Fraud or Identity Theft and Bill Collectors

[Brina]

What is the name of your state? North Carolina.

Forgive me if this is in the wrong section, but I do not know much about law. Heres the situation:
I am 18 years old and I recieved a bill from Cingular Wireless for somewhere around $500. I did not start this account, and I even called and told them this. They told me to fax a police report and my drivers license and a copy of the bill and a written statement saying I did not start the account. So I did. A week or so later I recieved a call from a bill collector saying I have not paid this and that and its going to go against my credit. I informed the guy I spoke with that Cingular was looking into it for fraud and all that, and to my understanding this shouldnt have reached him. I was looking around online, and I found some information saying that the company is not allowed to send a pending fraud case to a bill collector until it has been deemed not fraud. Is this the case? I was advised to simply sue Cingular for all of it because even my name was spelled incorrectly on the bill. Whoever had started the account had my social security number but they couldnt spell my name. And if I have my information correct, Cingular should not have sent this to a bill collector for me to be harassed till they figured it out themselves.
Any information and advice will be greatfully appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[seniorjudge]

What is the name of your state? North Carolina.

Forgive me if this is in the wrong section, but I do not know much about law. Heres the situation:
I am 18 years old and I recieved a bill from Cingular Wireless for somewhere around $500. I did not start this account, and I even called and told them this. They told me to fax a police report and my drivers license and a copy of the bill and a written statement saying I did not start the account. So I did. A week or so later I recieved a call from a bill collector saying I have not paid this and that and its going to go against my credit. I informed the guy I spoke with that Cingular was looking into it for fraud and all that, and to my understanding this shouldnt have reached him. I was looking around online, and I found some information saying that the company is not allowed to send a pending fraud case to a bill collector until it has been deemed not fraud. Is this the case? I was advised to simply sue Cingular for all of it because even my name was spelled incorrectly on the bill. Whoever had started the account had my social security number but they couldnt spell my name. And if I have my information correct, Cingular should not have sent this to a bill collector for me to be harassed till they figured it out themselves.
Any information and advice will be greatfully appreciated.
Thanks.

What exactly do you want to know?

 

[Brina]

What I want and need to know is if it was wrong for them to send the file to a bill collector when its under investigation for fraud? and I also want to know if it would be a legal case if that was wrong of them and since they didnt do the proper check like they were supposed to. If they would have they would have noticed my name wasnt spelled correctly according to my social security number and my military enlistment information.

 

[seniorjudge]

What I want and need to know is if it was wrong for them to send the file to a bill collector when its under investigation for fraud? and I also want to know if it would be a legal case if that was wrong of them and since they didnt do the proper check like they were supposed to. If they would have they would have noticed my name wasnt spelled correctly according to my social security number and my military enlistment information.

If I understand your post correctly, it was only a week from the time you reported this till the time you got the contact from the collection agency.

That's not very much time.

However, you need to keep on top of this IN WRITING and make sure that Cingular and the bill collectors know that you are disputing this charge.

Make yourself a file on this fiasco and keep very good records about what happens. Keep the file handy for ten years at least.


Standard answer on expired SOL and/or validation and/or dispute letters. There are thousands of posts similar to yours on this forum so I have prepared a standard answer.

SOL (Statutes of limitation are DEFENSES to lawsuits; they do NOT provide a method to stop someone from suing you. This defense means when they sue you, you answer with the defense that it is barred by the SOL.)

http://www.bcsalliance.com/y_debt_sol.html

http://www.fair-debt-collection.com/Disputing_Collections/SoL-dispute-letter.html


Validation letter samples you can get at :
www.creditinfocenter.com
and www.creditboards.com


Disputes: You can write a letter of dispute to the three credit reporting agencies.

Go this website to find instructions and samples for how to dispute: http://www.creditinfocenter.com/creditreports/

Sometimes errors are easy to remove and sometimes they stick like glue. It is inexpensive to try and not difficult.

I am NOT a creditor-debtor lawyer; stand by for further help.

I am NOT vouching for the accuracy of these websites!

Debt settlement:

https://forum.freeadvice.com/showthread.php?t=293829

 

[Two Bit]

You should be able to send the collectors, if they're not actually working for Cingular, a drop dead letter. If they're just collectors who bought some debt of Cingular, you don't have to give them anything.

There was someone else with my name to me that opened up some sort of account at Wachovia, and I used to get calls in reference to the account every 6 months. I just sent the collectors the letter that Clark recommends.

Clark Howard is a consumer advocate in Atlanta, and he has the following to say about collectors: http://clarkhoward.com/shownotes/2004/03/29/