Today I received a letter from ARA INC stating I had a past due account with Citifinancial Corp. I had no recollection of this account and asked Mary Ann Keller, the customer service rep., for information about the account. They could give me no information. They said the account was going through my county court system for final judgement against me and unless I accepted the "settlement offer" of $373.31. If I refused I would be subject to the total collection balance of $608.30.
I asked how much time I had to investigate the matter and was told that our conversation was being recorded and would have to be turned over to the court system stating that I refused the settlement offer and would not be able to receive that same offer if I refused to pay now. I accepted the offer and gave my banking information for direct debit from my checking account and was told I would receive a confirmation letter within 30 days.
As I tried to contact Citifinancial Corp and they had no information on this account, I began to panic. I was given another number for a company called OSI, whom my account was supposed to have possibly been sold to. OSI is now NCO Financial and they had no information that this account ever existed either. As I waited on hold, (after being passed around to aprox 7 customer service reps), I ran a search on ARA and found the complaint! In the last hour I have closed my checking account, (they have not yet processed my payment of $373.31-thank God!), and now have the tasks of changing my direct deposit information and ordering new checks which I just did a week ago. Don't trust this company!!!
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