I'm pasting this from an email I sent to an attorney friend, the BBB and the local FBI fraud dept. My big hope here is that someone else has had a similar experience and can shed some light on this practice. As I say below, I don't mind paying the balance if there truly is one but if it's from 2002 it would have shown up in my credit report when we got our mortgage for our house in 2004 and that makes me wonder about the legitimacy of it.
From: S A
To:
Date: Jun 7 9:40 PM
Subject: 1stcofa.com contact
Hi Doug. I was hoping I could run something by you and get a quickie opinion about the conversation I just had. I'm cc'ing this to the Better Business Bureau, Norfolk FBI Fraud Department, and will be forwarding it to the 1st Credit of America people for documentation.
I received a call from 1st Credit of America about an outstanding balance with Columbia House records that I had to clear up immediately or go to court. I had some concerns because:
A. I didn't know I had a balance and that it was in my former name (#) and being billed to my former address where I have not lived in nearly two years (#).
B: He said they'd been trying to contact me since April 28th by phone (our number remained the same when we moved), that the bill had been in collections for 60 days but that it dated back to 2002? Why wasn't it on my credit before? And why didn't they leave a message on my perfectly functional machine?
C: I've had accounts with Columbia House before. They NEVER EVER failed to let me know when I owed them money.
D. A quick websearch on google yielded some very unsavory information about this particular company - one search found 68 reports of claims against them for fraudulent practices. That and the rep was being very pushy - wanting me to pay immediately or go to court.
At first he didn't want my corrected address so they could send me an invoice and then he asked for my address so they could at least send me the invoice and then went back If I do have the balance I don't mind paying it; my beef is with the way he treated me (bullying me to pay NOW) and the fact that he WOULD not provide an invoice or other documentation or send me anything to my new address (where I've been for over a year and a half; surely if they were invoicing all this time it would have gotten forwarded with all my other mail that successfully made the trip across town). And to be threatened with going in front of a judge, paying court costs, admonished that "This is not a game!" when I tried to point out to him my concerns about just giving my credit card info to some guy who just calls me - that really irked me.
This is the email I sent to BMG Music via a form on their website on June 7th (now owner of Columbia House) to verify any outstanding balances.
"Hi. I received a disturbing call from First Credit of America today about an outstanding debt to Columbia House of $124.20 from a couple of years ago. The account number they mentioned is #.
I'm concerned because I did not know that there was an outstanding balance. I went to the CH website but couldn't log in with that account and I know that BMG bought them out so I was hoping you could direct me to someone who can verify that that account even existed. I did a websearch on First Credit of America and saw several listings about them being a fraudulent company so this caused me even greater concern. I wasn't about to give them my credit card number if I wasn't able to verify who they were. I moved from the address they had on file two years ago but my phone number is the same and I find it hard to believe that you wouldn't bill this for 3 or 4 years (they said it was outstanding from 2002?) and then send it to collections. He also said that they had tried to call me repeatedly but if so, they did not leave a message and I had no idea they were trying to contact me. Is there someone in your organization who can verify this account and subsequent balance?
Thanks,
PS
The reps name from 1st Credit of America (www.1stcofa.com) was John Powers and the phone number is 1-800-# and case number #."
What do you think? Have you heard anything about these guys? Are they legitimate?
Thanks
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