THEIR CRIME!