Yahoo! Finance has a horrible story about a 61 year old lady living on $759 a month Social Security whose credit card was stolen and it ended up with the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) deciding she owed them $46,000.
When she received notice of pending arbitration against her, it had no claim attached to it. She didn’t even know who was suing her. She sent a letter asking for the case to be dismissed or to be served with an actual claim. She didn’t hear from them again until NAF told her they had ruled against her for $46,000. They didn’t even respond to her motion.
Takeaway: Scan your monthly credit card statements for any charges you don’t remember making and report them as soon as possible. Also, arbitration by companies against consumers is evil. Support the Arbitration Fairness Act.
Stacking the Deck Against Consumers [Yahoo! Finance]
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@Buran: And for the record, when I say “verify the debt”, I don’t mean with the collections agency. They could give two sh*ts about how you (or someone else) racked up debt. She should’ve gone DIRECTLY to the bank. That’s where the mistake lies.
@pinkbunnyslippers: How hard is it to READ THE ARTICLE AGAIN and see that she DID try to verify it and WAS IGNORED, and so she did not send them a damn thing, as you do when you CAN’T CONFIRM THE LEGITIMACY OF A DEMAND. Wow, you really are as dense as everyone else thinks you are. Who the hell else are you supposed to contact if not the ones who claim you owe money?!
@Buran: I’ve read the article plenty. She asked THE COLLECTIONS AGENCY:
“I said I wanted to see the signatures — who had signed for these purchases? And they wouldn’t give me that,” says Lieber. “They said, ‘You’re responsible, this is your credit card.’ I ignored them because I thought they were nuts.”
You don’t ask the collections agency – you ask the bank! The way that article is written, it leads me to believe she never reported the card stolen, never talked to the bank to verify that they had indeed outsourced the collection of debt to this agency.
The collections agency ignored her because THEY DON’T HAVE THE RECORDS. ONLY THE BANK DOES.
I’m not an idiot. I’m not dense. I’m reading the article the way it’s written. Show me where in the article she says “I contacted MBNA and they ignored me.”
Just to back up pinkbunnyslippers again on this one. The way the article reads to me – she asked the collection company for the information, not the credit card company. The collection company wouldn’t have the information she would want, hence the “It’s your card, that’s your responsibility” comment – it’s not the responsibility of the collection agency to get that information, and considering that the only way to be able to see who signed for stuff on your credit card is to explicitly ask the company for that information, the comment would not make sense if it had come from someone that was representing the credit card.
@bonzombiekitty: Thanks for the backup! I’m sorry I got all riled up. I just don’t respond well to people calling me dense!
I’m done with arguing. Buran and I will agree to disagree and leave it at that.
Am I the only one that thinks it strange that someone making so little money has a $46k+ limit on her CC?
While it’s often frustrating to read people missing your point, the louder a post, the more likely it’ll be tuned out. Best to keep a cool head in discussion.
@magus_melchior:
Well put — thanks.
Let’s ease up on the caps lock, ok folks?
@pinkbunnyslippers: If collections agencies are hounding her the bank no longer holds the account. Or do you not read other articles on debt collectors, either?
@bonzombiekitty: See my latest post for an explanation. Guess past articles on debt collectors and how people have contacted the original lender and been told “you don’t owe us anymore, we can’t help you” went over certain heads.
What good does it do to contact someone who CAN’T HELP YOU ANYMORE?
Commenting on what is a written “sound byte” of an arbitration story
The story doesn’t clarify that the victim was accused of being
responsible for $46,000 in actual card charges, fraudulent or
otherwise, just that’s what a credit card’s hired arbiter ruled she
owed.
While I was recently hospitalized through ER I came back to a credit
card with $2000 in just fees, tagged on to what I had owed before. I
also had a bank account with -950, all entirely from those light speed
NSF auto pay denials I was unable to turn off while down. I was
grateful to be alive, and come home to…UGH!
Neither company actually lost anything in my own case, but I owe
them about $3000 for their “losses”. So with missing info in her story,
I don’t know if there’s more she could or should have done to avoid the
puppet court judgement. She could maybe have scanned her bills closer?
MY CC bills are in typically in a huge pile of ads and mail-order
catalogs. I see only a percentage of my actual paper statements in our
fine junk mail system. That’s why I set up auto pay (and got toasted
anyway). Typical I have other’s card statements and other’s mail too in
the 80%-90% mail sorting hits. These hardcore credit organizations use
US mail, which means they don’t care if you get your bill or not
really. Obviously it pays them more if you don’t see the bill, in the
end.
Consumers must be vigilant, no doubt, but with blind arbitration
ruling more and more of our lives, we have limits. People who are
smugly secure nothing like this could happen to them, are unaware
monsters are very real in American business. Real, scary, ugly,
monsters.
I would speculate this arbitration ruling to be heavily fee loaded,
including some big forced arbitration fees. The CC company may have
even suspected fraudulent charges on the card, but why should those
card companies really worry about their customers as current laws are,
when their customers misfortunes our often money in the bank to the CC
companies.
@Buran: My point is that she wanted information specific to the credit card account – i.e. who made the charges. A collection agency will not have that information. The credit card company should have that information on record. That’s still ignoring the fact that you don’t just ignore collection agencies saying you owe them a bunch of money.
Either way, she might be screwed. There are laws on the amount of time you have to object to a charge. I think you have 3 months to object to a fraudulent charge. If you failed to keep track of your own credit card that you signed up for, fraudulent charges were made on it, and you don’t object to the charges in the proper amount of time then really it’s your own fault.
Lesson of the day: Pay attention to your @*@#&*@ credit card statement.
@bonzombiekitty: She was an ID theft victim. She probably didn’t GET the statements. Crooks change the address on the bill so you won’t be alerted and close the account. That her fault too?
@bonzombiekitty: And you still aren’t acknowledging that she didn’t ignore them – THEY ignored HER – so she assumed it was a scam (smart).
@bonzombiekitty: If the collection agency bought the debt, it’s their responsibility to be able to prove that that debt is valid.
Of course, its a horrible story.The identity theft is now very common, we must be aware of.
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