Consumer complaint received 2022-07-28
Company: ENCORE CAPITAL GROUP INC.
State: GA
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: I do not know
Issue: False statements or representation
Sub-issue: Impersonated attorney, law enforcement, or government official

Complaint:
This is a very frustrating situation until I found out through studying the FCRA/FDCPA that there are practices and laws in place for the consumers when they have not been handled correctly. My husband and I went on vacation to XXXX, FL in XX/XX/2018 to travel and get away to try to start living life again after losing our son! We went to a timeshare presentation at XXXX. When we got there everyone filled out this piece of paper. It wasn't a formal application or anything but we were told that it will be used to see if we qualify for the timeshare. I kept seeing XXXX XXXX Bank and asked why isnt it saying XXXX on here? The gentleman said well it is still XXXX but it handles the financial side, whereas, anything XXXX is the property side. So I said ok that makes sense and I completed the form! So after the presentation, the guy comes back excited and says you qualify for everything and won't have to do a down payment. So we were like uhm ok! They then had us talking to different people because we were stating we heard a lot of negatives about timeshares, so I guess they were taking us up the ranks with the next person that had greater persuasion. So they sent XXXX which was the last person, she was very nice and inviting and we told her why we were in FL and she was very empathetic and began to share about her daughters illness and how they had a scare a few times and she couldnt imagine losing her. So we then said, well we do want to travel more and this could be a healing process for us and she offered to take us to tour the property. After, the tour they took us to the business office and they had the contract already completed and everything. Well, we went through the process and they said we qualified for extra bonus points and they have the best taxes and maintenance fees and all of that will be taken care of. Well the following month, we went to XXXX XXXX and we went to another time share presentation just to see if we got a good deal. However, we already had in our minds we are not going to buy. Well while we were there we were talking to a guy and had mentioned we are not interested because we just went through XXXX and just wanted to tour the property. Well when we said that he went and got a guy that worked with him but had a time share with XXXX. He then began to ask us about the points and when we told him the points we will get every year, he said and how much are you paying monthly for that, we told him and his eyes got really big! He said I'm going to be honest with you, that is what we call bottom feeders points and you are going to have a really hard time securing any property with that. He stated he gets over XXXX points every year and he does not pay close to what we are paying, He didn't try to get us to buy the time share or anything at that point but he told us when we get back home just go in and try to secure a property and date for vacation. Sure enough, it said that my points doesn't qualify for the properties that we were really interested in. I then called XXXX and explained the issue I was having and she began to go over my account and said " I see you're making payments on your down payment and you received bonus points on top of your regular points. '' I told her we didn't have to do a down payment and we were given the bonus points because we qualified for everything! I said they also gave us a members reward card ( which we learned was an actual credit card with our member number on it ). Come to find out they opened a line of credit and a credit card in my name. I was so angry I told her I wasn't making another payment to XXXX for NOTHING because this was very deceptive. She apologized and said it's really nothing they can do because even though everything shows through XXXX it's actually other companies and it could damage us if we don't make the payments. I immediately reached out to the Rep XXXX who assisted us and gave us the tour. I expressed how upset we were and we felt they didn't disclose a lot of things we would encounter after making such a promising presentation and the points presented wasnt what we received. I believe at some point she was instructed to stop responding to our text and calls. So now I have several accounts on my credit plus collections because of all of this! I felt so hopeless because this wasn't right! Then on top of that I had an encounter with Midland Credit a debt collector, which I typed up a letter to send to the FTC but I wanted to wait because I disputed that account and the others and they all came back verified. How were they verified and they have no contracts with my signature where I agreed to any transactions with them. The only one that has my signature and a contract was XXXX. But what they did with that initial form I filled out they went and opened these accounts giving me the impression that it was all through XXXX. 
These are the accounts below : XXXX XXXX Line of credit XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Debt Collector XXXX XXXX XXXX Debt Collector I have attached the parts of the contract supporting all of this information. The bonus points, contract, down payment ( where we saw approved thinking it was saying approved we didnt have a down payment ) but it was actually the line of credit opened when we were thinking that was for the taxes and maintenance fees and lastly, the little slip of paper that started it all. I also attached a copy of the letter that I had typed up for the FTC because of Midland Credit actions and held off waiting for their response with the credit bureaus.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation