About 20 days ago, I received a collection letter from a Jerold Kaplan Law Office in Phoenix, Arizona, stating they represented a Midland Credit Management in collecting a debt for and old credit card.
After doing some research I realized that most consumer advocates consider MCM to be one of the most underhanded collection agencies, purchasing old debts and pushing to collect, filing civil suits when they have no actual evidence that the person actually owes the debt, attempting to sue after the statute of limitations has expired, etc. The attorneys ofJerold Kaplan Law Offices are both on the board of the organization of collectors in the state of Arizona, and apparently have no problems representing debt necromancers like Midland.
In order to protect myself I decided to send a debt validation letter. Due to some medical issues and being out of town, I did not get the letter sent until December 4, but I Sent it certified Priority Mail with return receipt requested to the address from which the original letter came.
I just received it back today, marked that it was "Attempted / Not Known or refused".
I called Jerold Kaplan's offices and talked to a receptionist who, while pleasant, seemed to be very surprised that I was reluctant to provide information. She wanted to know if I was sending a payment, and I told her that no, I was sending a legal debt validation letter that had been returned from the address from which their collection letter had come. I received the above mailing address and fax number from her - and then she actually had the gall to try and verify my phone number and social security number! Like I'm going to give her that when I'm the one calling for information?
The main reason I wanted to post this report is so that people have the mailing address and fax number of this collector, given to me verbally over the phone by a representative of the office, so if anyone else needs to contact these folks they can't dodge out of it by using a different address for their outgoing mail.
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