American Express

[MomIcantFindmy]

Thought someone might find this helpful.

We made the last payment to cc in September of 2007. Yesterday I recieved a message from a man on my voice mail who claimed to be an attorney representing cc and asked me to call back. He sounded extremely nice on the voice mail and it said he had a small window of opportunity to resolve this issue and he would like to speak to me. Normally I would not but curiosity overcame me. (Sorry....I can't help it)

I called him, he did not state at this point that he was an attorney. I asked him what firm he represnted and he said he was with NCO (Risk Management). So apparently my debt was given to them. I told him I needed a letter that his firm was handling the debt before I could speak with him. He did a Jekel and Hyde and became irate.....and he said he would have a bailiff serve me and he quoted my street address. I remained very nice and told him my full address...I did not want a summons served to a neighbor or someone else by mistake.

I expect to recieve a letter soon stating that they are handling the debt. If I do, then I believe I should request a debt validation. Is that right?

We are still not quite ready to file BK but we see the lawyer again in 2 weeks.

[325Falcon]

If you are going to file, why not just ignore these folks or give them your lawers phone number?

[treehugger1]

Ignoring the fact that you may file BK sometime in the future, your actions appear to be to the letter. Did you record the conversation or take good notes?

You should receive a letter from these folks in the next week or two. If it were me, I would send out a retrun receipt request for verification about two weeks from the date I received their letter.

In addition, I would clearly make a recording of the voice mail message you received. If the person you spoke to at NCO was the same person who left the message identifying himself as an attorney, and he is not an attorney, then this is a very serious violation. Perhaps he was only representing an attorney?

You should be sure your attorney for your potential BK also is aware of this contact.

If you do a bit of research on NCO you will discover this is acompany that has some reported legal issues. They may not care since the cost of litigation may be nothing compared to what they "normally" scare folks into.


In all, your response was very appropriate. "I will not discuss any of my financial affairs over the phone. Please contact me in writing within the time frame specified by the FDCPA. My name is ####### and my address is ########."

[MomIcantFindmy]

Thanks, that made me feel better. When I recieve the letter I will do exactly what you said and wait two weeks and send a letter for verification (return receipt). I have kept the voice mail of him identifing himself as an attorney. He identified him self during the call as the same person on the voice mail. I will definatly ask the attorney about this one. That firm has called 4 times today too! I set my cel phone ringer to silent so I miss those calls.

[MomIcantFindmy]

Now this guy has called my family and told him I am in "big trouble" with cc. After he reached me! Uggggg...........

[Lindsay]

Now this guy has called my father-in-law and told him I am in "big trouble" with American Express. After he reached me! Uggggg...........

This is a big time violation. They are not allowed to do this! You need to start recording phone calls and filing complaints. If you are planning on filing BK soon, you need to retain your attorney. That way, when these ghouls call, you will give them the name and phone number of your attorney. We gave our lawyer a $200 retainer and when collectors call, we give them our lawyers name and they go away. Plus I think that even the renegade collectors are less likely to mess with you once they know a lawyer is involved that may know the FDCPA better than you do.

[ssdsco]

Now this guy has called my father-in-law and told him I am in "big trouble" with American Express. After he reached me! Uggggg...........

I'm sorry this happened to you but I so wish it would happen to me. I'd let them dig a legal hole as deep they'd go and document, document, document. I'd act like I was clueless as to what could happen and my legal rights.

[Keebler]

I'm in with NCO Financial regarding an Am Ex card too. They have been a little bit pushy with me but not record-setting.

I also refused to discuss my account with them and they also got crabby with me too. I kept telling the guy that I didn't recognize his authority to contact me on behalf of this account and every time they called I told them the same thing and officially advised them that I had not received the letter. Finally I received the letter.

My strategy is to find out where payments need to be sent. If they need to be sent to the original creditor, then these guys are contractors. If they need to be sent to the Collection Agency, then they probably own the debt. So far, all of them want payments mailed to the original creditor -- NCO Financial included. I've decided that sending a verification letter to a company contracted by the original creditor was pointless and would probably make things worse. My strategy is to let them call me and catch me once in a while. As long as they think the calls are accomplishing something, I fugure it'll keep them from going after me in other ways.

I got a good laugh during the very first call when I told him I wouldn't give him any information he didn't have already because I had not been officially informed that they were collecting the debt. He argued with me and accused me of stalling and trying to avoid the debt. At one point he demanded that I contact Am Ex so Am Ex could tell me that NCO Financial was official. He repeated it a few times as he got more angry with me. The laugh came when he changed the subject and demanded to know why I was behind in my payments. I told him that all of that information had been provided to Am Ex and I saw no reason to provide it again. He got angry again and explained that he doesn't get complete information and he demanded I tell him. It was my turn to tell HIM, in the same condescending tone, that he needed to get on the phone with Am Ex so they could provide the information if he wanted it. As I recall, the call ended when he hung up on me.

[jp2861]

If you plan on filing there's nothing you need to do. Give the lawyer his/her retainer fee and then pass the info on to callers. If the debt is yours theres not much a DV is going to do, especially with such a current debt. After sending it, 30 later days you'll be back to where you started. They are just a stall tactic and really don't serve any purpose for folks planning to file.

[MomIcantFindmy]

They called 5 times yesterday. I didn't answer and did not get a voice mail stating he was an attorney either. I did send a cease and desist registered return receipt letter to NCO and Am Ex yesterday. I told them everything had to be sent to me in writting.

[CindyLou]

I have noticed some giving advice to tape conversations. Please see the info below regarding taping phone calls.

"Federal law allows recording of phone calls and other electronic communications with the consent of at least one party to the call. A majority of the states and territories have adopted wiretapping laws based on the federal law, although most also have extended the law to cover in-person conversations. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia permit individuals to record conversations to which they are a party without informing the other parties that they are doing so. These laws are referred to as "one-party consent" statutes, and as long as you are a party to the conversation, it is legal for you to record it."

They continue:

"Twelve states require, under most circumstances, the consent of all parties to a conversation. Those jurisdictions are California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Washington."

The most important information on the site is that they highlight that it is definitely illegal for you to record a conversation without consent of either party (e.g., if you were to record the conversation between your salesperson and a vendor without either knowing about it).

On the other hand, if you're on the phone and you consent to taping yourself, you're good, as long as the other party isn't in one of the twelve all-party-consent states. Until I did the research to learn more about this particular problem, I also didn't realize that one-party consent was sufficient for this sort of thing, so in most cases you would indeed be able to legally record any and all conversations you had with your vendors.

I'm based in Colorado, for example, and according to Colorado statute one-party consent is sufficient. The penalty, however, for recording a call without the consent of either party is rather serious:

"Colo. Rev. Stat. 18-9-303: Recording or overhearing a telephone conversation, or any electronic communication, without the consent of a party to the conversation is a felony punishable by a fine of between $1,000 and $100,000 and one year to 18 months in jail."

[tay666]

Just do what I do.
If I decide I even want to talk to one of these people I tell the the conversation is being taped (even though I don't ever bother)
Amazing how fast they change their tone when they hear that most of the time.
That is if they don't just automatically hang up as soon as you tell them