A caller claiming to be from the “document control division” of a “Jacob and Associates” left a message on my cell about a supposed long ago past-due credit card debt.
When I called back, I was redirected to someone in “collections” who had my name, date of birth and the last four digits from my Social Security number, which at first made the call seem legit, but upon reflection, is also quite concerning, as you’ll see in a moment.
The woman from “collections” was at the same time vague and quite aggressive: telling me that I had an unresolved debt from 2006 on my credit report, which isn’t true, because I check my credit report daily, have bought two homes since 2006 with no problem, but anyway, then she told me that she was going to put a “WGO” on me – a WGO being a wage garnishee order.
Apparently, from what she told me, I owed $4,000 on this credit card in 2006, and now, with interest, I was in arrears to the tune of $21,000.
I asked for documentation on this supposed debt, but the woman told me that because the company had already sent me that information – of course, this is not the case – I needed to pay up now.
After some back and forth about how I’m not paying a bill until I could see some documentation, the woman told me that she was going to mark me as “uncooperative,” and would send my file to legal for court proceedings.
OK, was my reply, because I’m not paying anything until I can see what it is that I supposedly owe.
The kicker here: the company also called my wife and my sister-in-law.
That’s what you call a full-court press.
And obviously a scam.
I checked with my attorney, and according to Virginia law, even if there was a debt, the collections would be way, way past the five-year statute of limitations on past-due debt collections.
“Don’t lose any sleep over it,” was his advice.
The concerning thing is that the company has my DOB and Social.
That’s likely to be the result of any of a number of the data security hacks that we’ve reported on here at AFP over the past few years.
Which is why I’m writing: to recommend, as my attorney did to me, to keep a regular check on your credit report, to make sure nothing weird pops up; and also, specific to this odd phone call, to just recommend common sense.
Namely, don’t give in to a person on the other end of the line who tries to bully you into paying a supposed debt.
If they can’t give you documentation, just tell them to bugger off.
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Chris Graham
