Product: Debt collection

My husband and I resided at the   XXXX   XXXX   XXXX   XXXX   in   XXXX   XXXX   TN from   XXXX   until   XXXX  . All lease requirements were met and proper move out notice was given. Upon move-in we were given a form and told we had 3 days to mark any items that needed repair or replacement and could then return the form to the office. This was our " move in inspection ''. Upon move-out my husband was escorted through the apartment by an apartment employee and a gentleman with a  black li ght who was there to detect any signs of p et urine.  We were very surprised by this as we did not receive this type of inspection when moving in. On   X/XX/XX   we received an email from the apartments with an invoice attached stating that we owed them {$500.00} for carpet replacement and  XXXX  applied to the concrete foundation. The apartments did not provide us with any further evidence to support their claims that we were responsible. Since this alleged damage was not visible to the  naked ey e, it very well could have been there prior to our moving in. They instead reported the debt to a collection agency. We received a letter from Rent Recover y of    XXXX   XXXX    LLC     (  acct #  XXXX  ) on   XXXX  . We responded to the collection agency on  XX/X/XX  with copies of our lease/move in &amp; out inspection/emails from the apartments. The collection agency did nothing to investigate the validity of the claim and provided no further evidence of our responsibility for this debt. They then proceeded to report the debt to the credit reporting agencies. This debt has been on both mine and my husbands credit reports as " disputed '' for the past 6 months. I have tried reaching out to an attorney and was advised that my best course of action was to dispute this directly with you. We believe this to be a deceitful and unfair business practice. We were not made aware at any point during our application process that this was a standard practice, nor is it documented anywhere in our lease. If this is a standard practice ( as they state in their email dated   XXXX   ) it should be disclosed upfront. Had we been made aware that this was their process, we would have demanded that the sam e black light in spection be performed in our presence prior to moving in. This is an unfair and deceitful business practice used to extort additional money from tenants after they have vacated their apartment. They use the threat of collection as a leverage to force payment of unsubstantiated claims of damage. Since originally being contacted by the   XXXX   XXXX     XXXX , advising us to pay them {$500.00}, they have provided no evidence of damages. The only documentation that they have supplied is an invoice stating that carpet was replaced. This in no way provides the supporting reason for the carpet replacement. If the invisible presence of pe t urine was found in the carpet by their use of black light inspection, this still does not support their claims that we we re responsible for its existence. We feel we are being taken advantage of by a large company who is using the system to their advantage. We seem to have little recourse in this matter and would appreciate any assistance you can provide.