I was contacted out of the blue by Cavalry saying they were a debt collector and that I needed to pay almost $400 or dispute the claim. Since I have NEVER had a Sprint account (the company they were collecting for), I called to get the claim resolved.
I soon found that this is where the problem got frustrating. When I gave them my personal information over the phone, they were shocked to find that none of the info matched the account they were chasing. While you would think that that would mean that they would stop pursuing me, that apparently is not the case with this company. I spoke with at least 4 consumer reps - ALL were rude and unhelpful, and I still have done nothing wrong.
They said that I had to fill out a fraud report and would send it within 10 days, as the claim needed to be filed within 30 days. I received the paperwork 3 weeks later. They want me to send just about all of my personal information through the mail - something that causes concern to a wary consumer. When you attempt to call their complaince department, you are put on hol for 10-15 minutes, only to be disconnected thereafter.
The only slightly upside of this situation is that if you call the Sprint people, they at least answer your questions. I still need to send the info in, but I have alerted the credit companies and told Sprint that I think Cavalry is disreputable, unreachable, and almost impossible to work with.
Apparently, they simply do a basic name serach when trying to locate someone - not a fair process for someone with as common a name as Smith. It would be nice if the BBB, FTC, whomever would mandate that these debt collection companies search by SSNs and stop placing unwanted and undeserved burdens and negative credit marks against good consumers.
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