Three months ago Melvin Stewart of Lowery Law Offices contacted my mother at her home claiming that I had an outstanding debt and that I had 24 hours to contact them or they would place a judgement against me. I immediately returned the call.
Mr. Stewart claimed that Lowery Law Offices was hired by Tribute Mastercard to collect a debt that I owed. He told me that I needed to pay the full amount immediately. I told him that I am a single mother and that I could not afford to pay the amount in full. He asked if I had any valuable property to sell or if I could borrow the money from a family member. I told him that wasn't an option.
He told me that he would talk to his supervisor and see what type of arrangement they could offer me. They told me that they would work with me if I could pay half the amount that I owed in 2 seperate payments by the end of October. Then I could pay a small monthly payment for the next 4 months.
I paid the first payment as agreed. Immediately a woman named Ms. Allen called me at work to tell me that I didn't hold up my end of the agreement because I didn't pay enough. I told her that I did pay what I was supposed to pay according to the agreement that I made with Mr. Stewart and I requested a statement of the debt in writing.
She said that they had no record of the agreement that I was claiming and that a Mr. Stewart wasn't employed there. I told her that I would continue to pay my payments as I had agreed. I paid the second payment as agreed. Ms. Allen continues to call me everyday (at work, home, and on my cell) to ask when my next payment will be made.
Each time I spoke to her I told her i would pay on my due date. I have finally stopped returning her calls because she is so rude. Today I tried searching for a website for Lowery Law Offices. I found complaint instead. I read every report listed for this company. I got really scared.
I pulled out an old statement from the original creditor for this account and called them to get some information. I found out that Lowery Law Offices / Collect America does not represent them. They did not sell my account off to them. The sold my account off to another company.
I contacted that company as well. They are not affiliated with Lowery Law Offices and they have not sold my account off to them either.
I pulled my annual credit report and noticed that right before Mr. Stewart contacted me Collect America had ran my credit report. I think that this company is obtaining peoples information and running their credit report and using that information to make false accounts.
I think they pulled my report, saw that I had a past due credit card, and used that information to create an account to scam me into paying them. I guess my next question is what do I do from here?
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