HELP!!! Collection call

[nomoneynomore]

We are out of our Ch 7 almost two years now. We haven't missed a single payment on anything at all. Today I check my voicemail on my old cell phone number I no longer use & I have a call from a "CBE Group @ 877-224-6529. I googled them & they are a collection agency! Of course, since it's Sat, I can't get ahold of anyone to see what this is about. Since we have worked our butts off to keep our credit spotless, I'm freaking out.

Does anyone know who this company represents and what this might be about.

The only thing I can imagine is when our house was broken into back in January, they stole something with my info on it & used it. I know I should just wait until Monday, but I'm stressing out about it!

[frogger]

You're right. Wait until Monday.

Chill.....

[nomoneynomore]

Ok, so I called today and got some info on this account, but now I'm more confused than when I started.
The account was turned to collections by Direct TV. I haven't ever had DTV. I received noticed back back in late April there was an acct opened with them in my name. I disputed it as fraud on May 6th and received a letter dated May 10th stating I am not responsible or liable for the billing on the account. Since I got this letter, I never thought more of it.

When I called this morning, they said the account they cleared out for fraud was one from 2000 (I had a fraudulent acct iib with them) with a different account number.

Now they are saying I still owe this one since I didn't report fraud on this account. I called on May 6th, this letter was sent to me May 10th, I have a very hard time believing it was from this 10 yr old account. Why would they send a fraud release letter on a 10 yr old acct 4 days after I file fraud on a different account number?

For that matter, why on earth weren't any and all accounts associated w/ my SSN investigated? The collection agency reported it to all 3 credit bureaus yesterday There went my perfect history since our bk!

Can anyone offer any help or suggestions on this?

[tobee43]

[nomoneynomore]

The collection company CBE Group was really nice this morning. They "said" they would put in a dispute to have the collection activity removed from my credit report (don't trust them till I see it though).

Direct TV is the one being rude about it. They are the ones saying they never spoke with me & I never filed a fraud charge. They are the ones that went ahead and sent it to collections in July after I received the release letter in May.

[tobee43]

Direct TV is the one being rude about it. They are the ones saying they never spoke with me & I never filed a fraud charge. They are the ones that went ahead and sent it to collections in July after I received the release letter in May.

then THEY must provide you with the bill...including all charges when and where etc...

[nomoneynomore]

I did finally find where it came from. It was from our house being broken into. Direct TV is sending me a fraud kit to fill out. All I need to send them is the copy of the police report & proof of address for the specified time period & they said it would be taken care of in 10 days. I have all that information, so hopefully they will take care of it right away. It did show up on my credit report this week, so I'm highly irritated about it. I know how hard it is going to be to get it removed from my credit, but at least hopefully I can get the release in writing for my records.

We were in the process of shopping for cars, so that will have to be put off until this mess is fixed.

Direct TV really blew this one. When everything happened, I placed a fraud alert on our credit & everything was blocked (so I thought). They attempted to open an acct w/ Direct TV & was denied. Four days later they reapplied and the account was approved. They sure did a lot to investigate and confirm my information before approving the account.

[IBroke]

BTW, was your CH7 an asset or no asset case? If it was no asset, it doesn't even matter if this old account was fraud or not - it was discharged and therefore, they are not allowed to collect or report anything to a credit-bureau.

[nomoneynomore]

Our CH7 was a no asset case. However, this is all activity from after our discharge. Our house was broken into about 6 months after our bk was discharged, so that won't help me at all

BTW, was your CH7 an asset or no asset case? If it was no asset, it doesn't even matter if this old account was fraud or not - it was discharged and therefore, they are not allowed to collect or report anything to a credit-bureau.

[GoingDown]

There is a federal website with an identity theft affidavit which you can fill out and have notarized after you file a police report about this matter, and then send that to them by certified mail, and that will probably clear this matter up.

I wish there was a federal nationwide law that stated if a creditor ignores your fraud alert on your credit report and then goes ahead and gives credit to an identity thief, they should owe a person like you $5000 for the stress and inconvenience.

We have this simple system in place now to stop this sort of thing from happening. The fraud alert is supposed to stop this, but all too often, they extend credit anyways. It recently happened to one of my friends at a local car dealership, and in this case, all the thief had was her name, ss #, and date of birth. The thief used her own driver's license with her own name (not my friend's name!) and a different date of birth, and yet the car dealership went ahead and let the thief drive off the lot with a new car, and just ignored the fraud alert, and the obviously wrong driver's license. The salesman responsible for all of this is still working at the same dealership.