Consumer complaint received 2015-04-28
Company: I.Q. DATA INTERNATIONAL, INC.
State: CA
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Other (i.e. phone, health club, etc.)
Issue: Communication tactics
Sub-issue: Threatened to take legal action

Complaint:
Agreed settled amount was {$3300.00} per agreement letter provided XX/XX/XXXXOriginal collection date : XX/XX/XXXXAttempts to resolve : In XX/XX/XXXX I hired a lawyer to contact collection agency IQ Data International because they refused to accept my attempts of payment offers. When I would call they would insult me by calling me ignorant and stupid and hang-up on me. Once I hired the lawyer they made attempts to arrange a payment but I was informed IQ Data did not want to agree on any payment arrangement. Instead they would only state that they would garnish my wages if I did not pay a total of {$4600.00} in a lump sum. They would not provide payment options and only wanted a bank card number to collect full payment. 
In XX/XX/XXXX I received notice that they secured a judgment against t me and again the law office began contacting them for payment arrangements and again they refused every offer attempted always threatening that if balance in full was not paid they would garnish my wages. 
Finally after over XXXX emails with my lawyers and a number of calls on my behalf XXXX XXXX from IQ Data International sent my lawyer 's office a letter with a payment arrangement for a settled amount of {$3300.00} - I agreed to initial deposit of {$1500.00} and 9 monthly payments of {$200.00} on the XXXX of every month beginning XXXX/XXXX/XXXX to XXXX/XXXX/XXXX. This is clearly stated on the letter IQ Data provided my laywer. 
When I called to make the initial deposit of {$1500.00} they took my deposit via my bank credit card as this was according to XXXX XXXX from IQ Data the only method they could accept payment. XXXX XXXX stated my card would be charged {$200.00} as noted on the agreement and then an additional 3 months of payments with the last month a payment of {$240.00}. 
I explained this was not on the agreement. He stated he did not have room to add this to the letter he provided and threatened me by saying if I did not agree to the additional charge my deposit of {$1500.00} was going to be refunded and he was going to proceed with a garnishment, then hung-up the phone on me. Even after being very reluctant to use my personal credit card due to fear of this company 's bad practice and many bad review and fraud, I provided my bank information. 
I called my lawyer 's office explained the situation and informed my lawyer I was going to file a complaint against IQ Data International and I wanted to fight the charges that they keep adding to the balance. 

XXXX emailed me and my lawyer and said we had a conversation with me but that is not correct he now wants to charge me more than the agreed amount. I am attaching his email as proof to you. 

I, through my attorney since XX/XX/XXXX have been working on correcting any bad outstanding debt caused by a custody battle that I was involve with in XX/XX/XXXX. This is the only company that refuses to provide a proper agreement for payment.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief