Shady loan company. Help!

TeDo

CD Hall of Fame
Get the Documentation from your bank for ALL payments taken out by the original company way back when. If their records differ from yours or doesn't have ALL the information on it (obvious making something up), bring it to their attention and tell them to prove your numbers are wrong, which they won't be because the bank has the proof and they will have to take it up with the bank. Also, since your bank is investigating them, let them know what you've done and keep them in the loop about everything at ALL times.

Sounds like you've got them wondering now. Hopefully they realize they aren't dealing with a cowering, wishy-washy, easily intimidated woman. Don the Warrior armor. Good job CB.
 

Californiablonde

Well-Known Member
Well I just received the statement. All it says is the amount I owe which is $966 (original loan was for $300) and my payment arrangement details, which basically states I am to be paying $75 with each bi monthly paycheck. No discussion about the original loan, etc.
 

Hopeless

....Hopeful Now
Definitely not enough details. I would want the original loan documents and payment amounts they say they received and dates, amount of your remaining balance they say you owe. Then get the withdrawals and dates from your bank for both of your accounts they took money from. I am pretty sure they won't agree.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Sorry, loan company. They need to be able to PROVE the ORIGINAL debt, not the phone thing. If they cannot prove the ORIGINAL debt, they cannot collect. They can attempt to go to court and sadly they might win. WHY? Most people don't show up to contest. most people who do show up do not have records of each conversation (be SURE to document name and ID info of person you spoke with, some co's won't give full names but if they don't they have to give an ID number of some kind, not just "Pam" or "Mr. Smith") or of the debts and how much was paid on the original debt.

IF you go to court and show you have asked them to PROVE the original debt with the original loan, and they cannot? Usually you walk out with-o owing a penny - they even pay court costs.

Your next move? Tell them they need to show you proof of the ORIGINAL debt, not some agreement you entered under duress. The duress was their threat of jail time and it makes the agreement invalid. They specifically called you at work, threatened to send someone to serve you or arrest you there, and they threatened you with prison time to get an agreement. This is illegal. SOme judges would throw out the entire amt owed just for that. I know, because I had a judge do this. I was the sixth case with the same creditor where one payment two days late ended up in court. NO clue how they even got it filed, but they tried to make sure I didn't know when the court date was, and I PROVED that they put the wrong addy on the notice and since it was done in every other case, plus they threatened all sorts of stuff, the judge was angry with them.

If they cannot show that you owe the original debt, how can they collect? Tell them your bank is investigating and it will take time, that you need to see the original paperwork on the debt and unless they can provide it, you will be waiting to speak to your bank and will consult an attorney. Again, tell them that they are NOT to call you and that ALL communication must be in writing so that there are no more misunderstandings or threats of prison etc.... Tell them that if they call you again, you will file a complaint with the Feds.
 

TeDo

CD Hall of Fame
Ditto what Hopeless said. They need to do more than send you a bill, which is basically what they did. Tell them you want proof of the amount owed. That means all the stuff Hopeless mentioned. I could send a bill to anyone I want but it won't prove diddly squat.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
300 bucks....this was a payday loan wasnt it? You can borrow up to $300 in CA for 1 month and the interest rate if you did it for that month is 212%!

However, they do try to tell you that by giving them that post dated check you can be arrested for writing a bad check. That is not true. The only thing you did was enter into a loan with them. Anytime you post date a check it becomes a promise to pay and not a bad check.
 

