June 20, my niece received a letter from Rickenbacker, Collection Agency located in Gilroy, California. Claiming my niece owes a creditor $295.00 from Ticketcetera. No other explanation and 30 days to dispute in writing the vaildity of this claim. Their letter is dated June 11. Upon receiving it, my sister scanned it and emailed it to me June 21 asking me to to help her and my niece regarding this Rickenbacker collection agency. I am a little bit more fluent in English so I may be able to get somewhere!
Problem no. 1 - My niece doesn't recall buying tickets in January.
Problem no. 2 - My sister's family including my niece are located in French Canada
Problem no. 3 - Nobody is fluent enough in English to deal with this type of problems. My niece doesn't speak a word of English and nobody in the family has ever set foot in California. We visit Florida from time to time and travel only on the Eastern Seaboard. Never on the West Coast.
Problem no. 4 - I wrote Claudia Feria at Rickenbacker and sent it by fax asking Claudia to fax me the complete file on this claim and to send a hard copy to my sister via Registered mail. It was getting urgent to respect the 30 day allowance to dispute it. I expected this fax today at work but nothing was faxed to me. So I called the office in California.
Problem no. 5 - The person answering the phone told my that Miss Claudia was not there but that she perhaps could help me. I explained the object of my call. This person was nice enough to tell me that they had reply to my fax by sending a letter to my niece. She told me also thay they dont send faxes. I explained to the first person I spoke with that my niece has asked me to deal with this matter on her behalf precisely because my niece did not speak English. She put me on hold and then came this very rude woman. She told me that she could not fax me a legal document... Which is strange since faxes are as good as original documents. I asked her to send me this documentation but for some reason she became somehow rude. She told me that my niece alone had to call their office to give them permission for me to speak on her behalf. I tried few times to explain that my niece did not speak English. This woman wouldn't hear any of what I had to say. She hung up on me. I spent 15 minutes on the phone, trying to clarify and explain to this woman that my niece would not be able to speak with them or to understand them for the simple reason that she could not speak English. This would not have any of my explanations and she simply cut the connection just like that leaving me with tons of questions still to ask.
I have a feeling that this Rickenbacker agency will become a nightmare of proportion. I am not sure how far they will go.
I believe my niece when she said that she didn't buy any tickets in last January for the simple reason that my niece, as a student, owes only one credit card issued by a French Canadian Credit Union and that she doesn't carry a balance. There is also the fact that when you buy tickets, any kind of tickets, you must pay immediately either by credit card or Debit Card.in this case it never happened.
I have read some negative comments about this collection agency and I am afraid that if we ignore them, her credit rating will be compromised for a long time.
My question is: how can we deal with a company like this one, what is the best way to communicate with them, knowing that if you try to explain a point or two and they don't like what you are saying, they simply cut the communication and hang-up. They don't reply to faxes, only by letter, which took 10 days to reach my niece from the day it was dated. My niece is in Canada, about 5,000 miles maybe more from California.
What to do? Please help me
Louise
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
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