Like many others, I recently received a settlement offer from Afni for a Verizon bill from 1997. The first thing I did was to look Afni up online, and found that a lot of people seemed to have received very similar bills around the same time.
My first thought was that it was a total scam. My second thought that the charges may actually be valid, and Afni recently purchases thousands of old bills from Verizon to see if they could bully people into paying them.
After I called them, I realized that my second theory was probably correct. The bill (bills, as it turns out) was in my husband's name, and person I spoke with at Afni was friendly, and able to give me a decent bit of information, such as verifying social security numbers, addresses, and exact dates of these charges. I thanked him for the information and told him I would investigate this on my end. I looked in my files for any old debts from Verizon (I keep everything), and I checked credit reports for both my husband and I from 8-9 years ago, and no Verizon debts appeared.
We realized that at the time these charges apparently took place, my husband was still living at home. After a fun trip down memory lane, we realized that these bills were from around the time he was seeing a girl who was spending a semester abroad.
I believe there is a good chance that these charges are valid. Why my husband or his mother have no record of any attempt on Verizon's part to collect this debt is a mystery. However, knowing that my husband made a lot of calls to Ireland around that time wasn't enough to get me to pull out my checkbook. I am almost fanatical with my finances and debts, and have never tried to "get out" of paying a debt I knew I owed. However, I also have never paid a debt that couldn't be proven, regardless of whether I believed the debt to be valid.
So, long story shot (yeah, right), I sent Afni the following letter:
To Whom It May Concern:
I regret to inform you that after much investigation into the debts associated with above referenced accounts, I was unable validate these charges. Due to the fact that these debts are ten years old, and that you are unable to provide us with any more information than what is present on your billing statements, I must decline payment on these accounts.
I was informed by a representative at your company that you are not able to provide us with copies of the bills from Verizon. Having been in similar situations in the past, I do know that it is possible for a collection agency to obtain such information from the original biller. I imagine it must be frustrating for you to not be able to include this essential information in your attempts to collect on these debts, but unfortunately that is not my problem.
Please discontinue your attempts to collect on this ten year old debt for which you can provide no proof that I owe. I will be monitoring my credit report for the next several months, and if these charges appear I will take legal action.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation,
Two weeks later I received a letter from Afni telling me they were dropping all attempts to collect these debts and that if the debts had been reported to credit bureaus, that they would have them removed.
My opinion is that Afni is only "kind of" ripping people off. They probably have valid bills they are trying to collect on, but when it comes to having to show proof, they don't have a leg to stand on.
Obviously my advice to everyone who has received a similar to this is to copy and paste my letter verbatim and send it to Afni, because the idea of them receiving the same exact letter from 50 or so different people amuses me. ;-)
Cheers!
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