Consumer complaint received 2021-04-06
Company: Collection Consultants of California
State: CA
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Medical debt
Issue: Written notification about debt
Sub-issue: Didn't receive enough information to verify debt

Complaint:
Im writing this letter because of the harmful business practices I have experienced recently with XXXX XXXX in XXXX, California, and Collection Consultants located in XXXX, CA. Now I am not writing this letter because I want to sound victimized but I am writing to make sure they are held accountable for taking advantage of myself and others. XXXX XXXX is a large organization, seeing many different patients who I believe may all be victims of these egregious practices. They also serve a large number of elderly patients in the XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX region, who may be even worse victims of fraudulent medical practices. 

To begin my story, I had visited the ER room at XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX in order to get care for my stomach. I had gone river rafting that day and could not bear the XXXX  I was experiencing afterward. I checked in from my recollection just after 11 at night, where I was sharing I could not drink water very well and was getting dehydrated. They sat me down and IVd me with some water or a saline solution. Then they gave me a few minor stomach meds to calm my stomach down and I was sent home around XXXX. Now for this small visit I did receive a bill a few weeks later for a {$820.00} with my {$280.00} copay. I did pay this and finish it out. My XXXX XXXX insurance with my family put it towards my deductible. Now I thought I was done with these bills at this point for what seemed like a moderately severe stomach issue that was short lived. 

I moved on from that, moved out of my location XXXX of XXXX, and my friends moved out of that house where the Hospital had my mail address XXXX of XXXX. I was regularly checking mail there and had changed my address since then multiple times. That property was also made vacant by the campus who owned it. Now flash forward to XXXX of XXXX, when I was applying for a new credit card and got denied. XXXX alerted to me I had a collection against me from an unknown source. I had no idea where this was from so I ran a credit report from XXXX, which told me the collection was from a company called Collection Consultants and the original creditor was XXXX XXXX XXXX. Now I tried calling the collection agency first and they shared with me I had accrued interest on this bill. I was surprised because I had never received a bill. I did not even know what day the bill was for. They told me this bill had fallen into their hands by XXXX of XXXX and notices were mailed out but I told them I had never received the bill. Their records they shared, told me the bill had been sent out 4 times to the old address but I shared I had never received it. I also had no proof or evidence the XXXX XXXX had sent a bill to me either ( they never stated clearly ). They also had my correct phone number at the Collections group but they wrote on file it was disconnected they told me. I checked back at my voicemails which I had dating back to XXXX and I only found collections calls from people with completely different business names! I had not even received a call from XXXX XXXX. Now XXXX told me later on the phone they had my old number on file, so it did not make sense that this Collection group did not have my correct address when they had my updated phone number, and were able to pull my information. 

Now the first major problem I saw here was that my visit was in XXXX, and the Hospital staff told me the bill was not mailed out to me personally until XX/XX/XXXX, during the start of the pandemic. This was a very negligent way to bill someone for a previous visit, and to send out bills to an old address. They only gave me from XX/XX/XXXX until XXXX before they let it fall into collections as well. Now when I spoke to the collection agency they were coercive in regards to my debt and interest. They told me that the original bill was over {$4200.00} but in a way that made it sound like I was originally due for that full amount. Then they told me they could only remove the collection off my credit if I agreed to have them cut my interest in half, and if I asked for all my interest removed I would not be able to have it taken off my credit. This was emotionally intense and fuming to receive interest and be bartered with for interest and collections removal when I had never received the original bill from the Hospital directly in the first place! I later made smaller offers, and even emailed that I would like a written offer of the lowest settlement they could make. 

I finally got them to email me an itemized statement. My parents also had to request of XXXX XXXX XXXX for this bill, because they never received it or any updates from XXXX XXXX that my supposed deductible and copay totaled at over {$1900.00}. My parents already were paying {$1900.00} a month in premiums, our family deductibles were up to {$3700.00} and the maximum co-pay we would be responsible for was {$7000.00} individual and {$14000.00} as a family! This is unbelievable when other people in this country receive free healthcare right? Now after looking at both statements I found majority of these hospital expenses to be near extortion for patients. They were charging us {$1700.00} for just the bag for the IV and over {$500.00} for putting the IV in my arm from what I could tell on the bill. They also charged an additional {$510.00} for the solution in the bag of water and some saline! How can a water solution be {$510.00}!? Now this bill had been sent out to XXXX XXXX by XX/XX/XXXX and a portion was paid by them however the Hospital had not even issued the bill to me. Even though our insurance paid some of it I was never sent a bill by the hospital, however they randomly decided to dig up this bill in XXXX of XXXX, at the start of the pandemic and during one of the worst economic crises we have ever seen! Now I am sure I am not the only one who was attacked by the hospital with a 2 year bill during the worst economic crisis of our most recent time. I had only {$1200.00} to my name plus {$3300.00} in credit card debt to begin with, and was out of work as a substitute teacher. That is extremely bad timing to be pulling bills out for people unless you were trying to take advantage of people! I also had not been in a good place financially at one point with my business and still am climbing out. In addition, I had a deductible and more copays with my insurance and I can only imagine what some people could be going through if they had pulled out multiple medical bills on them during the pandemic! This is a negligent billing practice by far, and shows they were looking to take advantage of people. I also shared with collections I had lost {$35000.00} potentially in revenue with my business but they were barely willing to offer better settlement options or reinstate my debt with the Hospital and remove it from my credit record. 

We had spoken with a supervisor in billing from XXXX XXXX, however she was not willing to bring anything on the bill to a settlement, nor to verify that the expenses on the bill were legitimate pricing. She was not willing to provide any explanation for us to make sure the billing was done correctly. She did not provide us the level of room or any information on what was the legitimate cost. It also was inconsistent to find out the ER Hospital bill was greater in total than 5x the ER Doctors Bill! I was not provided any reasoning behind certain laboratory tests, such as a lipase test measuring a certain level of enzymes costing an additional {$200.00} along with other metabolic tests. We had those conversations during XXXX of XXXX, and have not received anything in mail as of XX/XX/XXXX. 

She also claimed that the account was moved over to collections but she was not specific on who actually owned the debt. I had spoken to other XXXX XXXX staff on the issue of who owned this bill but they also said it was owned by collections. When I asked Collections who owned the bill they stated that XXXX owned it. This sounds like someone is giving out fraudulent information and it is absolutely wasting our time. The supervisor at XXXX was not open to even getting my bill removed from collections and brought back into normal standing when they had claimed it was sent out 4 times to the wrong address 2 years after the fact. They did not even provide documentation proving the bill was sent out, nor were they willing to even mail a statement at first. We had asked a few representatives after the supervisor to send us this information and they could only do it by mail, which extends the process even longer. They could have had my parents address from their blue shield account as well even on the billing when XXXX XXXX paid. They did not request XXXX XXXX to notify us of the bill however, and my parents had never received anything nor does XXXX XXXX attest to have sent out a bill. 

As of right now I have not received any mail from the hospital or but I have from the collection agency with proof of communication and the billing statement directly from the hospital. I am assuming they have it on its way, but I can not know right now if they are going to keep extending this process and wasting my time. The bill I was sent by email though has a starting date of XX/XX/XXXX however, not XXXX like XXXX shared over the phone, and only gave me 30 days for a pay period. The only official record I have is that the bill was issued XX/XX/XXXX ( not XX/XX/XXXX ) and the pay period had ended XX/XX/XXXX and the collection began XX/XX/XXXX. There is no record provided at this moment the bill was sent out or that there was enough time for the bill to be paid or policies on that bill timeline. They did not share that I would have had x amount of time and why from the issuance of that bill, which produced continuing interest as well. I was never provided any payment plan options, never given information backing what the costs were, and the hospital bill was 5x higher than the doctors bill! 

The Collection agency said they would provide financial aid documents to be sent out to me so I am doing that. I even emailed them to work with one of their settlement offers just so I could have it in writing to be taken off my credit but I received no response. I hope I am the only one experiencing this issue but unfortunately I know that isnt true. I know that there are people who went in for things more serious than a river virus, and most likely had 10s of thousands of dollars of bills pulled out of the woodworks for them, unpaid for by insurance. I can not imagine how large these hospital bills would have been created if I had anything worse happen. XXXX XXXX is guilty I believe of negligent billing practices, potentially fraud, and extortion of patient services to myself and potentially many other people during one of our nations most frightening economic times. 

I hope you will consider disputing this practice and protecting the livelihoods of many more families affected by this organization.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation