Consumer complaint received 2015-03-27
Company: CCS Financial Services, Inc.
State: CT
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Medical
Issue: Cont'd attempts collect debt not owed
Sub-issue: Debt is not mine

Complaint:
To Who It May Concern, I recently received a collection letter from a collection agency dated XX/XX/XXXX. After receiving this letter, I called its office to discuss it and was told by its representative that the debt : ( 1 ) was owned by XXXX ; ( 2 ) it was for some sort of test ; and ( 3 ) that I owed {$24.00}. During that phone call, I requested a validation of the debt because I did not recognize the debt and had not received a previous bill from anyone, including XXXX. The agency indicated that it would validate the debt and mail the supporting documents to me. It also gave me a customer service number to contact XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX in case I had any other questions. 

I called XXXX. They indicated that the bill was for services performed in XX/XX/XXXX. XXXX also indicated that it sent bills for these services to the following incorrect address : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. Finally, in direct contradiction to what the collection agency representative told me on the phone, XXXX told me that it no longer owned the debt because it had sold the debt sometime last year. Despite the collection agency representative indicating that XXXX owned the debt and could provide any help that I needed, XXXX told me that it could not help me and could not provide any details on the debt because CCS owned the debt. 

Before I proceeded with any other action, I waited for the collection agency to send documents validating the debt. I recently received that validation letter. After reviewing this letter, it is clear that it is legally insufficient pursuant to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act ( " FDCPA '' ). The office has not actually validated the debt and did not send any documents substantiating : ( 1 ) that I owe the debt, ( 2 ) the amount of the alleged debt ; ( 3 ) that it has the right to collect on the debt ; or ( 4 ) who the current creditor is. 

The agency 's validation reads in its entirety : " In accordance with your validation request, we contacted your creditor and confirmed the following placement data is correct : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX, XXXX XXXX. '' It did not include any documents or substantiating information other than this " take our word for it '' statement. 

If the agency had validated the debt, it would realize that I did not live at XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX in XX/XX/XXXX. I never received a bill or statement for this debt. I lived at another address and had lived there for nearly two years. Since then, I have lived in XXXX since XX/XX/XXXX. In other words, it 's trying to collect on a debt that I never knew about and for which I never received a bill. This debt may be some sort of identity mix-up or accounting error for all I know. The agency should have also realized that its representative was giving out misleading, deceptive, incomplete, and incorrect information regarding the character and ownership of the debt. 

Additionally, in addition to the above FDCPA concerns, I am concerned that the collection agency is incorrectly reporting to the various credit bureaus in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act ( " FCRA '' ).

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation