Consumer complaint received 2018-01-13
Company: Allied Collection Services, Inc. (Nevada)
State: CA
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Other 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 i called XXXX customer service to inquiring if the have Deals for International calling. I was connected to a customer service Rep who told me they have international calling service called " international connect ''. He told me the cost is " $ XXXX monthly for unlimited calls to XXXX '' as i told him that it was the only country i wanted to call with it. I asked him if there was any other charges to which he said none. He told me that the conversation was recorded. I agreed to sign up for the service and to transfer my original service from XXXX XXXX to XXXX XXXX. He then transferred my call to a different department for me to complete the signing up.The next customer Service Rep told me that my monthly Bill will be {$55.00} a month plus the {$15.00} for unlimited calling to XXXX, which i agreed to. she told me that if i signed up at that moment that the company was having a promotion for a free phone. i said that was ok by me and i will sign up. however i told her that i already have an XXXX XXXX which i intend to keep using. she said there was no problem to that. she continued to sign me up but towards the end of the transaction she told me that the free phone was no longer available. i insisted that i was not really interested in the free phone as i have my iphone which i love using. she told me on " record '' according to her that she will offer me a better phone in place of the free phone but for a " promotion '' Price of {$80.00}. I still told her i did n't want the phone and that i have a good service with XXXX but the only reason i am switching is because of the international calling deal which XXXX did n't have. she insisted that i have to purchase the phone to be able to have the whole service package, and that i can use my XXXX afterwards if i wanted. she said the payment will be spread over two years plan and will come up to {$3.00} monthly in addition to my phone bill. I eventually agreed as we calculated my whole monthly bill to come up to {$73.00} monthly and she told me that if i added my debit card for auto payment it will drop by {$5.00} which i agreed to and my bill was supposed to be {$68.00} cent monthly. i gave my bank card information, she sent me stuff to sign by email " while we where still on phone which i signed electronically '' ( who reads " all '' the fine prints of transaction while on phone? ) i signed based on the agreement over the phone.

On XX/XX/XXXX, i noticed that a total of {$70.00} cents was charged to my account. i didnt think much of it as i just felt it was a few insignificant dollars over charge. Again on XX/XX/XXXX my debit card was charged {$87.00}, this was 24days after i signed up, 6 days less than 30 days of my signing up with XXXX and my card has already been charged {$150.00}. I also received a letter by postal mail earlier offering me protection plan for the phone. i also received an email from sprint confirming insurance protection plan for the phone. i remembered that the customer service rep offered me that while setting up my account of which i declined. however when i called to find out why my bill went up i was told by a customer service rep that i added insurance for the phone. i told him that i did n't accept any agreement to insure the phone sent to me and if there was any insurance it should be cancelled immediately. He told me he had done so. All these were fraudulently added to my account.

In another week or so i woke up to realize that my phone service had been disconnected. i went to a sprint office to find out why. i was connected to a service rep who told me that my phone was disconnected because i was making lots of international calls to XXXX and that it increased my Bill. i was in shock and i told him that i only has a $ XXXX monthly deal to make unlimited call to XXXX. he told me that there was no deal like that, that it was only to allow me access to make calls to XXXX at a different rate, i was also told that the phone the gave me cost about {$200.00} + and my monthly payment on the phone is {$10.00} plus taxes. i was hysteric. i called and called until i got a supervisor who restored my phone service and promised to make inquires to my claim and get back to me, i told her to cut off the international service immediately while making her inquires which she got me to the department handling that and they did disconnect the international service. The supervisor called me a few days later and said she was sorry about the handling of my service that i was right and that the international service has been disconnected and that they will discharge all the charges as it was not my fault as i was iproperly adviced by their agents. she also restored my payment for the phone to amount of {$3.00} even though i told them the lady who set up the account said $ XXXX, i decided not to purse that part any more.

thinking that the whole problem has been solved i was shocked to see another debit of {$140.00} on XX/XX/XXXX by XXXX. i called XXXX again and was told that the Bill was already sent out and that they can not refund me the extra but will add take it off from my next Bill instead. I event spoke with a supervisor who insisted they ca n't refund it at that point. i gave up and expected, them to normalize the bill the next period. On XX/XX/XXXX to my surprise i got another Bill from XXXX for another {$150.00} to be debited XX/XX/XXXX. At this point i called my Bank and disconnected XXXX from my Debit Card for automatic payment and i disconnected my service too.

After this XXXX sent me a Bill of {$370.00}. i called inquiring why i was receiving such ridiculous Bills. i was told i was owing for international calls. i was transferred to international department which said that i was n't owing any money. Then another agent said it was because i disconnected the service and i had to pay the full amount of Phone. it was a frustrating process trying to resolve this issue. each time i call XXXX customer service, i will be passed around from one agent to another and each time i will have to tell this long story over and over and i will be passed to another agent and the cycle continued and sometimes i will be put on hold for for unending period and then the agent will say oh i cant resolve this problem i will send you to another.

this continued. XX/XX/XXXX i got a supervisor by name XXXX XXXX who listened to my whole story and said she will make inquiries and get back to me within 48hours. she never called back. Each time i call they will tell me she was not available. i got tired and stopped contacting XXXX. I was surprised to see a Collection on my Credit reports by XXXX XXXX XXXX  representing XXXX. I never received any document from this company regarding this issue.

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