In November I was contacted at my work by CAMCO. This was my first interaction with this company and it was with a person by the name of Sara Nelson, rude, loud, abnoxious, tacky, Sara Nelson. This phone call came a shock to me, she was calling about a debt from 11 years ago that was included in a BK. After listnening to this loud mouth ignorant person yell at me I hund the phone up made a note of the incident and continued on my day. A few days later at my home I was contacted again by a much nicer more polite gentleman that basically convinced me that my time was worth more than the $200 that he offered me to settle this debt, which I agreed with. That day I paid this settlement with a check by phone and again went on with my day.
On October 27 I received a phone call from some Willie or Johnny Somebody from... Camco. He started the conversation with "last year you settled a debt with us in the amount of $200 now something else has come up and I will assure you that this will be the last time you will ever be contacted by us let me get my supervisor Michelle on the phone to see what she can do to help you settle this debt." In other words let me transfer your call to the cubical next to me so we can split the commission.
Michelle Taylor came on the line and basically presented me with a $705 settlement offer. $200 was one thing now $705, suddenly it seemed to be more of a shake down situation. I was at work, I told her I would have to talk to my husband about this and she would have to call me at home later that evening. She helpfully added, I have your bank account information from your past payment that I can use to process this payment. I told her "no, if I am going to pay it it would not be from that account." She agreed to call me later.
After I let the scenerio sink in a bit I had decided that I would not pay anything to Camco before doing some more research in to my rights and Camco. Michelle never called me again and on October 31 a check by phone was sent to my bank for $705.89 by Camco, WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. This company went into my household account and stole our money. Thankfully caught this right away and the bank was able to return my money the next morning.
Yes, when I was 19, in 1989, I got myself into a financial frenzy and I resolved it the only way I could have at the time with a BK. Did I haul around records for 7 years? Yes. 15 Years? No. Did I thoroughly check my paperwork to make sure every debt was included? Probably not, I was 19; this was the justification process I went through when I settled in 2003.
None the less, this company cannot steal money from me, under no circumstance. First incident - shame on you, Second - shame on me. This morning I filed complaints online with the Attorney General's Public Inquiry Unit and the Federal Trade Commission.
The most frightening thing about this is this company will forever have all my financial information via my credit reports, the bank account I have obviously closed. I don't understand how collection agencies can have access to all of my financial information when I gave permission to a bank 10 years ago when the two companies have nothing to do with each other. How can this be legal?
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