income-related Qs from debt collectors..
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| Wed, 04-12-2006 - 3:23pm |
i have a few questions. but first, the story:
i had a $193 target bill that was supposed to be taken care of on march 14th. well, even though the unexpected bill wasn't 'budgeted', i took care of it (i.e. made the 500 necessary phone calls, paid check-by-phone, got a ref #, got the lady's name i talked to, the whole deal on the 14th).
WELLLLLL, last tuesday i received this notice from a different collection company telling me that i have NOT paid the bill. of course, i was BEYOND POd. so, i checked my bank acct and noticed that the money had actually not been taken out of my account yet. so i thought, well, i'll just call them, give the the ref number, and see what's up. so i call the company i paid. and NOOOOOOOOOOOO. apparently, like a week after i 'paid' these guys, target decided to buy back all of their accounts to put them into a new 'Target National Bank'. therefore, all of my info had been erased.
so here i am, given more phone numbers to call. so i finally talk to a living person (someone -btw- who barely speaks english) for the first time yesterday. so i try to explain to this girl the situation in the most simple way possible.. and she obviously could not have cared less. but anyway - i think i finally got through to her and got the stupid bill paid for. and i made sure to talk to a supervisor to get TWO references along with my conf #. and i checked this morning and the funds had been drafted from my acct. let's hope that took care of it. UGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
so to rant for a moment here: if this kind of stuff happens often.. and somehow they just 'lost' my REFERENCE number and/or their clients info is 'erased' (their words, not mine).. WTH does that say about these companies?? maybe it's THEIR fault that they are not getting their 'collections'.. and/or are not getting them ON TIME!!!!!!!!!!!
but anyway - so here are my questions (and some i should probably know the answer to by now, so i apologize in advance for asking but): i was asked a ton of info about where i work, my income, if i have a car and insurance payment, my apt rent.. and i tried to tell the truth about everything. was that what i should have done? i didn't feel comfortable giving all that info out to a company that i just paid off completely and closed an acct with and hope to NEVER EVER have to deal with again; but i wasn't sure i could deny them info like that. the only thing i didn't include was that i work a 2nd part-time job. (i didn't calculate those earnings into my monthly income).
so what exactly do these people do with that info?? should i have been completely truthful?? i never know how to handle 'income-related' questions..
and also, the first company that i talked to and 'paid' told me that now that i had taken care of the bill; it would come off of my credit record. i was beyond ecstatic b/c this bill was actually the only 'negative' i had on my credit report (i checked it in the beginning of march). but the second company that i *actually* paid made no mention of this. does that mean that their policy might be different and that this bill that i DID TRY to pay on time will now be against me because THEY 'switched' companies, 'lost' my ref number, and 'erased' my info???
TIA
~k

Relax. You didn't do anything wrong by giving out that information, although I would strongly advise against it in the future. They collect that info for skip-tracing purposes...in the collection world, banks/companies/creditors call each other to find people they are trying to collect from. You are not required to give out that info. In fact, I make it a practice now to refuse ALL non-relevant info due to identity theft risks. Creditors can get all the info they need from your credit reports. They don't need to know the name of your car insurance company or the # of your bank accounts!!!
The bottom line is that you are in their "system" now, and your name and information will probably be sold to every Tom, Dick, & Harry in the credit world, who will soon start sending you loads of credit applications and insurance offers in the mail. (You can try to avoid this by taking your name off the marketing lists...see www.ftc.gov for more info on that.)
As for your credit report, they probably won't remove it. You will need to check your credit reports (all 3) in a couple of months to see if it's still there. Then you can dispute it and have it removed. It will probably be pretty easy. If not, there is a lot of information in the debt questions board.
Hope this helps....Good luck to you!