Who Called Us

Hello, Resident 47, I only see your comments when I come to this number on this site -- they use other numbers in between, and usually, 800notes is the only good site that comes up when I search the phone number. I went to see about the registered agent at the link you provided -- that is a whole lot of information, nice to know, but more than i want to exert myself -- these turkeys can call me forever, it has become sort of a recreation to report them and to read the latest comments from others, especially as they only call now and then, instead of every day.

I do not know what motivates their continued calling, as no one has picked up the phone in all the years they have been pestering us. They have heard from our state attorney general, they know the low level of our interest in them, and they know that if they have legitimate business with us, we expect the so-called debt to be verified, and we expect their contact to be in writing and on letterhead, and signed by a living individual. So far, they have provided nothing like that, except for the responses from my letters that the attorney general's office forced them to produce. Their responses did not verify the debt, and in fact admitted they cannot verify the debt. They also know that any further b.s. like the 1099-C gets complaints sent to the Atty general, the IRS, the post office, the FTC, and next time to Norfolk's BBB and Virginia's Atty general as well. In the interim, my attitude is, let them amuse them selves, waste their time and resources, and further sully their reputation.

That was me talking about Registered Agents, Cate. If my working definition from two months ago did not suffice, below is a wiki link for more detail.
en.wikipedia.org

Next is a pretty good directory where you can plug in business names. You can also find your RA by searching state registration and licensing records for companies which do business in your state ... assuming such records are required by law and the company in question has complied.
registeredagentinfo.com

Back on the topic of PRA, here's what I should have thought to ask weeks ago: Do all of the more recent calls concern the account with the 1099C? If PRA is skip tracing or working some other account, I'm not sure any prior restraints on calling you would apply.

Against the ''least sophisticated consumer'' standard adopted by the FTC, issuing a 1099C and using the phrase ''cease collection'' should mean no further collection activity on that account. One possible back door would be to claim a loss on only part of that account balance, which I only considered as a parallel to a common dirty practice of debt buyers selling off a so-called ''forgiven'' portion of debt. This all drifts into tax law territory where I would not safely comment.

They have not called from this number since March, but this is the 187th call they have made since they "decided to cease collection efforts" in September 2010 (I have that in writing) and issued a bogus 1099-C.

One person on this discussion said there is a "registered agent" in each state for these vermin? What is a registered agent, and how do you find one? I personally want no contact with these vile, disgusting verminous sons of pond scum, as any contact at all is likely to be dangerous.

AND I reiterate, IF the Best Congress Money Can Buy wanted this to stop, it could be done tomorrow.

I recieved this call today.
I know who has my phone number so I did not answer.
Thanks for the information.

Another call today from this particular number, one of four dozen or so that Portfolio Recovery has shown on the caller ID since they started pestering us in early 2009. This was the 176th time they have called our house since they wrote telling us that they had "decided to cease collection efforts" on this unverified debt, that is also way past statute of limitations.

to clarify, it was the 173rd time Portfolio Recovery had called FOLLOWING the decision to "cease collection efforts" and issue the 1099c, at the beginning of September of 2010. They had been calling since late March of 2009.

Resident47, the call "#173", (to which you allude below) made on 3-5-12, is quite literally the 173rd time a number known to belong to PRA called this house, with "Portfolio Recov" in the caller ID -- as they were directed by the state Office of Consumer Protection to do on all their calls to this house -- I keep a detailed log of all "pest" calls. They issued the 1099-C in September of 2010, immediately after I had complained about them to the state attorney general, following 18 months of harassment by dozens of phone numbers, with NO name in the caller ID.

I believe I had heard that once they "decide to cease collection efforts" and issue a 1099-C, they must not continue to call. I also read on some consumer rights site -- maybe Budd Hibbs -- that after they have issued a 1099-C, they may not re-sell the debt to another bottom-feeder. Something is very much awry in the universe, if persons like my husband and I can be receiving all these calls from bottom-feeding verminous, so-called debt collectors, when we do not have ANY overdue bills we are aware of. PRA is clamoring for some credit card issued to a person who is not the name of either of us, for a credit card debt from 1997, for a bank I cannot say I ever heard of. Some lawyer they hired to deal with complaints from state attorneys general was forced to write to me -- they had refused to reply to all previous attempts to communicate. He wrote that they had bought the totally unverified debt in 2001, and began collection efforts in 2009. Obviously, after waiting eight years to try to collect, in a state with a 6-year statute of limitations, how can they be taken seriously? The lawyer, Pearson, wrote to me and admitted they cannot validate the debt, that it is a line on a print-out. They did have the last four digits of my SS# on the fraudulent 1099-C. (BTW, the 1099-C did not affect our taxes.) It just seems to me that if the authorities wanted to put a stop to this sort of garbage, they could shut it down in an instant.

