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Weltman, Weinberg & Reis Is Abusive

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jul 27, 2008

I’ve been battling a collection agency for a couple of months now. The name of the company is Weltman, Weinberg, & Reis; I’m not afraid to give their name. I’m not afraid to give their name because I don’t owe anyone anything, and their own processes need to be brought out into the open. It’s been a long time since I talked about anything financial; it’s now time.

Many years ago, when I was just getting my business off the ground, I ran into some financial difficulties. Hey, it happens to many people, and I wasn’t alone. I soon fell way behind a lot of people, and of course the phone calls start. I got a lucky break, things started to happen, and I made deals with, and paid off, pretty much everyone. Some companies I got letters from, some I didn’t, but most of them showed up on my credit report as being satisfied, and I didn’t think of it again.

Until last October, when I was contacted by a collection agency about a balance that I knew I’d paid. I told them so, and within a week they sent me a letter saying they weren’t going to bother me again. I thought I was done with it all; I was wrong.

Over the next few months, I was contacted by three other companies looking for this same balance; the last one was Weitman, and they were different because they told me they were going to sue me. I started going through all my papers, looking for something, and of course I couldn’t find it. I was at my wit’s end; I knew I had paid it. I checked my credit report, and sure enough, that balance was still showing as open. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, other than possibly having to start making payments.

Talk about being lucky. I finally came across something which was my agreement letter that I’d made with the company at the time to pay them back. Sure enough, I had paid the balance in 2004. I had a name and number; I had some proof, thank goodness. I called that company, and they told me that they usually only kept records of paid accounts for 18 months, but that they would check their fiche for my records. They also showed that I didn’t have an open balance with them, which was in my favor because it meant I hadn’t reneged on any agreements with them. I asked them if they could fax me a letter to this effect, and they said they’d see what they could do.

It took two weeks. In between that time, I got another call from Weitman, and I told them what was going on. They said they’d give me 10 days. I finally got my fax, looked up a fax number online for Weitman, since they didn’t give me a fax number on their letter, which they finally did send, sent the fax, and figured everything was fine.

Nope; life just doesn’t work like that. I got another call while I was out of town saying they never got the fax. I told them I’d send it again when I got home, and I did. Their office was closed, but they said they’d contact me the next morning telling me it was received. I never received that call, but I wasn’t worried about it since I’d sent it to the number they told me it was supposed to go to.

Then Friday, once again, I get another call, and now I’m livid. I’ve sent it twice, and they’re telling me they didn’t get it. I told the guy I was going to send it immediately to whichever number he gave me, then I’d call him and tell him I’d sent it, and he could go get it. This started the next round of things that really got me irritated, and tells us all some things about how life works.

I sent the fax, called back, and they couldn’t get me to the guy. Matter of fact, they wanted me to leave my number and said someone would call me back. I said I didn’t trust them now, because of everything that had been going, and I got the runaround. I got transferred twice to someone else; I hung up and called back. The last woman I got I just didn’t want to get off the phone. We went back and forth for about 5 minutes, then I decided I’d just keep calling back every 2 minutes until I got the guy I wanted. i did just that; they got irritated, but I didn’t care; after all, that’s how they treat us, right?

I finally got him, and he said he went to look for the fax and they hadn’t gotten it; what the hey? I got a confirmation back and they didn’t get it? It’s a good thing I’m me, otherwise I’d have started yelling and cursing. Instead, I asked for a second fax number, said I was going to fax it to both of them, and I was also going to fax it to myself just to prove that it would come through.

I did fax it to myself, then I sent the same fax to both letters. I got my copy; the original letter sent from the other company might come through a bit dark, but it came through. I called the office and now the guy I wanted was at lunch; ugh. I wanted someone to go look for the fax, but they wouldn’t budge. Figures, because I was taking money out of their pocket. The lady told me the reason was they had thousands of people making calls and that they didn’t have anyone who could go pull the fax; if they had thousands of people and no one could go pull a fax then this company isn’t worth anything to me because their processes are garbage.

They don’t care about any of the people they call because none of us are their clients, and, truth be told, their clients don’t really care one way or the other because the open amounts have already been charged off; check out this previous post on outstanding debt. Of course, the reason I was home was because I had a dental appointment, and I had to leave, but I did wait 30 minutes for someone to call me. I got home later, had a phone call from the guy asking me to call back, but of course he’d gone home, but the woman I talked to said his notes showed he got a fax. I hope that’s it, and that it’s all finally over, but I have my doubts. I didn’t mention this one earlier; they have “thousands” of employees, but not a single one of them has an email address, not even the supervisors; yup, you read this one correctly, because I asked, and if they truly tape their conversations, they’ll hear their representative telling me that. Come on, does Weitman really think we’re all fools?

