I had gotten phone calls all last week from a company called Allied Interstate. I have never heard of this company before, but I have seen the name on our caller ID. We have never thought to answer it because we have just refinanced our home. So we just figured it was another company looking for us to barrow money from them. They called again and I answered the phone a man told me that they had been trying to collect a past debt from Verizon of $149.00 for a number we had when we lived in Sturgis Michigan in 1999.
What was weird was that they gave me the phone number, and my social security number, and my address I have now. Because in 1999 we moved to White Pigeon when we put this house up on the land we bought. This man wanted me to give him an answer right on the spot and I told him I had to talk to my husband before any decisions could be made. I also told him that there was no way we owed that money because we had gotten a loan to pay off all our debts and that the bank had checked all of the collections agencies, but however we never let our phone bills go that long to end up in collections. I asked him to send us a bill. He then got defensive and told me that they do not send duplicate bills that they had sent one out three months prier to this call. I told him we wanted to see the bill we are supposed to owe. I would not give him an answer.
The next morning a lady called me from Allied Interstate and wanted me to send the money again. I told her that we were going to get our taxes done and that if we owed the bill we would pay in full when we got the taxes back. She wanted to know when and that was a ridicules question because we did not get our W2's back yet, so I could give her an answer as of yet. So she gave me her number and her extension number with her name, but I cannot find that paper anywhere.
I got thinking and more and more suspicious of what I was told by them. So I called Verizon myself, and got old billing. Amazing they told me that the only over due bill I had was for 94 cents. And they dropped it because it was so little. I then asked them if I did have an over due bill, where would they send it. They told me they would have sold my information and bill to (Palisades). I asked them if they could give me that number so I could call them to see if it were there. They did, and I called Palisades myself. I told them what was going on and they looked to see if I had a bill from Verizon, they had three people with the same name as mine, but not a matching Social Security number. EMAGINE THAT! So I then asked them if they would have sold my information to Allied Interstate. They said no Mam we are a collection agency for Verizon. If I were you I would not pay them anything. I then called my Attorney, and he told me to start by calling the nearest police, which in my case would be the county Sheriff.
It pays to do your homework. If your suspicious of a bill collector hold on to any information they give you and call the person who the bill was for in the first place. Makes me wonder how many collections we have paid that were rip offs. From now on I am going to check everything out first.
I hope this helps some people.
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