Mattsmom277

Active Member
The very fact that your total bill is standing at nearly a thousand dollars on a original loan of a few hundred, and that they have already seen how much money from you? It sounded like you've made quite a lot of payments ... well it all adds up to super shady regardless of if you closed the account. Even if you intentionally BURNED the paperwork, by telling them you no longer have the original contract and are NOT paying another cent NOR speaking to ANYONE until you get a copy of certain things, you cover your butt. To collect a debt and to go to court to enforce payment from you, they need to have the original contract paperwork, and the history of all payments made, outline of what penalty fees were added and why, interest charges as they accumulated etc. A court requires that proof, so if they can't provide it to YOU, they don't have it and won't be going to a court empty handed. Request all listed here, demand no more phone or email contact. Make it clear it must ALL be done in writing. Send any correspondence to them via registered mail so that they must sign for it. Keep a dated copy for yourself and attach a print out of the signature that accepts delivery of any mail from you. Don't put in useless chatter in any mail. Repeat the request for the list of documents OR a letter confirming indeed you ARE done paying and that the loan is no considered paid in full. Don't get worried about it, they aren't suing anybody for that amount of money, and certainly not with their shifty history which would need explaining in a court. You've got enough stress going on, don't let this all get you down. You'll get it settled, just stick to the mail only correspondence, head to your previous bank and get the payments history for what you did pay. About how much do you figure you paid already? I hate those dang pay day loan companies. Yes they come in handy in a jam. But the companies mostly tend to be very corrupt and this is exactly what they do to people and get away with because people panic and accept their threats. Don't fall for it. Keep cool about it and get them to cough up documents or go away.
 

LittleDudesMom

Well-Known Member
CB,

Please call them back. Tell them again very simple, "My records indicate that my last payment of $____ fulfilled the contract. If you show a balance owed on my account, I need a full statement then I will be glad to resume autopays. The paper you sent my yesterday is not a statement." Don't give any additional information, don't carry on a conversation, just state what you need and hang up politely.

What you are looking for is a statement that shows a line by line accounting of the original debt, your payments and the dates along with a running balance. It appears, with all the stuttering and stammering, they may not be on the up and up at this point....

Sharon
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I have known not only people who work for collection agencies, but also some people who have owned them. While many are reputable, many are not. It is quite common for an agency to buy a list of bad accounts and never see the original paperwork because the orig company lost it or can't be bothered. Then there are also agencies who buy lists of names of people with low credit and/or who have had accounts go to collections in the past. They invent a debt or find an old debt on a credit report and then with-o having ANY authority, they start demanding payments and threatening court proceedings. They come on very strong the way this co did, and then they backpedal FAST or drop out of sight when someone insists on a full statement. They can't ive that statement because there isn't a debt. Often there will be a pocket of agents in a large collection agency who do this and funnel the money to themselves or to make it appear that they are doing an awesome job. It is one thing I learned about from coworkers at a bank. One of my coworkers quit a collection agency job because he figured out that they didn't acttually own any debts that the people they were calling owed. It was part of a very large national bank that is one of them that got a giant bail out. His boss offered him half of all he collected on those fraudulent debts and he was tempted, but he stopped because he didn't want to ruin his future to try to steal a few hundered dollars a week.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Something like that happened to me. I went to settle some medical debts I owed from when I didnt have insurance and I finally got it backdated from 07 to 05. I started calling all the medical places that I owed money to and making arrangements to send them copies of my insurance card along with a copy of the paper from the insurance company stating that if they filed these old debts within 90 days the debts would be paid, however if they didnt, they would be required to write them off.

Suddenly I got a phone call from a collection agency telling me I had a dept from 1989 for a doctor's office I had never heard of in a city I had only lived in for a year. They did give one of my correct addresses in that city but I still didnt remember that doctor's office and the address they gave was my final address which would have been the last one I had on my driver's license before I moved from there. I was only at that address for about 4 months and I dont remember getting sick while at that address. I asked them what kind of doctor it was and they couldnt tell me, just repeated the name of the doctor which was quite the common name. I pointed out one flaw in his attempting to collect the debt. Well two actually. I hadnt received any collection notices from them in well over 5 years and I had never made a payment much less a payment in the last 5 years and I certainly wasnt going to start now which would have started their time limit over again. They were out of luck. If it was even my debt it should have been written off as a bad debt long ago. So sorry. I never heard from them again and when I pulled my credit report it was not on there.
 
Top