Beginning two weeks ago I began receiving calls from an agency stating that I needed to call them back immediately. After two or three calls, I finally spoke with someone and realized that it was a collections agency. They were demanding payment for an outstanding balance of roughly 0 at a radiology clinic from February 2006. I was completely puzzled by this because A) so much time had passed and B) I was pretty sure I had paid that years ago. I asked them to send me a letter in writing that they were attempting to collect a debt. They denied my request and said that I should contact the clinic for details on the debt. I was traveling on business but made plans to contact the clinic as soon as I returned to my office. In the course of the next week, the collections agency called me at least two additional times, sometimes as late as 8:00PM at night. I kept telling them that I needed to talk to the right person at the clinic before I could commit to any type of payment arrangement on the 0 balance.

Finally I was able to speak to someone at the clinic this morning that handled their "delinquent accounts." I asked why I was being contacted all of the sudden about this account nearly 4 years after the fact and she explained that they had recently switched collections agencies from company A to company B. She was not very pleasant and insisted that this was an outstanding balance and she was sorry that company A did not make the proper attempts to contact me to resolve this debt but that I was still responsible for the payment and that the clinic, through company B, would be taking legal action to collect this balance. I asked for a history and she rudely rattled off a timeline of letters that were sent to an old address and some calls that were made around the time of February 2007.

I told her that it was absurd that I was being contacted out of the blue after so much time had passed and they were demanding immediate payment. I asked why it had not been covered by insurance and she said that the total balance had been somewhere around 00 and that insurance had covered roughly 0, leaving me with the 0 deductible. I told her that I was certain I had paid this and she rudely repeated the timeline and insisted that the balance was still outstanding.

Finally, after placing me on hold several times, I was transferred to someone else at the clinic who deals with delinquent accounts and the collections agencies. We went through all of the same stuff that I had discussed with the previous lady. She too insisted that this was an outstanding debt and that company B would likely be taking legal actions to collect. When I kept insisting on more details regarding the history, she finally put me on hold to contact company A. She came back several minutes later and her demeanor had changed completely. The debt had been settled in full several years ago with Company A and when they recently switched agencies they had mistakenly sent it as an outstanding debt to Company B.

Obviously, I’m glad to know that this is finally resolved and I do not in fact owe 0+ dollars. My question is, do I have any recourse against the clinic or the agencies for harassing me and attempting to collect this debt that essentially did not even exist?
But isn’t it a violation to not send a written notice within 5 days of initial contact?

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Also do you know of any bankruptcy lawyers in the Western PA area?

Basically I went into debt consolidation through a non profit organization. I paid them one monthly payment and they dispersed it to all 3 of my creditors.

They have had problems with American Express accepting a proposal, or accepting a proposal then a month later saying no they wanted more than that. So basically they defaulted my account 2 times for this proposal problems and now they want immediate payment of ,300. I do not have that kind of money. I go to school full time, live it at home, drive a car owned by my mom, and work a part time job.

I have tried compromising with them, but they won’t budge. And my mom won’t bail me out because she feels I need to fix this myself. I know bankruptcy is a major step but I am just trying to look at all of my options.
Also if you know of anyone who has gone through a similar situation with American Express let me know. I would love someone to talk to about this.

Technorati Tags: american express, bankruptcy lawyers, creditors, debt consolidation, drive a car, full time, immediate payment, mom, money, non profit organization, part time job, proposal, western pa area