Consumer complaint received 2022-08-23
Company: ENCORE CAPITAL GROUP INC.
State: SC
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Credit card debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action
Sub-issue: Threatened to sue you for very old debt

Complaint:
I submitted a complaint earlier this month and everything the company has responded with is completely false. This company has violated MANY federal regulations in regards to proper debt collection. I have sent a total of 5 requests for debt validation, all of which have been ignored. They are unable to produce the validation required so that I can ensure this is my debt. The amount they are reporting is in fact invalid and was confirmed invalid when I reached out to XXXX XXXX  They have listed on my XXXX credit report  and XXXX that this account was with a lawyer when in fact it is not. They have had people pretending to be lawyers call my home and family members with threats to sue, people have called and left threatening voicemails claiming they will come to my job and serve me with court orders, they have called my family members and told them they wanted to know my whereabouts so that they could have me served with court papers in reference to this debt. I have NEVER given this company permission to contact anyone in reference to this debt. My mother in law was called and given my whole social by someone from their office which is a breech of privacy and illegal. Every conversation I have had with this company has not been in guidelines with federal regulations of debt collections. A rep from their office called me while I was in the hospital giving birth to my stillborn daughter and threatened to have served with papers. Not one time did any of these reps mention that they were attempting to collect on a time barred debt which they are legally bound to do in trying to collect on a time barred debt. Further more I have saved voicemails and recordings of the company they have sold the debt off to who tried to threaten to sue me. Since they have sold this debt off to another junk debt buyer like them they are illegally reporting on my credit report. They no longer own the debt and have no legal right to continue to report anything on my credit report. The call I made to their office where I was told they had probably mailed the proof to the wrong address and refused to send another proof of debt out was XXXX of XXXX. Also their account that the debt is not due to come off of my credit report until XX/XX/XXXX is incorrect. Base off of my credit report the account was listed as deliquent in XXXX of XXXX ( which is false, after talks with XXXX XXXX  the actual delinquency date was XX/XX/XXXX ) so that makes the account due to age out XXXX. of XXXX Credit reporting agencies go by last date of delinquency that was reported by the original owner not when the collection agency received the debt. They call from spoofed numbers and leave threatening voicemails. All of which is against federal regulations. While I was able to confirm there was a debt with XXXX attached to my name, they could not verify if I was the one who initated the debt. They have not been able to produce a contract with my signature and a detailed bill showing proof of the amount that was sent to collections.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief