I am an office manager for a real estate firm. I received a call from a Jason from IC System (it took about three tries to get him to say the name of the company.)
He asked me for a payment of $336.06 for a Verizon bill. He added that someone from our company had already paid $1,000 by credit card and that he wanted the rest. When I told him that I was not authorized to pay him anything at the moment because I did not make that payment, and would have to look into it, he became quiet rude. He told me that if he didn't get a payment right them, we would be put down as 'refused payment."
When I tried to explain to him that I wasn't refusing payment, I just wanted to speak to the person who paid the first $1,000, he became even more irate. He said we would have no phone service within 24 hours. I told him I would take my chances. When I asked him for his phone number, there was a slight silence. I just got the feeling that this was some kind of scam.
No sane person would ever hire a person like that to work for a collection agency. Jason was extremely rude and had absolutely no patience. What I was asking for was a normal thing.By raising his voice and making threats, I guess he felt I would cave in and give him the charge number.
After speaking to my employer, I think I finally found out what this was about. About a month ago, we received a call from this company (maybe it was Jason) They told one of the salespeople that our phones would be cut off immediately if this bill was not paid. He called my employer on her cell phone while she was in her car and she was so intimidated by him that she gave him the credit card number and paid the $1,000. After doing some digging, we found out that the amount we owed Verizon had been previously paid to a lawyer's office.
I know this is some kind of scam and it makes me sick to think that people all over the country are being bullied into paying for things they might not even owe. I hope someone can put an end to this.
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