Sent a certified letter to the company that owns the apartments. A week later I receive a letter from a collection agency, concerning the remainder of the amount they want me to pay for the carpet. Not to mention, the collection agency called me twice at work, left a message, and didn't state they were a collection agency, which I read was against the The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
I called the collection agency explaining that I sent the certified letter and that I am disputing these charges. She said something to the fact that they are now handling it, even though I sent a letter a week prior to getting the letter from the collection agency. That seems like the apartment company was going against the 30 day notice they were giving me as well.
The lady at the collection agency goes through the EXACT move-in/move-out condition and says why I'm being charged to replace the carpet. I said "ma'am, what does the move-in condition say?" She replies, "it shows that you noted in 3 different rooms that there were carpet stains. However, you didn't say HEAVY, like the landlords stated in their move-out conditions." I then say, "so the quantity of the stains, doesn't matter to the quality of ONE STAIN?" She says, "Sir, I'm not going to argue with you." I reply, "Well, you seem to be a stain expert, being there and all. So, you're telling me that I should've added an adjective describing a stain rather than just stating there was one?" Finally she says, "I'll contact them and ask them what they'd like to do."
So she's basically saying that since I didn't describe the "stains" in detail, that they are irrelevant? How can that be? During our move-in condition, I noted cigarette burns on countertops. They don't appear to be questioning those, since I could not remove them as well.
