Apparently people who filed for bankruptcy during the early 1990's are not the only victims of NCO's attempt to collect debt for non-existent credit card accounts.in November my family member received a letter from NCO Portfolio Management claiming they recently purchased a debt from Discover he owed. This letter states he owes $3400 for an unpaid balance that was charged-off in September 1998. This letter provided the account number, amount of overdue balance, and interest at 5%.
My family member was suspicious of this claim for multiple reasions. First, in an unrelated matter he is disputing other debts NCO claims he owes for hospital services he did not receive. NCO has not been able to substantiate those debts. Second, he did have one Discover account that was closed in 1998 with a balance of $0. That account number is different from the one stated on the notice he recently received from NCO.
Usually, when you open a line of credit, that account gets reported to the credit bureaus. The account number on NCO's statement never appeared on my family member's credit report in all these years. The account with the $0 balance paid-in-full does. If he really did owe an outstanding debt to a credit card company such as Discover, you would think they would have reported it to the credit bureau.in addition, Discover has not charged 5% interest on balances in a long time.in 1998 they would have charged at least 15.99% APR.
My family member contacted Discover to find out specific information about this account. Discover was unable to provide him with any specific information about or documentation/billing statements from that account.
My family member wrote a dispute letter that was sent by certified mail demanding all further attempt to collect this debt be halted, and demanding copies of all legal documentation verifying the existance of this debt, as well as copies of original contract with his signature agreeing to open this account and pay stated interest. He also requested specifics about the purchase made for that amount and original date of delinquency on that account. It has been more than 30 days since their receipt of this letter. Not surprisingly, no response by NCO has been made.
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