Unknown collection agency for ...

[ampdrew]

What is the name of your state?
Arizona

Hello. I am a 14 year old teen and I am part of a site that will allow you to make money online through completing offers, etc. Anyway, there is a "paid offer" section where you can complete "trials" for products and get paid x amount of dollars for completing it. It requires a credit card, but I just get a prepaid debit card instead.

With these trials, you usually have 30 days to cancel, or else they charge your credit card for whatever the monthly fee is. With the prepaid, they are unable to charge your credit for that monthly fee since my prepaids only have $20.00 on them and I usually use the whole thing up before 30 days. Anyway, I am pretty good at cancelling the trials, and if I don't, I call and say that I have not received anything from that company and I am only 14. They are pretty good about putting me on the Do Not bill list before they get a collection agency after me.

However, my recent letter I got in the mail is from a collection agency saying that I owe $118.00. I searched the company that is charging me, and it is for some Google SEO related service. I am pretty sure I never signed up for anything like this, although there are some offers on the website I make money off of for Google SEO.

Since I am pretty certain I did not get a service like this, I need to know what to do. I don't have $118.00 and I am no where near to getting that amount of money to pay, for a service I've never even heard of.

So what do I tell them? Some other adults have been saying that I cannot cannot enter into a legally binded contract because I am a minor and that I don't have a credit card (which I don't). Would this be right? Is there anything I can add to this?

I cannot pay this amount of money. I've never even had that much money before ...

Thanks,
Drew

[racer72]

If you are passing yourself off as legally able to enter into a binding contract, you can be held liable for the debt. I would suggest telling your parents and hope they can bail you out.

[ampdrew]

Thank you for your reply racer72. I am having serious doubts that I actually did something related to the Google SEO I mentioned. People have been using my name and information before for other bills I received, and I just call them up and tell them what I said above. Never had a collection agency before.

UPDATE : I called and explained to one of the people my story, and they said to send in a letter.

[StephenH]

The service should not have signed you up as you were under 18. Under 18, they cannot legally enforce a contract in many cases. You may want to express that to the collection agency.