I received a letter form Haase and Long dated 03/24/08 stating that I owed them a total of $379.64 for "accounts placed with our office for collection."
Here is the body of the letter they sent me:
"We have made every effort to contact you to resolve these outstanding obligations. Because you have made no indication to us that you intend to voluntarily arrange for repayment, we are left with no choice other than to intensify our collection efforts. If you are not in contact our office within the next 10 days from the date of this letter, we will notify your creditors that our attempts to arrange VOLUNTARY PAYMENT have apparently failed. We will seek instructions from your creditors as to what further collection steps they wish us to initiate to secure PAYMENT IN FULL."
There are several problems with approaching me with this letter.
-My only guess is that this may be old debt from when I lived in Kansas over seven and a half years ago; therefore the debt is too old to report to any credit agency... Although it may not stop them from illegally attempting to reage the debt.
-There has been no prior contact from this company despite their claim to have "made every effort to contact you". I have been at the same address for over a year and my prior address for over six years; I'm not that hard to find.
-The statute of limitations has run out on filing a suit in both Kansas and California several years back.
-No validation of the debts are given in the letter. They have a several random companies listed with random amounts (varying between $28 and $113 to get their total). There are no dates, orgins, supporting documentation given with these.
-The collection company legally needs to give me 30 days to investegate and respond to these claims. They are only giving me ten, which falls short of the legally defined terms set forth by the federal goverment. This doesn't bother me since there isn't anything they can do *legally* anyway.
I am sending the company a certified letter requesting validation of the debt. Just about any move they make from this point other than forgetting all about me is illegal at this point and will only result in me filing suit against the company in maximum for amounts in damages, travel expenses, court costs, lost wages, and punative damages. Any illegal action will also result in letters to every organization and program that the company currently deals with to show that their association with Haase and Long is a liability due to the illegal activities currently being conducted.
Beware of this company (and companies like them) trying to collect on old debts and putting pressure you to pay for things you do not owe. I will be sending follow up reports as they happen. If Haase and Long sees this and would like to respond, please do. Better yet, forget all about me and send me a letter to that effect so that you do not potentially find yourself in hot water.
Thanks
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