Anna, now you know why blocking and ignoring is a losing strategy against debt collectors, particularly one like PRA which went out of its way to arm itself with a huge pile of numbers to throw at your few. First you have to determine if it's you or someone else being targeted and send the appropriate demand letter. The FTC provides beginner's advice and guidance.

In light of my discussion with Cate here, you may want to send notices to more than one address. Some recommend a street address over a PO box, while I would also consider PRA's Registered Agent in your state.

ftc.gov

yes it is portfolio recovery i believe calls all day and night from many many different numbers some computerized and when answered empty space some people after blocking it till i cant add numbers they start on a different set of numbers they just cant leave people alone and dont want to know anything just keep calling i put in my phone and few hours later the calls started just crazy

While one agency could in theory hire the other, CBE and NCO are large enough in their own right not to be in bed with PRA. NCO is a major debt buyer with its own history of civil punishment. I believe it's still the record holder from May 2004 for highest FTC penalty for FCRA violations. It's unclear if Asset Acceptance beat that record in its Jan 2012 spanking for ignoring both FCRA and FDCPA.

Cate, I may have misread your prior comments. You mention ''call #173'' on 05 March. Did a voice identify PRA in that call, or is this call #01 from some other agency? I'll hang from a limb here and suggest that PRA did stop calling (for a while) as promised, filed the spiteful 1099C, *maybe* tried you a few more times, then quietly sold the account. Not necessarily in that order, but that event sequence would make the most sense. There is also the chance that your new playmates are skip tracing for other people.

It's unclear if you can still sting PRA for continued collection activity prior to validation. You'd have to review your call logs and notes, if any, and all mail from PRA. Any demands to PRA do not travel if the account was sold, so it's tabula rasa when the new agency comes calling.

Resident47 mentions below that Portfolio consolidated and rebranded local government collection agencies. This call from Portfolio was received on March 3, a whole week ago now, and I have not heard from them since they made that 173rd call after their decision to "cease collection efforts" on the account, for which they had issued a 1099-C in September 2010. Since that time, suddenly out of the blue, our phone has been ringing off the hook with calls from "CBE Group" and "NCO Financial" -- I wonder whether either or both of those bottom-feeders are spin-offs from Portfolio Recovery? No one in this house has any unpaid bills, so why these calls have emerged from the slime is anyone's guess.

Cate wrote:
} letter carrier does not have time to spend .....[processing CMRR]

This is not an excuse while everyone is wringing hands over the jobless rate. Fifty new hires each for PRA and its local USPS should solve that right quick.

} ''good press'' Portfolio Recovery receives

I've not had the displeasure of dueling with PRA, but I'm aware of what an investment darling it's become as it continues to break laws in the face of attorney general action, numerous lawsuits, and its role in the robo-perjury debacle with Providian and Martha Kunkle's daughter.

You may have a point with the governmental inroads. (... or is that inbreeding?) PRA owns a bunch of municipal sector collection agencies, which were sort of consolidated 15 months ago and rebranded under the Portfolio name. Then they went around spamming sites like this with softsoaping invitations to ''resolve'' debt accounts on their new lashed-up website. The site's intent was in part to muffle the complaint noise on those very sites.

Reply to Resident47: you mention an "honor system" for Portfolio Recovery to return the cards. I think you hit the nail on the head. I was told that they receive such a huge volume of these "receipt requested" letters that the Post Office delivers the whole pile at once, and the company is expected to return the cards. They said the letter carrier does not have time to spend standing there while thousands of cards are being signed and returned....sigh. You sound as if you are knowledgeable and experienced in dealing with these vermin, so you must be aware of the "good press" Portfolio Recovery receives in business publications. They are considered a very fine and respectable company. Many local governments have contracts with them. This would suggest to me that the principals in the outfit are well-connected politically. Just another instance of the 1% vs the 99%. As for me, the particular return receipt requested letter that we are discussing was asking 1)why they had sent a 1099-C, and 2) demanding verification of the debt. They were not about to answer either question, until the Pennsylvania office of consumer protection stepped in, and forced them to answer. I never did send them a certified letter to cease and desist, as I have to admit I am fascinated by the utter squalor of this whole bottom-feeding industry, and in a sick sort of way, I enjoy having them continue to call the house, just so I can continue to learn more about these slime and the Best Congress Money Can Buy, which could put a stop to their extortion scam in no time flat, if they wanted to do so.

