Just pay up, don't worry if you really owe the $$ debt collector says

[Liberal_in_LA]

Patients in arrears face collectors

Increasingly, patients are receiving collection notices not from the doctors or the hospitals who treated them, but from companies who bought their unpaid bills.

Some hospitals, physicians’ groups, ambulance services and other medical providers in Georgia and across the country sell patients’ unpaid bills to debt buyers like Capio for pennies on the dollar. As the volume of medical debt grows, health care providers are under increasing pressure to recover even a fraction of delinquent patient bills.

-----------------------------------

Another concern of patient advocates is that federal law allows debt buyers access to patient medical records. The 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects patient privacy, allows health care providers to share medical records with debt collectors who provide the same safeguards the medical provider would.

------------------------


Some Capio targets alleged they were not the people the debt collector was looking for, but they still received multiple phone calls daily with no way of correcting the problem.

Others, like Sherry Bates of Conroe, Texas, disputed the validity of the bill, according to her complaint against the company.

“ informed that the debt was only about $80 and she should just pay it and not worry about whether or not she really owes the money,” Bates’ complaint says.

When she refused, Capio reported the debt to a credit agency, even though it was too old to report, and called Bates so often she changed her phone number, her complaint says.

http://www.ajc.com/news/health-care/patients-in-arrears-face-966953.html

[NickB79]

1. If you ever get a call from a debt collector, ask them these two words

"Prove it."

By law, they must supply you with physical evidence proving that you owe the amount of money they say you do, and that they are the ones legally responsible to collect it. If they continue to call you after you request the paperwork, you can threaten to report them to the FTC.

http://www.lawmo.org/law_fdc.htm

[HipChick]

6. or sue them

small claims court

[ejpoeta]

11. they are violating the fdcpa and you could sue them. would you want to? probably not.

but if they know that you know the FDCPA they will probably leave you alone.

[sharp_stick]

2. I hate those parasites

shortly after we moved to the town we are now in we started getting phone calls from some debt collector because the shitheel found out that our last name was the same as the woman they were looking for. Ooooh, obviously a new number with a different first name meant we must be harboring their fugitive.

For the first few calls I patiently told the debt hound that we just moved here and had no relatives in the area. Every time she seemed to be happy with the responses but the calls kept coming and then she started calling me at 6:30 in the morning and around 9:00 at night, to try to trick me into giving up my deadbeat relative. She started to tell me all about the lady they were looking for, where she used to work, the rest of her family. I told the scumbag to get off her ass and call them instead of bugging me... didn't work. It was obvious she was trying to pretend that they knew all about the movements of the person they wanted the money from, I thought it was one hell of an invasion of privacy for this jackoff to be telling me all about it.

Yelling at her didn't help, belive me I called her every damned name in the book, never got to the point of threatening her but it was close a couple of times. Finally calling her office and working my way up the management ladder managed to get these assholes away from me. I've been here for 10 years now, still have no idea who the person they were looking for is.

[1monster]

3. I was once called by a debt collector because the woman they were looking for once

lived down the block from where I lived. She had moved elsewhere, and while I knew her well enough to recognize her as a neighbor, I didn't even know her last name or where she had moved to. I told the collector as much.

Nevertheless, this collector called me several times until I told her that I would report her for harassment if she didn't stop.

[hlthe2b]

4. I was victim to this during the time when cell phone minutes....

were so limited and COSTLY. I was so annoyed that I never had any of the minutes I was PAYING for left to call out-of-state family members--not to mention being interrupted throughout the day by these cretins. I had told them I was reporting them to our state's attorney general and to the FCC, but still the calls continued--usually from an increasingly rude and arrogant male who refused to believe what I was telling them.

So, finally, one day I happened on the blinking light I use for walking at night that has its own panic alarm--an incredibly loud and blaring alarm. So the next time they called, I explained AGAIN that I was not the person and had told them repeatedly and demanded they stopped calling. I asked if they would stop calling and receiving no assurances, I then told them that I'd warned them and set off the alarm directly into the phone speaker. They hung up quickly and I have never gotten another call from them.

Yes, I realize that may have damaged that person's hearing, but I simply didn't know what else to do and I DID warn them. I wonder if this problem has reduced with the ability to keep ones own phone number when you change cell phones. :shrug:

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. good for you.

[Maru Kitteh]

8. Kudos to you. They got what they asked for and I wouldn't waste a single pang of guilt over it. n/t

[slackmaster]

5. My girlfriend is a professional debt collector. What you describe is clearly illegal.

Look up the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

Debt collection is hard work.

[sharp_stick]

9. I know it is

unfortunately in that business it's all too common. I'm not about to say that they're all the same but the few I've run into over the years haven't had a lot of respect for the law.

I think when some companies start to run into a lot of "old debt" they become a lot more aggressive as this one was with me.

[slackmaster]

10. About once a year, I get a collection letter addressed to a deceased person

The late son of the woman I bought my house from in 1994.

He and his fiancee were murdered in a botched robbery in 1998. Apparently he owed about $200 to a jewelry store at the time.

It's kind of entertaining telling collectors that the guy is deceased. Sometimes they scream at me for opening someone else's mail.

[Liberal_in_LA]

13. Was he robbing the store or an innocent bystander?

[slackmaster]

19. He and his fiancee were the night crew at a parking lot near San Diego's airport...

They were in the office, which was a trailer. Three gang members from Orange County (CA) burst in, held the two victims at gunpoint, and demanded money.

The victims complied and handed the robbers a cash box. The robbers had planned to tie the two up so as to give the robbers more time to escape, but they had forgotten to bring rope.

The robbers decided to shoot the victims to prevent them from calling the police. They were eventually caught from surveillance camera information and other evidence, and convicted of murder.

[davsand]

15. There are tiers in the collection industry. Not all collections firms are the same.

There are the agencies that contract directly with the business to collect on their behalf and then there are the agencies that buy the old "uncollectable" debts for pennies on the dollar. This last group is the one a lot of people call the "bottom feeders." Usually, these "bottom feeders" are the ones that use the most offensive tactics to collect, and usually they are the ones that get busted for violating the FDCPA.

The minute you referred to your girlfriend as a "professional debt collector" you pretty much IDd her as a NON-bottom feeder as far as I was concerned. I was a temp for several months in a local collection agency, and they were also professionals. From day one--even as a temp--it was drilled into my head that you do NOT talk to anyone except the debtor because it is illegal to talk to anyone else. Similarly, if anyone disputed the debt (mostly bounced checks or medical debt in the agency I temped in...) they immediately sent out copies of any paperwork they had regarding the debt.

The bottom feeders frequently have call room type set ups that have a huge database of debtor accounts they are working. It is often on an auto-dial system that just dials the next contact and a screen will pop up with the "details" of the account. If they don't get an answer the program will just set another date to call without the collection agent ever even seeing it. It is not uncommon that a debt will travel from one agency to another if it gets sold off in a package of "uncollectable accounts." Literally, it is possible that a consumer could talk to five or six different agencies over a period of years regarding a single account.



Laura

[slackmaster]

20. Yes, you are correct. GF works at a law firm now.

The accounts taken on by the bottom feeders are really pathetic.

[sudopod]

21. lol.

Just lol.

[Lionessa]

12. I really don't understand why folks don't just block those numbers?

I know it's real easy on a cell phone, but my landline (when I still had one) made it easy to block the number. Also I simply don't pickup calls with numbers I don't recognize on the cell, they never leave message so I don't have that to be concerned with. When I still had a landline, if I was pretty sure it was a creditor (888, 800, or area codes that I don't know anyone int) I would lift the receiver and then set it back down.

I get that creditors companies are a royal pain in the arse, but the idea that anyone in today's phone/cell/caller id/ blocking ability world needs to allow themselves to actually converse with these people is crazy.

[ejpoeta]

14. it gets annoying when they call a lot. we just got my daughter a phone.

they kept calling every day. left a voicemail. my daughter is 12. i called them and finally after sitting on hold got through to someone who was nice after i assured her that my 12 year old was not the person they were looking for nor the other person they had either. we were not located in arizona either. and they took the name off their list. but even still... you shouldn't have to keep having these people call and annoy you. if it isn't you, they can take the name off their list. if they are trying to collect money from you, just ignoring them doesn't help either... we had some company get a default judgement against us when we didn't even know who they were and they seized our bank account. we had to go to court and get the judgement vacated and it ended up the servers were doing lick em stick em affadavits and not serving people. you can't just ignore these calls and block them.

[Lionessa]

16. They don't call to tell you about a court summons. You should've

gotten that handed to you by a process server. A phone call from a creditor would make no difference in the regard of you having a judgment against you. That's a paperwork from the creditors' legal team that's required to inform you with at least 14 notice of a court date.

So yes, you can block and ignore them.

[ejpoeta]

18. no what i am talking about is that if you ignore them calling you even if it is

a debt you don't even owe then they could sue you. then you could end up with one of those lick em stick em deals that was a bid deal up here in the northeast and widespread effecting a lot of people where there were default judgements involved. if you answer the phone and say prove it or say you want them to validate the debt and then follow that up with a validation letter sent via registered letter then they are not allowed to contact you again until they provide that validation. if they do you can sue them. usually they will not contact you again. because they generally have no proof because they are bs artists.

[Lionessa]

22. I'm not saying NEVER answer the phone, but once you've made

your lack of connection to the issue clear, and gotten their company details to write the letter you suggest, then stop answering, after that everything should arrive by mail or by process server.

My point is that there's no need in this day and age to be CONSTANTLY bothered. Block the damn number and the phone won't even ring when they call. As far as I know all phones, cell as well as landlines, have a blocking ability.

[ejpoeta]

24. that i did not know. so thank you.

[pipi_k]

25. Doesn't always work...

I had a place calling me in 2005 about a credit card bill that was nearly 20 years old. In any case, I didn't owe THEM the money. Plus the amount they were looking for was like 400% over what the original amount really was. They had jacked it up with fake fees, penalties, and interest.

Anyway, I have a call blocking thing on my phone. They would call, their number would get blocked, then they would call from a different number.

This went on until I contacted two states' AGs.

But anyway, these people are slick. Some of them have loads of phone numbers they use because they know people will block them.

[JoeyT]

26. The bottom feeders often use multiple numbers, multiple call centers,

or just outright spoof their phone numbers. Blocking anyone that's doing one of those will only get you a few days peace before another number starts hitting you.

[AllyCat]

17. American Express did this to me two years ago. They called several times a day for about a year.

It made me nuts. It made my husband nuts. I don't owe them any money. I closed and paid off the account about 6 years ago when my financial situation started to improve and I was eager to get out of debt. I figured they thought I had lots of bills and wouldn't notice that I had already paid that one. I never could get anyone to prove it and my finance counselor at the credit union said it was a scam and was not included on my credit report.

You are right, ask them to prove it!! They eventually stopped calling me.

[HopeHoops]

23. I had one say something similar - couldn't justify the charges. I said "FUCK OFF!" and hung up.