800-900-1372

NO COLLECTION AGENCY CAN JUST CALL AND SAY PAY NOW OR ELSE..

This website will help as well http://www.collectorsexposed.com/forum2/index.php



They have to PROVIDE documentation in a letter via US MAIL within 5 days of FIRST CONTACT - it is REQUIRED BY LAW.  

CA'S THAT USE ILLEGAL TACTICS TO COLLECT DEBTS - USUALLY MEANS THEY CAN'T PROVE THE DEBT IS OWED BY YOU or anyone else for that matter.


THE CORRECT WAY TO HANDLE COLLECTION CALLS AND ILLEGAL TACTICS

HANDLE IT CORRECTLY AND THEY WILL END UP PAYING YOU

READ DEALING WITH DEBT COLLECTORS, RECORDING CALLS  AND STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS BY STATE

Debt Collectors DO NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW THIS INFORMATION!    

The INFORMED CONSUMER IS THE DEBT COLLECTORS WORST ENEMY!

Dealing with Debt Collectors
http://www.budhibbs.com/First.htm
    
Statute of Limitations by State – always double check YOUR OWN STATE Government Website
http://www.budhibbs.com/statute_of_limitations.htm


Recording calls from Debt Collectors - always double check YOUR OWN STATE Government Website
http://www.budhibbs.com/record.htm


From Federal Trade Commission Website – FAIR DEBT COLLECTION PRACTICES ACT
Debt Collection FAQs: A Guide for Consumers
If you’re behind in paying your bills, or a creditor’s records mistakenly make it appear that you are, a debt collector may be contacting you.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency, enforces the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), which prohibits debt collectors from using abusive, unfair, or deceptive practices to collect from you.
Under the FDCPA, a debt collector is someone who regularly collects debts owed to others. This includes collection agencies, lawyers who collect debts on a regular basis, and companies that buy delinquent debts and then try to collect them.
Here are some questions and answers about your rights under the Act.

What types of debts are covered?
The Act covers personal, family, and household debts, including money you owe on a personal credit card account, an auto loan, a medical bill, and your mortgage. The FDCPA doesn’t cover debts you incurred to run a business.

Can a debt collector contact me any time or any place?
No. A debt collector may not contact you at inconvenient times or places, such as before 8 in the morning or after 9 at night, unless you agree to it. And collectors may not contact you at work if they’re told (orally or in writing) that you’re not allowed to get calls there.

How can I stop a debt collector from contacting me?
If a collector contacts you about a debt, you may want to talk to them at least once to see if you can resolve the matter – even if you don’t think you owe the debt, can’t repay it immediately, or think that the collector is contacting you by mistake. If you decide after contacting the debt collector that you don’t want the collector to contact you again, tell the collector – in writing – to stop contacting you. Here’s how to do that:
Make a copy of your letter. Send the original by certified mail, and pay for a “return receipt” so you’ll be able to document what the collector received. Once the collector receives your letter, they may not contact you again, with two exceptions: a collector can contact you to tell you there will be no further contact or to let you know that they or the creditor intend to take a specific action, like filing a lawsuit. Sending such a letter to a debt collector you owe money to does not get rid of the debt, but it should stop the contact. The creditor or the debt collector still can sue you to collect the debt.

Can a debt collector contact anyone else about my debt?
If an attorney is representing you about the debt, the debt collector must contact the attorney, rather than you. If you don’t have an attorney, a collector may contact other people – but only to find out your address, your home phone number, and where you work. Collectors usually are prohibited from contacting third parties more than once. Other than to obtain this location information about you, a debt collector generally is not permitted to discuss your debt with anyone other than you, your spouse, or your attorney.

What does the debt collector have to tell me about the debt?
Every collector must send you a written “validation notice” telling you how much money you owe within five days after they first contact you. This notice also must include the name of the creditor to whom you owe the money, and how to proceed if you don’t think you owe the money.

Can a debt collector keep contacting me if I don’t think I owe any money?
If you send the debt collector a letter stating that you don’t owe any or all of the money, or asking for verification of the debt, that collector must stop contacting you. You have to send that letter within 30 days after you receive the validation notice. But a collector can begin contacting you again if it sends you written verification of the debt, like a copy of a bill for the amount you owe.

What practices are off limits for debt collectors?
Harassment. Debt collectors may not harass, oppress, or abuse you or any third parties they contact. For example, they may not:
    use threats of violence or harm;
    publish a list of names of people who refuse to pay their debts (but they can give this information to the credit reporting companies);
    use obscene or profane language; or
    repeatedly use the phone to annoy someone.

