Consumer complaint received 2021-09-19
Company: Aldous & Associates, PLLC
State: NY
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Other debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action
Sub-issue: Threatened or suggested your credit would be damaged

Complaint:
Collection agency : Aldous ( no contact info provided ) Action : Attempted to force me to pay an unverified debt in full by providing payment information over the phone by threatening to report derogatory info to credit agencies if I did not comply, when I requested more verification of debt they reported the delinquent account to XXXX one day later and never sent verification paperwork. This caused my score to drop significantly. 

On XX/XX/2021, I received a call from an unknown number. I usually don't answer these calls but I was expecting a call regarding a job application I had submitted. When I answered the person identified themselves as a debt collector and stated their intent to collect a debt and that the call would be recorded. I confirmed my name but was careful with providing any further information as I had recently been receiving frequent spam/robocalls after my personal information was exposed on the dark web. 

The conversation escalated quickly with the debt collector demanding I make a payment on a {$140.00} debt by providing my debit card information and full payment over the phone. I told her that I would pay the debt but I wanted to confirm that this was a real debt collection company and real debt first and asked if she could please send me something via email or regular mail to verify the collection agency and the debt and also provide a secure method of payment rather than over the phone. I reiterated that I believed her but I wanted to be really careful as I had previously been a victim of identity theft due to a data leak. 

She said that they had mailed letters to my address already, did not need to provide any further information, and that if I did not pay via phone immediately they held the right to report the account as delinquent on my credit report. I then ask that they please allow me time to research and review the information just to make sure that I wasn't handing over my credit/debit card information to a random person trying to gain access to my bank account. I asked if she understood my concern and she said that they had sent this information already to my address. I asked for the address she had on file and it was an address I lived at 3-4 years ago only temporarily. I explained this to her and provided my current address and again asked for simple verification that they were a legitimate agency and not a scammer. She said they would send the information I requested but they may report this to credit reporting agencies before I received the documents. 

At this point, I didn't know what to do. I didn't want this to ruin my credit as I was about to apply for a new apartment but I also didn't feel comfortable handing over my credit/debit card info to this person with such little information. I felt like {$140.00} was not a lot of money and I should just pay it to protect my credit score, however, I was worried if I gave them access to my credit card info they may hack into other aspects of my identity if they were posing a collections agency and steal more protected info and/or money. I decided to stay safe and told her I hoped they wouldn't do that without first allowing me to confirm that everything was valid. She, again, reminded me that they had the right to do that. 

The next day I logged in to check my score and noticed it had dropped nearly XXXX points due to a new derogatory account that was 5 months delinquent? this was s only reported to XXXX. I worry that if I call them again or make further contact they will report to other agencies as well. Are their behaviors legal? 

Lastly, I searched my email for correspondence with the original creditor to see if I'd ever signed up for something and forgot about it and I did find two emails attached below. The first confirms that I signed up for a membership and the second confirms I canceled this membership with no remaining balance.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation