Today I received a collections letter for a Verizon phone number in New York from AFNI, Inc. The phone number on the collections letter account has been disconnected, and was apparently formerly used by a law firm in New York. It was not ever my phone number.
I have not lived in New York for over ten years. I never had a Verizon account or an affiliate account. All of my accounts in New York were paid in full prior to leaving.
Based on the research I have conducted in the past hour, I believe this is a fraudulent claim made by this company in an attempt to gain further information from me about my identity.
We found an address and phone for this company using their website domain name, which is available at any registrar service online. Their website is listed as www.afnicollections.com.
There should be a law against using the USPS in order to conduct identity phishing expeditions.
I plan to send a cease and desist order to this company. I also will be filing reports with my local police department, the Attorney General's Office of both states involved, and the FBI and the State of New York. We are claiming that we believe this company is using promotional credit records available to the public in order to conduct it's phishing expeditions.
Based on what I have read on usacomplaints.com, which is a site I trust, I am going to notify all three credit reporting agencies to opt out of the promotional prescreening offers that they provide to businesses throughout the US.
I will update this report with my progress.
Good luck!
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