In a family member fraudulently opened a telephone account with MCI in my name in Illinois at the address where I once lived while I was away in college in New York. I never moved back to that address, or even to Illinois and even lived out of the country for a little while so I didn't even know the account had been opened in my name or charged off to a collections agency - MCM.
In the past couple of years, I've begun to receive emails from MCM demanding collection on the account, which does now appear on my credit report. I've never responded to Midland directly, but did request that all of the CRAs investigate the claims. Each CRA that listed the debt has upheld it on the credit report. I'm not sure exactly what this means because I know they couldn't have done any real investigating within the week period that they turned the decision around.in any case, not knowing what else to do, I added a note about the case for each CRA that lists it.
I really want to get this whole thing behind me so my credit won't continue to suffer this unfair debt. I had the college I attended write a letter stating the dates that I lived on campus and the dates that I lived out of the country. A lawyer friend suggests that I have him contact the legal department of MCM, but this is not his area of legal expertise. Now that I have read so many other people's horror stories from dealing with MCM, I'm hesistant to have him contact them at all. The debt is a little over $1,000 and in their last letter, they offered to settle the account at 40% - which, of course, I don't want to do. But, I'm not sure what the smartest course of action is at this point. Does anyone have advise?
Many thanks!
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