How do, Cate. I remember responding to your MIA green card issue in April and July last year.
(8479942540) whocalled.us

I'd get a second opinion from a different Postmaster. The way Cert Mail is meant to work is that USPS controls and sends the return card, and should not surrender the mail piece until it's signed off. That independent handling is partly what makes the little card such hot legal evidence. Sadly, and stupidly, it's reported since my prior discussion that some large firms are granted an honor system arrangement in which the Cert Mail and first class are all delivered together, and it's left to the recipient to get the cards returned.

Personally I've not had a problem with ''lost on purpose'' return cards, and I've sent dozens to places with just as poor a reputation as PRA. This experience is echoed on other forums when this topic comes up. Your milage or abuse may vary.

When disputing a collector you should never be forced to extract USPS delivery receipts the hard way and risk a desperate challenge from the opposition about a ''custodian of records''. I would in fact roll that dodgy behavior into my civil complaint somewhere.

Not everyone enjoys a responsive AG or state consumer watchdog, so the direct actions I advise are what work most of the time and without waiting for a middleman. But these issues have to follow a strategy more than rigid instructions, so that ''gotchas'' and contingencies can be managed wisely. You found leverage and used it when primary options failed, and that's really a huge part of the task.

You know what you might try is another mailing, but not to the PRA headquarters. I'd bet they have a Registered Agent in your state, possibly one which reps many companies. The RA exists mainly to provide a presence in-state so people can easily send poison letters and file lawsuits. Some pro se litigants actually prefer dropping their Intent To Sue letters on the RA, where they might get the attention of a legal officer with half a brain. I should think your pile of calls from the past 12 months will make a dandy case.

This is call #173 from Portfolio Recovery Associates, since they "decided to cease collection efforts" in September of 2010. I have news for Resident47: these bottom-feeding offspring of vermin do not return those little green cards. When I reported to the Post Office, they said returning them is voluntary. I paid for that stupid little card! So, yes, send PRA certified mail, but do not pay extra for a return receipt. The USPS data base will prove they received the letter. They will also not respond to any letter you send them. The only way I got a response was through the state attorney general's consumer protection bureau, who forced them to write me a reply, and who also sent me a copy of the letter they had received from PRA. Apparently PRA hired at least one lawyer to work full-time on dealing with complaints received through the fifty state attorney general offices.

akaMom: Your complaints will be misfired. The DNC registry is for telemarketers, meaning sales, meaning all debt collectors are exempt. This fact was not kept secret from you when you registered your numbers. Attorneys general and the FTC are valid complaint venues which help the public good. But understand that you must confront collection agencies directly if you dislike their treatment of your privacy and consumer rights. Certainly those violative early bird calls qualify.

Debbie: Do you suppose Eric Schneiderman is going to drop everything for a civil action you can manage yourself? You get only a year to pursue FDCPA claims; you don't want them sitting idle. If you have a mint green USPS card returned from PRA, YOU are the one who can ''stop the calls NOW''.

They call on a debt that i don't have. Can't give me an account number or who it is with. The only thing they say is its a debt from 1988. They call 3+ times a week and on Sunday. They just called me today (SUNDAY) after nine PM. This is against the law. I told him I am recording the conversation and he hung up on me when I said I wrote a certified letter for you to stop calling and I am now recording every time you call. My next step is to take it to the NY Attorney General. This is crap. Stop the calls NOW.

I have had it with these people they call day and night as early as 715am. I am now logging a complaint with the National Do Not Call Registry each time they call, hopefully if enough people log these calls with the registry the calls will stop.

What violation? A call in the afternoon on a Sunday? Better read the FDCPA again, B.
ftc.gov

If that's all you have, you'll need the call to break state law. Lacking abuse from collection reps or an annoying pattern of calls, good luck in getting that prize from a local ''Mayberry'' judge.

got a call from this number today, Sunday, Feb. 19, 2012 at 4:51 pm. I am going to file a complaint under the fair debt collection practices act against this company. Hopefully, it will cost them their license and they could have to pay me $1,000.00 for this violation

had to call block these people call day and night weekends included. I have tol them that the person they are looking for does not live here. real ass pain these people are

Find out about their illegal activities, trying to collect old SOL - STATUTE OF LIMITATION expired debts from clueless people!

Google: "portfolio recovery scam".

Report to the Better Business Bureau or your State Attorney General - and block their calls:

Google: "phone call blockers" - they can be purchased for little money at eBay

Portfolio Recovery (Debt Collector)
main office is located at 120 Corporate Blvd Norfork VA 23502

Block them with a call blocker:
• Uniden DECT1288 blocks up to 20 numbers, plus Private and Unknown, with the reject tone, without ringing the phone.
• Panasonic KX-TG106 blocks up to 30 numbers, plus all unidentified callers, with a busy tone, after the phone rings once.
• JF Teck Caller ID with Ring Controller blocks up to 70 numbers, and can be set to always allow up to 100 to ring through.