In January of I purchased a '98 VW Jetta, which American Investment Bank financed. After purchasing the vehicle, my job required that I move to Miami, Florida. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I found myself in dire financial straights. I was unable to make my scheduled car payments and fell behind (3 months).
During my attempts to resolve the matter, get back on my feet and get my account with American Investment Bank up to date, obviously the last thing I wanted to do was let AIB know where I was so they could repossess my vehicle — because without a vehicle I would be unable to work. Once it became apparent that I would be unable to cure my past due balance, I called and had the company AIB had hired to come and get the vehicle. The vehicle was voluntarily turned over to AIB's representatives in early 2001.
During the time preceding my voluntary relinquishment of the vehicle, American Investment Bank engaged in criminal behavior by impersonating me in order to obtain my personal records so they could locate me and take the vehicle. One might wonder how they went about doing this. There are secrets in the collection business that most ordinary people know nothing about.
Any creditor, who has your social security number, may pull your credit in order to see who else has been looking at your credit.in other words, if anyone, anywhere pulls your credit for any reason, they can tell who pulled it and the location where it was pulled.
In my case, AIB did not know where I was located, so they pulled my credit to see if they could find me. They saw on my credit that I had recently applied to have electricity put in my name. They then proceeded to call the electric company and impersonate me (they had all my important personal information such as SSN, DOB, etc.) and obtained the address where I was living.
One might ask how I know for certain that they did this. Simple. First, I received a Federal Express envelope from AIB a rather strange occurrence considering I had intentionally withheld my address from them so that I could get caught up on my vehicle without getting it repossessed. The only way these people had of finding me was that I had opened an account with the electric company.
I pulled a copy of my credit report and you could actually see where the electric company had pulled my credit first and where AIB had pulled my credit approximately 5 weeks later. Not to mention the fact that I started receiving duplicate copies of my electric bill in the mail. When I called the electric company and asked them why they were sending me copies of my bill, they told me that I had called and requested them. Of course, I didn't but it does seem rather peculiar that I supposedly requested copies of my bill to be sent to me on the SAME DAY as AIB pulled my credit! There was a paper trail a mile long showing what this company was doing.
To top it all off, AIB also somehow obtained copies of my mother's telephone records. Can you believe that?! We know this for a fact because an attorney out of Atlanta, hired by AIB, called my mother and tried to tell her they knew where I was, that they even had my phone records. As he read off the calls to my mother, it was quickly apparent that they had given their attorney my mother's phone records! Of course, my mother was absolutely furious! The attorney, who found himself in a bee's nest, was stammering and trying to backtrack. He stated that he had never seen anything like that before and he seemed very taken aback by the whole thing.
Now, how AIB did this is beyond me, aside from having people who are paid on the inside to get that type of information - which is highly illegal. Did I owe AIB money? Of course I did. However, that did not clear AIB to engage in criminal behavior where AIB representatives impersonate the debtor in order to illegally obtain personal information. It certainly didn't clear AIB to invade my mother's privacy, who was in no way associated with the loan.
These types of business practices are illegal and against the FDCPA and numerous other rules and regulations but then AIB already knows this. Apparently, AIB simply feels they are above the law and untouchable. I am quite certain that I am not the only person that AIB has violated in this manner and I intend to file as many reports with as many organizations as I can to get the word out about AIB's shady and downright illegal business practices. Class action lawsuits tend to work rather well, especially against big corporations who behave as though the law does not pertain to them. All you have to do is look at the way that these types of lawsuits have turned out in the last few years.
Now, a message for AIB You can hunt me down until you are blue in the face. I don't care if you find me. It is apparent that AIB thinks they're very clever and that's fine. We all have our delusions. You can waste your time and energy finding me. But let me tell you what you will find if or when you locate me. I am unemployed and have been since mid and I will not be looking for employment for a long, LONG time, so there is nothing to garnish. I don't own anything, so there is nothing upon which to place a lien. So if you want to come after me, knock yourselves out.
By the way, how long is AIB going to keep the account open? AIB has already kept it open for over 3 years since selling the vehicle is AIB going to keep it open for the next 20 years? That CAN'T look very good on the books. Let me spell it out for you folks I will NEVER, EVER pay AIB one more penny than what I have already paid. Never.
Why? Your illegal business practices aside, I purchased the car for just over $10,000 and paid on the vehicle for one year. AIB took the car and obviously decided to sell the vehicle for nothing. There is no other way to explain the fact that AIB is claiming I owe them $15,000 after selling the vehicle — especially since VW Jetta's hold their value extremely well. The fact that AIB decided to handle the vehicle in this manner is not my problem.
If AIB is under the delusion that I will pay them $15,000 for a vehicle that I do not have, then I want some of the drugs they're taking. I will not pay AIB for a vehicle that I do not have and AIB can take that to the bank (pun very much intended).
0 comments