In the past few days I have received voicemail and a"tax season settlement offer" letter from Portfolio Recovery Associates (PRA), a collection agency on behalf of "MBNA America Bank/Bank of America", to pay an alledge defaulted loan I tookin March and that I have absolutely no knowledge about.
On Feb 28th I received a voicemail from a lady by the name of Victoria (1-800-383-8013 ext. 22758) to call Portfolio Recovery Associates. Five days later on March 3 I received a "tax season settlement offer" letter to settle a debt of $1500 owed to Bank of America (BOA) by paying $1200 offer expiring late March.
As per Ms. Victoria I took out a loan 8 years ago and paid it on time for 6 years and because I did not paid it off the last 2 years I defaulted thus PRA is acting as a collector for this debt. To begin I have no knowledge about this loan, nor have I ever banked at BOA, obviously I denied the debt as I was dumbfounded so I asked Ms. Victoria to provide me with documentation (proof of payments made by me during those 6 years, proof of the actual loan documents) proving the alledge credit line loan I took. First she said it was a credit line later a credit card debt and failed to fulfill my request by faxing the supporting documentation.
What concerns me is that she had access to my personal information including social security and credit report, all the rest of the information on the report was accurate except the alledge BOA loan. And used it to refute my request for proof of documentation.
My gut feeling told me this was a scam and that I might be victim of identity theft. What startles me is how can PRA just pin a debt on me without providing any documentation as I dispute it. She even when to say that there will be inquiries from PRA on my credit report that will lower my score and will be done periodically untill I pay off this (bogus) debt.
I'm sad that my credit history is now tarnished but will continue to have good faith and pay off all my authentic creditors but PRA will never see a dime from me!
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