Consumer complaint received 2020-12-15
Company: Paramount Recovery Systems, L.P.
State: FL
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Medical debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action
Sub-issue: Threatened or suggested your credit would be damaged

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, Paramount Recovery lists opening a collections account against me to the credit bureaus. This was reflected in my XXXX credit statements per XXXX XXXX. I was unaware this company even existed until they damaged my credit and potentially caused irreparable harm with a former employer. 

( 1 ) I was unaware of the collection status prior to it impacting my credit score, as Paramount Recovery did not use the address and phone number supplied on the original debt, which is still the correct and accurate way to contact me. Rather, they wrote a letter to my former employer, who assumed it was related to my father 's estate. I had to have an embarrassing conversation with my former employer, and may have ruined my opportunity to use that long term job as a reference as a result of Paramount 's conduct. 
-I believe this violates both the required notification prior to reporting the debt, as well as contacting an employer. 

( 2 ) This debt was already paid in full to a previous collection company. I have supplied a letter of satisfaction from the previous company to Paramount twice by email, which I was told was the only way to send it. They did not supply a fax number nor address to me. I have not received any acknowledgement of the email and have called numerous times to resolve this. I am always told there is nobody available that can help me. In fact, on XX/XX/2020, I was told there was a long wait of people for the supervisor and was discouraged from waiting on hold. However, the agent I spoke with then told me she just checked and the supervisor wasn't at the desk, so I'd have to leave a message. This indicated to me that it is the standard procedure to lie to consumers regarding supervisors. The agents have informed me they are unable to help in any way except if I wanted to negotiate a payment. 
-I believe this borders very close to extortion. Essentially, they have made it impossible to resolve this in any way except for offering them a payment. There are no channels for resolution, no acknowledgement of communication, just a demand for money. 

( 3 ) In the course of attempting to resolve this debt, a Paramount agent took the issue even further by saying that they had another debt for me as well. This other debt they attempted to collect is passed the statute of limitations. I was given the sense that it was an offer that they would seize attempting to collect the debt I already paid if I paid a debt that was uncollectable. Essentially, again, the idea was that if I simply gave them money, it would go away. 

( 4 ) After being unable to resolve this in a reasonable manner, I attempted to dispute this with the credit bureaus. On my most recent call, the agent told me she could see I had disputed it, and said that she wasn't sure how she could deal with it since I had filed a dispute. Given the continuing situation with Paramount, I took this to mean that they were further going to drag this out to punish me for filing the dispute. I assume it will be the same for filing this complaint. 
-I believe that it is unethical, and potentially illegal for a debt collector to punish me for taking actions to which I'm provided under FDCA XXXX

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation