Koda_20 t1_j8zitt0 wrote on February 18, 2023 at 1:58 AM

Reply to comment by retrohGamr in Man from small town wins against internet monopoly over terrible service in court. by sassy-hognose22

Shit I just paid a $50 bill from charter from an old account that went into collection somehow. I was fairly sure I was free of any charges and had never even had a debt collector call me before.

But I figure what are the odds a huge company like that gets that wrong and so I call and ask about what it was for and they told me it was from the final month of the service I had previously cancelled at another property, July through August.

Then I remembered I'd asked the person I handed my equipment back to at the store when closing my account to make sure I was all paid up with no future bills and they told me I was good. But I don't have that in writing so I just paid the 50 cuz easiest way out.

TAOJeff t1_j9080lx wrote on February 18, 2023 at 5:51 AM

I believe this is a massive issue in the USA, the debt that is being sold doesn't need to be verified as accurate (no-one on the collections side is liable for incorrect info, so no point in updating it) and also doesn't necessarily show enough detail to be able to identify the person who supposedly owes money. So if you have the same name as someone on the list and you get found first, you get to deal with the debt collector and have to prove that it wasn't you.

So in your case, there's no penalty for incorrectly saying you owed money when you didn't. Which there really should be as it should be counted as fraud.

Atomic_Maxwell t1_j901hjc wrote on February 18, 2023 at 4:43 AM

Literally same thing happened to me, back at the end of 2016– turned in my modem to Charter, asked if I was all good and making sure my account was closed because we were going to be out of the apartment, all seemed good. Then in early 2018, I started using Credit Karma to track my credit score and make it go from awful to not awful, and lo and behold I have something in collections from one Charter Spectrum.

I hope all the big Internet monopolies get a rude but humble wake up call someday soon.

retrohGamr t1_j8zmmeg wrote on February 18, 2023 at 2:30 AM

once you pay the collections account, you take responsibility for the debt :( it sucks how proactive and quick one needs to be to fix the mistakes of others, assuming these are mistakes...

Koda_20 t1_j8zoivl wrote on February 18, 2023 at 2:46 AM

Yeah it's whatever, though I didn't pay collections I called spectrum and paid them and they assured me they'd tell collections, I'm wondering if that too was a bad idea.

Alexstarfire t1_j90pair wrote on February 18, 2023 at 9:39 AM

> But I figure what are the odds a huge company like that gets that wrong

They are the ones most likely to get it wrong.

Any-Plantain2028 t1_j919w01 wrote on February 18, 2023 at 1:49 PM

>I just paid the 50 cuz easiest way out.

That's what they count on

Koda_20 t1_j91bd28 wrote on February 18, 2023 at 2:02 PM

yeah I don't even know what happens if I just ignore the debt, I assume my credit score suffers until I challenge it in court? Or how can I get the debt waived without significant time and money and energy going into it, and at that point I'm worse off than paying the $50 but society is a smidge better I guess.

Any-Plantain2028 t1_j91blp6 wrote on February 18, 2023 at 2:04 PM

Sad and true, basically as another person pointed out that's the issue. Essentially you as an individual are fighting an uphill battle with a giant corporation and have next to no real protections or a way to retaliate.