False statements. Debt collectors may not lie when they are trying to collect a debt. For example, they may not:
    falsely claim that they are attorneys or government representatives;
    falsely claim that you have committed a crime;
    falsely represent that they operate or work for a credit reporting company;
    misrepresent the amount you owe;
    indicate that papers they send you are legal forms if they aren’t; or
    indicate that papers they send to you aren’t legal forms if they are.

Debt collectors also are prohibited from saying that:
    you will be arrested if you don’t pay your debt;
    they’ll seize, garnish, attach, or sell your property or wages unless they are permitted by law to take the action and intend to do so; or
    legal action will be taken against you, if doing so would be illegal or if they don’t intend to take the action.

Debt collectors may not:
    give false credit information about you to anyone, including a credit reporting company;
    send you anything that looks like an official document from a court or government agency if it isn’t; or
    use a false company name.

Unfair practices. Debt collectors may not engage in unfair practices when they try to collect a debt. For example, they may not:
    try to collect any interest, fee, or other charge on top of the amount you owe unless the contract that created your debt – or your state law – allows the charge;
    deposit a post-dated check early;
    take or threaten to take your property unless it can be done legally; or
    contact you by postcard.

Can I control which debts my payments apply to?
Yes. If a debt collector is trying to collect more than one debt from you, the collector must apply any payment you make to the debt you select. Equally important, a debt collector may not apply a payment to a debt you don’t think you owe.

Can a debt collector garnish my bank account or my wages?
If you don’t pay a debt, a creditor or its debt collector generally can sue you to collect. If they win, the court will enter a judgment against you. The judgment states the amount of money you owe, and allows the creditor or collector to get a garnishment order against you, directing a third party, like your bank, to turn over funds from your account to pay the debt.
Wage garnishment happens when your employer withholds part of your compensation to pay your debts. Your wages usually can be garnished only as the result of a court order. Don’t ignore a lawsuit summons. If you do, you lose the opportunity to fight a wage garnishment.

Can federal benefits be garnished?
Many federal benefits are exempt from garnishment, including:
    Social Security Benefits
    Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Benefits
    Veterans’ Benefits
    Civil Service and Federal Retirement and Disability Benefits
    Service Members’ Pay
    Military Annuities and Survivors’ Benefits
    Student Assistance
    Railroad Retirement Benefits
    Merchant Seamen Wages
    Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Death and Disability Benefits
    Foreign Service Retirement and Disability Benefits
    Compensation for Injury, Death, or Detention of Employees of U.S. Contractors Outside the U.S.
    Federal Emergency Management Agency Federal Disaster Assistance
But federal benefits may be garnished under certain circumstances, including to pay delinquent taxes, alimony, child support, or student loans.

Do I have any recourse if I think a debt collector has violated the law?
You have the right to sue a collector in a state or federal court within one year from the date the law was violated. If you win, the judge can require the collector to pay you for any damages you can prove you suffered because of the illegal collection practices, like lost wages and medical bills. The judge can require the debt collector to pay you up to $1,000, even if you can’t prove that you suffered actual damages. You also can be reimbursed for your attorney’s fees and court costs. A group of people also may sue a debt collector as part of a class action lawsuit and recover money for damages up to $500,000, or one percent of the collector’s net worth, whichever amount is lower. Even if a debt collector violates the FDCPA in trying to collect a debt, the debt does not go away if you owe it.

What should I do if a debt collector sues me?
If a debt collector files a lawsuit against you to collect a debt, respond to the lawsuit, either personally or through your lawyer, by the date specified in the court papers to preserve your rights.

Where do I report a debt collector for an alleged violation?
Report any problems you have with a debt collector to your state Attorney General’s office (www.naag.org) and the Federal Trade Commission (www.ftc.gov). Many states have their own debt collection laws that are different from the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. Your Attorney General’s office can help you determine your rights under your state’s law.

For More Information
To learn more about debt collection and other credit-related issues, visit www.ftc.gov/credit and MyMoney.gov, the U.S. government’s portal to financial education.
The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint or to get free information on consumer issues, visit ftc.gov or call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357); TTY: 1-866-653-4261. The FTC enters consumer complaints into the Consumer Sentinel Network, a secure online database and investigative tool used by hundreds of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad
February 2009

File complaints with

Federal Trade Commission  https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en

Your State Attorney General
State Attorney General is every state they have offices

Link to all State Attorney General Websites www.naag.org

If you or they are located in NY – use this SPECIAL Link  www.NYDebtHelp.com
This special website was created by NY AG Andrew Cuomo specifically for reporting illegal debt collection practices.  HE’S CRACKING DOWN AND SHUTTING THEM DOWN!
    
