Consumer complaint received 2017-02-23
Company: Advance America, Cash Advance Centers, Inc.
State: AL
Product: Payday loan
Issue: Charged fees or interest I didn't expect

Complaint:
XXXX XXXX started calling all my family members about a payday loan I had with Advance America. They never sent any letters or contacted me directly. My mother received a voice mail from a XXXX XXXX. Once they got in touch with my mother we called them back to get a clear understanding of what they were calling about. We talk to a XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, so he said. Once we began the conversation, he explained that a company sent my paper work to their Law Firm. We asked him several times who did the payday loan come from and after a while he told us Advance America. Next he went on to say I owed {$960.00}. I told him that did not sound right, because I had not borrowed that much from anyone. He said that included what I owed Advance America with fee 's. Next he asks if I wanted to pay this amount today and my mother interrupted him and asked for for a settlement amount. He gave the amount of XXXX. I asked him several times, why was n't I notified by mail and he never gave an explanation. Next I told him I was going to call Advance America and he said " IT 'S NOT GOING TO MATTER BECAUSE THEY ARE GOING TO REFER YOU BACK TO US. '' So what I did to get him off the phone is to tell him to email me the paper work for what I owe and told him I would pay it, but I was n't. I then contacted Advance America about my account and found out I only owed {$110.00}. I gave them the company name that was trying to get all this money out of me and they had never heard of them. Advance America gave me the number to the people that they said they sold my acct. to. They told me they sold my account on XXXX XXXX, 2017. They gave me the number to the company they sold it to and it was not XXXX, so I thought. Once I called XXXX different numbers it led my back to XXXX under a different name. They were operating under XXXX different names, as a Legal company. When the answering machine picked up to my surprise it was XXXX, the company Advance America said they knew nothing about. At this point XXXX called me back on XXXX/XXXX/2017 and told them I found out my balance from Advance America, so he made another offer of {$200.00}. I told him no, I was not paying what I did n't owe. I did tell him I would pay the {$110.00} if they sent me another settlement letter. They never sent another XXXX. Today is XXXX/XXXX/2017 and they have not called or mailed or emailed anything. These people are scammers and must be closed and stopped. They threaten to garnish my pay check, without being sued or going to court. Told me I would be criminally charged. These messages were left on my mother phone by a person named XXXX XXXX and she also called my uncle and sister telling him the same things. XXXX XXXX made the same threats. These people called everyone in your family that they can contact. This is a tacked used to embarrass you, so their intended victim calls them and they can scare you into paying them extortion money. They work in teams, XXXX pretending to be the server, and the other pretending to be the verification person and another person pretending to be the Attorney name they use when they talk to you and send out settlement letters, which is XXXX XXXX Attorney at Law. Please stop these people and the Attorney that 's involved in this madness. By the way XXXX has a F rating with the BBB and the Attorney has aN A rating. Go figure. They also send this to read as your rights for them getting money out of you. XXXX. Instead of the FEDERAL LAW ( FDCPA ) REQUIREMENTS.

Company public response: Company believes complaint caused principally by actions of third party outside the control or direction of the company
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation