Consumer complaint received 2018-04-23
Company: Professional Bureau of Collections of Maryland, Inc., GREENWOOD VILLAGE, CO Branch
State: CA
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Medical debt
Issue: Communication tactics
Sub-issue: Used obscene, profane, or other abusive language

Complaint:
This is regarding an utterly unprofessional unethical and barbaric collection conducted by Professional Bureau of Collections of Maryland , Inc . 

I'd a pending medical bill with an ambulance company ( XXXX ). The ambulance company didn't had a contract with my insurance provider ( XXXX ). My insurance provider processed the case and paid {$620.00} to ambulance company, and the EOB I received from insurance company shows that I owe {$69.00} only. The ambulance company ignored the EOB and asked me to pay remaining amount which is {$1900.00}. I reported this to insurance and they said that they'll work with ambulance company. I never got a response back from either insurance company or ambulance company. I assumed that the case is settled. I was not aware that the case was sent to collection agency. I hope I should have been told about that. 

One fine day, an operator from this agency called my wife ( they called her because the bill was in her name as she was in hospital when ambulance service was taken ). My wife was outside in a roadside park with XXXX kids. My wife was immediately threatened that if payment is not done immediately and if call hangup happens anytime, the debt will be reported on the credit which will be there for seven years, blah blah blah. Operator even said her that if we don't pay now, she will charge my credit card. 

Since my wife doesn't deal with finance, she said that they can call me and settle the case. They were in roadside park and my son already started crying because of hunger and sleep. Operator didn't listened to her at all. She told my wife that I'll be called immediately and my wife also has to stay on the call. My wife can't hangup and can't call me. 

My wife got very scared. I got the call, I didn't knew that they kept my wife hostage on the other line, and I worked out logistics, understanding why are they calling, why the case went to collection agency, why my insurance company didn't do anything, can I get 1-2 days to work with insurance etc. I was also threatened with a non payment on credit. But that's not the point of this complaint. 

My wife was online for whole duration of call which is 1-1.5 hours. The call was recorded and I'm glad that they did a recording. My son was crying uncontrollably in the sun, roadside. My son is just XXXX XXXX old. My wife can be heard begging on phone call, to let her disconnect the call as they were working the case with me. But operator didn't considered this. The only thing operator was doing was to collect money from me. 

In the pursuit of collecting my debt ( perhaps she gets commission ), she behaved barbarically and caused a trauma to my wife and son. 

- Despite begging, she didn't allowed my wife to hangup and always threatened that if call disconnects, a non payment will be reported - Despite hearing my son loud crying, she still didn't allowed her to hangup My son also got a XXXX that day. All because the debt collector wants money from me and they get their commissions. Is this how they should behave. 

In the same call recording, it can be clearly heard that I never said that I'll not pay the money. I always asked them to give me one day to work with my insurance, but they didn't budge. 

Only when I paid the money, they let my wife go. 

This is barbaric, inhuman way to collect debt. 

The recording is there, and then be obtained by government agency if needed.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation