Consumer complaint received 2019-02-22
Company: ENCORE CAPITAL GROUP INC.
State: TX
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Payday loan debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action
Sub-issue: Threatened to arrest you or take you to jail if you do not pay

Complaint:
On XXXX XXXX2019 I received a voicemail from a debt collector saying that my husband was going to have legal action pursued against him for an old debt. The caller claimed that he would be taken to court for theft of service and theft by deception. I called the number back and spoke with someone who was kind and I ended up paying them {$50.00} on that day and then a week later paid them another {$620.00}. They set up payments for every month in the amount of {$670.00}. When I went back into the archives of my husbands email I found that at one time over two years ago we did have a loan with that company but it was paid, I managed to get into the account and saw that there was no open loan, no loan history, no email with attempts to collect payment. I decided to hold off until they gave me more information. Instead the used a caller ID spoof to act as if they were calling from my county courthouse saying they were legally warning us and Pursuing legal action against my husband. I called back and explained I needed more information but they didnt provide any, instead they berated me for being irresponsible and taking a loan without reading fine print and said if I gave them {$710.00} they would leave me alone. They also claimed they would send me a letter stating we had agreed to that amount and the loan would be absolved. I called my county courthouse and they had never heard of the person that had called me and said no such person exist and that they do not call people about personal debts. I spoke with the attorney general who referred me to this site. The debt collectors have since been calling and harassing me more, the calls are hostile and accusatory, they tried to call from the spoof courthouse number again and hung up when I answered, they called again and were pretending that I was speaking to a courthouse employee, I stated that I had tried to reach him at my county courthouse but they had not heard of him, he gave me a lot of excuses and I said I would feel better if I called the courthouse directly and was connected to him, he became flustered and I hung up. About 5 minutes after that the collection company called my husbands phone which I answered, they were upset that he didnt pick up. They became very hostile, again threatening us with legal action and I told them that the phone call was over. They left a voicemail on my husbands phone laughing and saying good luck maam we know where your husband works, we will be contacting his employer, thanks for letting us know he works overnight. We were trying to operate under the good faith that we might have made a mistake and agreed to pay the {$670.00} which we did. Now it has become an absolute nightmare, they are contacting our family members from the spoofed courthouse number and leaving messages saying they are looking for my husband, which scared my mother in law. There is no being civil with this company.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief