My wife received a letter from CAMCO yesterday informing her that she owed $2781.85 on a bad debt from 1991. This was not totally unrealistic, before we were married she had gone through a bad divorce and basically was stuck with all the bills and couldn't pay them all. It took us years to get her credit cleared up enough to buy a house, so seeing this letter was annoying to say the least. The company that had supposedly owned this debt was called Barclay. She had never heard of that company and it had been transferred to Midland Acquisition Corporation, before CAMCO purchased it. I am generally a skeptical person and this just didn't seem right, since we have bought one house and done two refinances and this debt had never popped up on any credit report.
My wife then calls and speaks to Beth Karl, who informs her the debt is valid and they have a affidavit from the government to back their claim. They couldn't provide any information on the debt and had a partial SSN, but could not get additional information because of the privacy act. What these people didn't know is that me and my wife are in the legal field, we don't practice law, but we are well versed in it. There were several things wrong with the conversation and my wife started doing research.
First of all, the debt is past the statute of limitations. Second, an affidavit sounds scaring, but to pursue collection they would need a judgment from a court in their favor. Third, they would need some sort of proof that the debt actually existed, i.E. The correct account number, bills from the originating company, something to say that you owe this money. My wife looked up Barclay on-line and discovered it was a bank in the United Kingdom, she looked up Midland Acquisitions and found nothing. Finally, she punched in CAMCO and this site popped up.
Never give up any information to someone you cannot identify and never agree to pay any amount of money without proof that you owe it. My wife sent a cease and desist letter to CAMCO today and cc the Attorney General for the State of California. She also sent it Certified with a Return Receipt Requested. Always a good idea when you are dealing with shady agencies. That way they can never say they didn't get it.
My wife asked me how companies like this get away with it. Most people get scared by the threats and don't want to deal with it, so they are more than willing to cough up a small portion of the original debt to make it go away. This is exactly how these businesses continue you to operate. Take my advice, you can never get in trouble for questioning the existance of anything you think is fraudulent and you need to protect yourself at all times.
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