Also report your calls and contacts with debt collectors at http://www.budhibbs.com/index.html  If the company is listed under agencies – report there. If not on the list YET, click on Watchlist! and add to the list.   You can also post here http://www.collectorsexposed.com/forum2/index.php?board=2.0

Thanks for a much more detailed response to this poster's request Lamet!

they're calling my cell number (which i've had for at least 4 yrs) for someone else! they call on sat or sun when i can't get a person to tell them they have the wrong freaking number!

I recieved this call everyday and many times a day. I don't know whose number.

I' m just used this number for 3 weeks.

How should I do?

Everyone that has a problem with these scumbags calling them repeatedly, trying to collect from someone you do not know, or for any other inappropriate reason, should complain to the FCC at the following weblink:

http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm

Choose the type of complaint:
I chose the 3rd option for "Telemarketing, Prerecorded Calls, & DO NOT CALL"

and follow directions to file Online Complaint.  It took me less than a few minutes.  

When the FCC gets enough complaints, it's like the IRS auditing you.  But this only works if they get enough complaints.  They can have the phone company disconnect their lines and fine the Hell out of them.  They can also file an injunction against Penn from using automated dialers.

At the very minimum, it will cause the executives to have to reply, to every complaint filed with documentation of why they called, who they were calling, where they received the information that the number dialed was the appropriate number, what efforts are taken to remove incorrect numbers.  And, better yet, they will have to provide info on their auto dialer, including how many people select "3" & how many of those actually reach a live person.

Then go to:

https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

Click the Box on the left labeled "FTC Complaint Assistant."  Follow directions and create another bureacratic nightmare for these jerks.

They got my cell phone number somehow for a wrong person. I have been receiving automated voice message for three weeks ONLY during weekend when nobody is available. Finally I could reach to a person and asked to get rid of my phone number. But about two hours later, I still got the same phone call asking me pay the debt!!!! I had to repeat the same message to a different person. She said she will remove my phone number then quickly hung up while I was still on the phone. They treat me as if I am a person on debt and act very rude.

stop the automated calls to my number.  You are harassing me and I am fed up with it.

I get calls from these guys all the time too. Have no idea what it is for, I don't owe anybody any money, no unpiad traffic tickets, medical bills etc. Sounds like phone spam to me. When I call back, all I get is a busy signal.

Here is a suggestion: Make a 2 minute long recording on your voice mail (everybody has voice mail these days right??) so they have to hold for 2 minutes before they can deliver their message.

Check your caller ID, when their number comes up, don't answer, let the machine do the work.

Contrary to what the employees of that company who have posted here have said, they will go away in time especially when they are frustrated with their inability to get through.

I am sure that in most cases their calls are bogus. If it does land on your credit report, you can have it removed easily.

You can also file a complaint against them for  harassment. Authorities have resources to reach these maggots better than you or I have.

Called at 10:30am, the message left on my voicemail was cut (as in the automated message started when voicemail picked up, not when voicemail started recording).  The automated message asked "Goodline, Gilbert" to press 1 to hear an important message and to call back, didn't leave who called nor why. I have no idea who this Gilbert person is and I've had this number for over 10 years!

Got a call from this number. They asked for someone who doesn't even life here and I have never heard of before-LOL! I told them that and the person insinuated that I was lying. I asked this person (a female) for her name, the nameof the company and demanded to speak to her supervisor, CLICK, she hung up.

Whoever these people are, they are veru unprofessional, rude and total [***].

I am not short on words, so please bear with the length of this letter. First and foremost, Penn Credit's pouty attempt to construct a creative response to my previous letter was absolutely pitiful. Really, Penn Credit, stringing together a bunch of solecistic insults and seemingly random babble is hardly effective. It simply proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that knowledge is the key that unlocks the shackles of bondage. That's why it's important for you to know that I see how important Penn Credit's disgraceful, tactless hijinks are to its faithfuls and I laugh. I laugh because if you think that this is humorous or exaggerated, you're wrong. I, hardheaded cynic that I am, find that some of Penn Credit's choices of words in its crusades would not have been mine. For example, I would have substituted "brain-damaged" for "ultraphotomicrograph" and "meddlesome" for "phoneticogrammatical." The truth hurts, doesn't it, Penn Credit? I had a conversation recently with some unprincipled prevaricators who were trying to intensify race hatred. That conversation convinced me that Penn Credit is addicted to the feeling of power, to the idea of controlling people. Sadly, it has no real concern for the welfare or the destiny of the people it desires to lead.

