As condensed as I can make it, For many years I had been a T Moblie prepay customer. I paid money and then I got service. That never changed. I switched providers while comfortably in the previously paid billing cycle and called T Mobile to notify. The following month T Mobile generated a bill and sent it directly to collections.

I called them and they say that they cannot help me because I do not have a PIN that they generate and won't generate a new one because I am not using their services. I did get information from an agent in a brick/mortar store that T Mobile has no signed documents stating that my account was post pay or on credit.

So far no one will do anything and I get transferred to a blinding number of agents on the phone and eventually one of those gems hangs up. So, my question is, now what? Is there a way I can force them to remove this debt? Is there a State or Fed agency that will make them stand at attention? Is this a case that I can see a judge in my State or do I have to appear in a claims court elsewhere? Collections appears to be headquartered in Renton, Washington.....though every agent I spoke with had thick foreign accent with children in the background.

I could really use some help on this, ladies and gents. TIA

Well, right now it's just a bill, at some point it will go delinquent and that's when it will hit your credit report.

No agency or attorney is going to help, you just need to keep calling and going up the management list until you find someone that can help, or, write the check

Is the collections debt listed on your credit bureau? If so, dispute it with the credit reporting agency. More than likely it will disappear if T-Mobile can't prove that you owe it

Yeah I can dispute it through the back door. Was hoping I could head it off at the pass...

Your state government may have a consumer protection division. That may be an option. T-Mobile might be considered a "public utility" under your state laws and the regulatory body may have a complaint resolution division that might step in too. Regardless of outcome, I would file a complaint with these agencies. Because doing you that way is BS.

^^^^^yeah, feels like a parting shot.

I had an issue canceling DirecTV. My eventual solution was to cancel the card, not pay them anymore and turn in the equipment. They said I owed them about $330 which I never paid even when it went to collections. It barely affected my credit score which never dropped below 790.

In your situation, once it hits your credit report, I’d write letters to each of the reporting agencies explaining what happened and ask them to put that explanation in your file as well. At some point, how much work do you want to do to fix some one else’s mistake? On the other hand, everyone loves a David and Goliath story.

Darth...Just sent you an email to the address in your profile with some information to try. We had an issue at work last summer and I ended up with a contact in the office of the CEO who was able to cut thru all the red tape and fix an issue immediately. Hope it helps!

Mike Sievert is president and chief executive officer of T-Mobile and is a member of T-Mobile's Board of Directors. I have found some success in the occasional disputes with a corporation to go to the top. Call the main line for T-Mobile's Executive Offices at (425) 378-4000. At this direct line to AT&T's corporate office, you can ask to speak with senior T-Mobile executives like the CEO or General Counsel (T-Mobile's top lawyer). This is a link to the list of their top corporate leaders: https://craft.co/t-mobile-us/executives

I did the same with Verizon - started trying to contact all the senior leaders and officers I could get contact information for. Sent letters and left voice mails. They never replied but suddenly the charge and dispute went away...

Darth -- If it goes to collections, you'll receive a letter from the collection agency. You can respond with a "pound sand" (cease and desist) form letter that instructs the agency to either document the alleged debt, or stop contacting you, and further instructs them not to report the alleged debt to any credit reporting agent, or if it has been reported, to rescind the report.

It's easy enough to find a template for the letter that you want to send, but if you need, just ping me via the email address in my profile and I'll send one to you. I've used it a couple of times when I had disputes similar to yours, with a 100% success rate, to date.

Not exactly the same situation, but I have had good results in filing w Better Business Bureau

Once when I filed a complaint w American Express over a company's charge, the fact that there was a BBB complaint already on file seemed to help my case.

quote:

Originally posted by Fed161:
Mike Sievert is president and chief executive officer of T-Mobile and is a member of T-Mobile's Board of Directors. I have found some success in the occasional disputes with a corporation to go to the top. Call the main line for T-Mobile's Executive Offices at (425) 378-4000. At this direct line to AT&T's corporate office, you can ask to speak with senior T-Mobile executives like the CEO or General Counsel (T-Mobile's top lawyer). This is a link to the list of their top corporate leaders: https://craft.co/t-mobile-us/executives

I did this with AMEX and it was fixed in less than 48 hours. And I got contact back in less than 6 hours on a weekend.

Here is the CEO's direct email: Mike.Sievert@t-mobile.com

Send him a short and to the point email essentially explaining what you told us above. Explain that you understand that he's likely busy but you've exhausted your options with customer service and that they refuse to help you.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Darth -- If it goes to collections, you'll receive a letter from the collection agency. You can respond with a "pound sand" (cease and desist) form letter that instructs the agency to either document the alleged debt, or stop contacting you, and further instructs them not to report the alleged debt to any credit reporting agent, or if it has been reported, to rescind the report.

It's easy enough to find a template for the letter that you want to send, but if you need, just ping me via the email address in my profile and I'll send one to you. I've used it a couple of times when I had disputes similar to yours, with a 100% success rate, to date.

A little info on that FDCPA cease letter, it doesn't mean shit sending it to a creditor, FDCPA doesn't apply to them, only third party collections is under FDCPA. T-Mobile and you have a financial agreement, they can call you all day, every day (reasonable hours) send you letters, put up a billboard, write your name above a urinal.

To use that letter you have to be turned over to a third party collection agency which is covered by FDCPA


Just a warning on this advice, the internet tells people to send notice, it is a legal valid letter to send, and agencies have to comply with FDCPA and it's rules upon receipt. However, don't be naïve and think you've shut down the collection process, because you haven't.

In fact it can escalate things rapidly and not in your favor.

Web pages and the uninitiated recommend this step, however, they leave out that this legally stops nothing. What it does is enacts rules in a statute of the FDCPA, the same also provides the agency with the right to contact you back, once received, with the proof of debt(s), and/or their intent going forward, such as taking you to court.


Back in my agency days we had a lady writing hot checks all over the city, and when contacted she mailed us a certified "cease and desist" letter, thinking that would stop the collection process, little did she know it doesn't, and she hit me on a day where I said "f-her, send this to Pat, our collection attorney" and go for all you can get...

Per FDCPA, we wrote her back, with proof of the debt (check copies with NSF) and informing her we were taking her to court. Now the kicker is, if the agency does this, they are required to take her to court, by law we have to prove in these cases we do what we said we would, such as report it to every bureau, contact all check clearing verification services, or sue for damages and recovery, which in this case we did.

In court the Judge determined that by her sending that letter she was educated in the ways of debts, collections, and the rules and laws regarding bad checks in Florida, attempting to get out payment, she proved she was a professional debtor. The law in FL is the judge can award to 3 times the amount of the debt for checks plus court costs plus legal fees, and prior to this time we'd never gotten more than the total amount of the checks plus fees.

Her $3K in bad checks ended up in a judgement for over $10,000 because she hit me on a day I was tired of dealing with smart ass debtors thinking they knew how to get out of paying their bills. The look on her face when the judge smacked her down and the subsequent debt on her credit record as a hot check writer was worth it.... BTW write enough bad checks and you get some time behind bars...

People look down at debt collectors like it's some kind of evil mean business, that industry recovers money from dead beat clients and people, without it your cost of goods would significantly increase.


Thus ends the short lesson on debt collection law..

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
Darth...Just sent you an email to the address in your profile with some information to try. We had an issue at work last summer and I ended up with a contact in the office of the CEO who was able to cut thru all the red tape and fix an issue immediately. Hope it helps!

Got that email. Thank you for that info. Was more than I was hoping for. I'll drop him a polite email.

I've found the FCC is actually very helpful with dealing with the telecom companies.

When Comcast told me too bad about their cable they left laying on my lawn. I filed an fcc complaint on a very easy to use online form and had a call from Comcast apologizing the next day, and the cable gone the day after that.

Concur with several above. As I posted in my USAA threads, I strongly advocate going "beast mode" reaching out to top management succinctly to resolve issues the worker bees and their supervisors can't be bothered to address. It has never failed me.

I have had a few of these over the years.

Once it hits my credit report, I make the shit hit the fan.

The Federal Trade Commission has very strict rules.

The one that can hurt you is that you have 30 days to dispute the claim or it is considered valid by them, not necessarily the courts.

You have the right to sue the collection agency if they act improperly for one year from the improper action. You can sue for lost wages and other expenses incurred, including legal and court costs. Also, the judge is allowed to award you up to $1,000 in punitive damages.

I really fight, and they have always folded.

This is not writing bad checks, this is bogus bills.

YMMV

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice.

I have an old colleague, now friend, who had a dispute with United Airlines. It was over his accumulated miles, and was in the neighborhood of $1700. He ended up suing them in small claims in Salt Lake County, and UA didn’t show up to court, and didn’t respond at all. He got a default judgement, but something about it pissed off the judge. IIRC, the clerk tried to contact the airline and they were condescending or something. The judge asked my friend to identify some airline property, and he’d put a lien on it. Cheekily, my buddy got him a tail number of a 737, and the court ordered it impounded the next time it landed in SLC.

It took the airline about five seconds to go nuts trying to satisfy the court. They wrote my friend a check that day. This was ultimate hard ball. Don’t know if it would work for most things, and I don’t know if the airline had other options, but they must have figured that the fastest way to get out of it was to pay the damages that small claims awarded my friend.

Call the utility commission, they will get the ball rolling in the right direction.