At this point, I’m going to give them a week to see what happens. I asked for a letter saying they got it, but I’d been told before that’s not their policy. Yup, I have to prove to them that I don’t owe any money, but they don’t owe me a thing for trying to ruin my life and threatening to sue me for a balance I don’t owe. Frankly, I think the whole thing stinks, and that none of us can trust any of these people, especially Weitman. It’s not slander; it’s truth.

I’ll be leaving town again this coming week, so I can only hope they’ll send me something, or contact me with the confirmation that they’ll be leaving me alone. I’ll be protecting myself some more by sending copies of the letter from the other agency to Experian and the other credit agencies, though I only know for sure that Experian will do something about it since I do subscribe to their service. And I’ve learned it really is important to have a credit checking service on some sort of basis; people, check your credit yearly, because it’s free.

Learn your rights; protect yourself.

FreeCreditReport.com Really Works

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on May 27, 2008

Different kind of post today. I’m hawking FreeCreditReport.com, one of the affiliate programs I market, because they really work. How do I know this? I’m a member, of course.

Here’s my story. I went to this site last September and signed up to get my free credit reports, just like the commercial stated. Then I went ahead and signed up for the monthly credit alert. This followed my wife and I being turned down for a line of credit at the bank where our mortgage is. I had no idea why we hadn’t been approved, but I had a feeling something wasn’t right.

Then I started noticing different agencies looking at my report. I knew this because FCR (that’s what I’m calling them for now) sent me alerts each time there was an inquiry. Next thing you know, I started getting phone calls and letters from collection agencies, even though I knew I didn’t owe anybody. So, I finally took a good look at the report. I noticed that there were two derogatory reports on there, and I knew I had paid at least one of those for sure. I thought I’d paid the other one, but I wasn’t sure.

The one I was able to take care of fairly quickly, as I had something proving that the account had been settled years ago. The other one, in my heart I knew I’d settled it, but I wasn’t sure I could prove it. Credit agencies are wild, though. They don’t wait too long to decide to get to the escalation process. What’s also funny is that multiple agencies will be going after the same amount; I believe that’s fraudulent, but so be it.

Then I got a break. I found a letter that showed that I had set up the agreement to pay back an outstanding debt. I remembered the phone call and I remembered the guy, and I had his name on the letter outlining the agreement. Now I was set. I contacted Experian through FCR, and I also contacted the company that I’d paid this account to, back in 2004, of all things. Like the other company, they had never reported it as being satisfied, and, of course, now I know why we got turned down. Sheesh!

Now, here’s the upswing. Just by sending my request through FCR that I was disputing the derogatory statement, my credit score jumped up 60 points. I now have the letter proving that, indeed, the account is satisfied, though the weasels didn’t back date it because they said they didn’t have full access to records that old (yet we’re supposed to have everything if they happened to contact us, right?), so the letter is dated fairly recently. My credit score should jump up a bit more, as this will mean I have nothing bad on my report. Course, it would be great if their letter showed that it was taken care of four years ago, but hey, we take what we can get.

So, it’s been worth it for me to have FreeCreditReport.com (even though they dropped their affiliate program) following the activity on my account, and I can wholeheartedly recommend them; they’re not a bad affiliate program to market either, as I’ve made some money off this one. Of course, you don’t have to pay anything if it’s your first inquiry, or if the last time you checked was more than a year ago. Per federal law, we all get one free credit report a year. But these guys have done well for me; and there you go.

Update: FreeCreditReport.com ended its affiliate program, which is why those links no longer work. I’m still a subscriber at this juncture, 05/10.

Know Your Charge Off Amounts On Your Outstanding Debt

Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Dec 12, 2007

And now, the first real post. This is informational, and it could help a lot of people.

Many people have had at least one credit card or something go to a collection agency. Sometimes it’s legitimate, sometimes it’s not. However, we’re going to talk about the legitimate ones here for a minute.

Here’s the deal. Credit card companies, or whomever else, will do what they call a “charge off” of the outstanding amount you owe on a claim. When you fall behind on your payments, they attach all these fees and the like, but when it finally gets reported to the credit reporting companies, the amount they’re allowed to charge off is the actual amount you owe, not all those fees. So, if you owed them $2,000, even if they tacked on $1,000 worth of fees, they can’t report all that.

Why is it important? Because they have these collection agencies known as “scavengers“, that buy all this debt at between 5 and 8 cents on the dollar, look at what the amounts were with all the interest, then start pounding your phone trying to get you to start paying on all of that. Thing is, if you make even one payment, or agreement on that amount, by law you now are responsible for all of it. If you don’t, as in you’ve checked your credit report and know what the charge off amount was, you can get them to either start negotiating from that point, or only pay them based on that amount, which will still be thousands less in many instances.

They don’t want you to know this, obviously, but I’m telling you how it is. If you want more information on it, read the Fair Debt and Credit Collections Act; it’s there for your protection. Make sure to always know your charge off amounts; you could save a lot of money on the back end.

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