Consumer complaint received 2022-07-21
Company: Business & Professional Collection Service Inc
State: TN
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Problem with a credit reporting company's investigation into an existing problem
Sub-issue: Their investigation did not fix an error on your report

Complaint:
I retrieved a copy of my credit report and immediately noted that Hospital Collection Services had inserted a derogatory entry on my credit reports and had not sent me any correspondence ( dunning letter ) prior to doing so which would have granted me 30 days as required by law to dispute the validity of the alleged debt. To that end, I communicated in writing ( see attached ), to the credit bureaus regarding this inaccurate, erroneous, unverifiable entry being placed on my credit reports. The bureau responded that the company verified the information as correct. How so? A third-party collection company can only validate a debt. The original creditor is the only one able to verify a debt. Nonetheless, Hospital Collection Services. did not advise the bureaus to update the account status to disputed. This is a violation. The dispute with the bureaus was the first notification Hospital Collection Services received and should have advised the bureaus at the time they allegedly validated the information that they should update the entry to disputed.

Hospital Collection Services. did not and as you can see in the attached document, it does not denote it was in dispute. This violation in and of itself warrants Hospital Collection Services to delete this entry. My continued efforts to remove this entry from my reports was with a direct dispute to the company. See attached certified receipt. To date, Hospital Collection Services has not responded to my request. If they were previously aware of the dispute from the bureaus and advised the bureaus that the entry was correct, they were negligent in not advising the bureaus to update the account to disputed. Hospital Collection Services did not provide the comprehensive account history for this account; including but not limited to all invoices, payments, notices, documents that bear my original signature.

Hospital Collection Services. did not : Provide an agreement that states your authority to collect on this alleged debt Provide an agreement with signature of the alleged debtor wherein he/she agree to pay the creditor Provide alleged account number Provide a date this alleged debt became payable Provide the original delinquency date Verify that this debt was assigned or sold to collector Complete accounting of alleged debt Provide name and address of the bonding agent for collection agency in case legal action becomes necessary The ACA ( Affordable Care Act ) provides that a company should not report any alleged medical debt on a consumer report prior to six months. Hospital Collection Services blatantly ignored this law. This account was opened XXXX with them and they immediately began reporting. This definitely demonstrates their negligence. Again, no dunning letter was sent and the company inserted this inaccurate entry on my credit reports. This entry is continuously updated each month which further diminishes my creditworthiness and has caused me to be denied credit. It is puzzling to say the least, that Hospital Collection Services can update a derogatory entry on my credit report but not respond to the certified dispute I have sent them and none have been returned as undeliverable. This dispute was sent out as certified mail on XX/XX/2022 ( please see attached ). Per USPS it was delivered on XX/XX/2022. 

Hospital Collection Services did not furnish an agreement reflecting their authority to collect on this alleged debt in the state of Tennessee. Hospital Collection Services blatantly violated my consumer rights and continues to do so. This alleged debt lacks veracity and verification ; further since they are violating FDCPA mandates to provide me notification prior to inserting it on my credit report and ( 2 ) failing to cease collection efforts and reporting when they received the letter of dispute, this entry should be deleted from my credit report immediately and Hospital Collection Services should remunerate me for the violations.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation