Beware of the Afni Collections Fraud
While sorting through my mail this weekend, I received a collection notice from Afni Inc. for a Verizon bill when I moved out of New York, which was about two years ago. I can still remember clearly that I shut off my home phone service before I moved and even received some credits back. I even called several times to make sure that I didn’t owe them anything.
Today I tried to call Verizon to verify the bill, but the damn representatives kept putting on one automated answer machine to the next. They couldn’t even pointed me to one person that I could talk to about the matter. Verizon’s fucking sucks and I am stuck with them because most of my family members are on Verizon.
I couldn’t reach Verizon so I called Afni Collections to ask for the creditor information. About two minutes into the conversation, the fucker from Afni was ready to bite my ear off. He stated that I owe Verizon and now he’s handling the collection not Verizon. I told him “I am done with this shit” and hung up the phone.
I went online and found that many people had been targeted with the same scam. Some people was hit with the collection even though they never were a Verizon customer.
I did what folks have suggested: dispute the claim and validation of the debt. I sent them a letter with certified mail. Let’s wait and see how things go.
i don’t know what’s up with your situation but it sounds like the general class of scams they try to people on retired people. For example, i vaguely remember my dad receiving a bill for a magazine he’s never seen before. he wanted to just pay it because he didn’t want to risk collections for some insignificant amount but i showed him complaints people had filed online and i think i ended up sending a stern letter to the billing address or something. never heard from them back.
it seems to me there’s two kinds of scams that most prevalent in bill collections. on one hand, there are the scams that send you (and thousands of others) a bill know the that some percentage will pay up then there’s the scams where a secondary collections firm buys “uncollectable” debt for pennies on the dollar and aggressively tries to collect the debt by any means.
perhaps your info got sold or mixed up in a database of outstanding debt owed to one of these collections agencies that usually aren’t known for their customer service.
probably the best thing to do is what you’re doing now. you might want to consider sending a registered letter to both the verizon customer service concerning your old account and the collections people disputing their claim.
Nothing to di with the subject, but Donny u really should check this:
http://bee.net.vn/channel/1988/200911/Nua-dem-dao-mo-om-xac-vo-ngu-suot-7-nam-1730438/
Wow, that is something!