Penn Credit's worshippers employ carefully developed psychological techniques to influence the attitudes of dominant culture towards any environment or activity that is predominantly cacodemonic. In reaching that conclusion, I have made the usual assumption that I certainly have a hard time trying to reason with people who remain calm when they see Penn Credit guarantee the destruction of anything that looks like a vital community. Penn Credit has declared that it's staging a revolt against everyone who wants to institute change. Penn Credit's revolting all right; the very sight of it turns my stomach. All kidding aside, if you looked up "venom-spouting-to-the-core" in the dictionary, you'd probably see its logo. I call this phenomenon "Penn Credit-ism". The same might be said of irrational, mischievous pillocks. The problem is, if you're the type who dares to think for yourself, then you've probably already determined that Penn Credit thinks it's good that its convictions weaken family ties. It is difficult to know how to respond to such monumentally misplaced values, but let's try this: I plan to hinder the power of asinine insurrectionists like it. This is a choice I have made; your choice is up to you. But let me remind you that Penn Credit insists that individual worth is defined by race, ethnicity, religion, or national origin. Sorry, Penn Credit, but, with apologies to Gershwin, "it ain't necessarily so." I'm sorry if I've gotten a little off track here, but if I were a complete sap, I'd believe Penn Credit's line that statism can quell the hatred and disorder in our society. Unfortunately for it, I realize that Penn Credit's callow game of chess -- the ultra-uppity chess of cynicism -- has continued for far too long. It's time to checkmate this malodorous pickpocket and show it that its apparatchiks are tools. Like a hammer or an axe, they are not inherently evil or destructive. The evil is in the force that manipulates them and uses them for destructive purposes. That evil is Penn Credit, who wants nothing less than to canonize fatuitous fast-buck artists as nomological emblems of propriety.

Penn Credit is utterly dotty. We all are, to some extent, but it sets the curve. As I've said in the past, Penn Credit's sympathizers insist that Penn Credit can achieve its goals by friendly and moral conduct. I say to them, "Prove it" -- not that they'll be able to, of course, but because every time Penn Credit tries, it gets increasingly successful in its attempts to force some to live by restrictive standards not applicable to others. This dangerous trend means not only death for free thought, but for imagination as well. We must inculcate in the reader an inquisitive spirit and a skepticism about beliefs that Penn Credit's trained seals take for granted. As mentioned above, however, that is not enough. It is necessary to do more. It is necessary to make Penn Credit answer for its wrongdoings. I close this letter along the same lines it opened on: Penn Credit plants false evidence to incriminate its adversaries.

This number keeps calling my cell phone and hanging up and never leaves a msg and wont stop

they just called my house, and I do not deal with QVC at all.

it was an attempt to collect a past due debt to QVC

I would take action as soon as you can against this "Penn Credit Corp" place. They have been after me for a school bill that was paid in full months ago. I filed a complaint against them through the BBB, and I sugest everyone who has been contacted by them do the same. They are trying to scam you! And it could be affecting your credit.

This is a collection agency called Penn State collecting for Vonage when they called me.
I am sure they have other clients.

I got a really nice lady, I had lots of trouble with Vonage and chose to get a Magic Jack which gives me better service and is 1000% cheaper!!

this number has been calling me like crazy, they never leave a message tho. i dont know who it is because i usually let voicemail pick up my calls. its getting ridiculous.

Penn Credit Corporation
916 S 14th Street
Harrisburg, PA 17108

very nasty woman on the phone...she hung up on ME!   Bad form!

Get calls from this number on my cell frequently, but no one ever talks. The line is always silent.
I just got this number and still get calls for the previous owner and assume it is connected to that.

First it was the garbled auto messages.  Then I called back and an idiot who could barely speak english tried to tell me that I had to provide personal bank info and set up a payment plan.  When I asked why he immediately became abusive and started threatening to ruin my credit.  

I informed him that if there was an outstanding debt then I required full disclosure in writing before I would even consider giving them a dime.  His response was "Fine I'm putting that down as a refusal. You're going to court."
Of course NOTHING HAPPENED. because it's a scam.

The calls stopped for three weeks.  Then started again.  I informed the caller that no financial information was ever provided and until they do provide full info on the supposed debt they can go to hell.  

Still no info on the supposed debt other then the obnoxious, abusive phone calls from thugs making idle threats.  I finally changed my number and haven't heard a word from them since.