Consumer complaint received 2020-07-15
Company: Army and Air Force Exchange Service
State: CA
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Credit card debt
Issue: False statements or representation
Sub-issue: Attempted to collect wrong amount

Complaint:
The XXXX  Collection department through AAFEES initiated a social security payroll intercept years ago to pay an outstanding credit card debt that I owed. After several years I noticed that the full amount that was being taken out of my social security payment was not being fully applied to my outstanding debt with the Army Airforce Exchange Collections Department. I then sent emails to their collection department asking for an explaination. They indicated that they sent my debt to some other collection company knows as XXXX, XXXX also was not applying the full amount received and to charge the most amount of interest they would split the money they received as if they had received 2 payments staggered within the month as opposed to getting one payment as it is issued through the treasury department which I indicated was unethical and illegal. Upon notifying the XXXX  collection department there representatives indicated they had taken over the account from XXXX again. However I asked for a full accounting of all monies received and payments that were applied to ensure they were accurately applying the money they received to the repayment of the outstanding debt for I suspected that fraud was occuring since even the XXXX  collection agency were not applying the full amount of the money they received from the Treasury department {$180.00} each month, also there were discrepancies on their accounting statements some months they applied {$160.00}, other months it was {$170.00} there just didn't seem to be a consistent amount and yet the money they received was always the same. I sent via email requests to the collections department, and even the fraud unit and though I had an email tracking software that notifies me when an email has been opened they never responded, never provided me with a full accounting of money received and payments that were applied to my account. Several months ago I noticed that they were no longer intercepting my social security XXXXXXXX check and thought they decided in order to not be found to be committing fraud by false accounting of monies received, they decided to drop the issue all-together. However recently I have been receiving statements indicating that I have an outstanding debt from them and they are charging me monthly interest which I thought was slick because I'm certain after it gets to a certain amount they can again begin to re-intercept my social security payment without accounting for the money they've already received. I am convinced this collections department is committing fraud and unethical collection practices ( by charging fees in addition to interest ), not applying full amounts of money received to outstanding debt accounts. I have requested on 3 seperate occassions that they provide a full income disclosure statement to me all of which have been ignored with the exception of one occassion I received a partial statement which clearly showed inconsistencies and discrepancies within the statement. 

My account number is : XXXX my balance as of XXXX 's statement was : {$4900.00} My name is XXXX XXXX XXXX, address is XXXX. XXXX XXXX, XXXX, Ca XXXX. My phone number is : XXXX. 

The email I have sent requests for disclosure information to is : XXXX and their fraud department : XXXX all of which have gone unanswered with no response at all although I know from my email tracking software that they have opened my email 's on numerous occassions. I am asking that your organization investigate this issue. They have not applied all monies received from Social Security accurately in the repayment of this debt, they have illegally charged fee 's or not applied the full amount of money received and are unwilling to provide me with an accounting in order to hide their tracks and although they are no longer intercepting money from my social security   XXXX payment they are still charging me monthly interest. I am contending that either the amount owed is inaccurate or that they mis-applied money received to manipulate interest rates charged so that the maximum amount they could assess was applied to this account unethically and inaccurately all of which constitutes FRAUD. Your assistance in this matter would be greatly appreciated. If they do not comply with my request for a full disclouse of all monies received, payments applied, interest charged etc I want this debt to be dissolved or I will seek legal counsel to investigate whether a lawsuit is in order. This collection department is as crooked as a {$3.00} bill.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation