Consumer complaint received 2022-03-18
Company: ProCollect, Inc.
State: MS
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit reporting
Issue: Incorrect information on your report
Sub-issue: Account information incorrect

Complaint:
Please note that I have a credit file that spans more than 3 decades. I have XXXX 30 day lates, on any credit bureau. I have done volunteer work for years to teach the importance of good credit. This is my only XXXX and it is inaccurate. My complaint is about a collaboration that involves THE COTTAGES OF XXXX, PROCOLLECT INC., and XXXX. My son lived in an apartment complex, THE COTTAGES OF XXXX. He was in college and I was paying his bill. The Cottages of XXXX sent inaccurate statements. Based on conversations with their employees, it is my strong belief that they were charging people for things that they didn't owe and hoping that the people would pay anyway. They were using the threat of, turning people over to a collection agency, as a weapon to get the consumer to pay for these charges that they don't owe. I am no fan of being extorted and I challenged them on the charges. It took many conversations and many emails ( hours on hours of time ) but they finally admitted that the statement was wrong and sent me a statement that was at least closer to correct although still inaccurate. After giving them sufficient time to charge me only what I owed and multiple calls, I decided to cut my losses and pay. Ultimately, I paid more money than I actually owed in order to move on with my life and they still turned it over for collection. Even with a zero balance. The collection agency is PROCOLLECT INC. I have sufficient information to prove that my being turned over to them was unreasonable but PROCOLLECT INC seemed to have no interest in the truth. PROCOLLECT INC. filed derogatory information to XXXX which added it to my report. I disputed the derogatory information to XXXX even though they made it extremely difficult by having check boxes with information about your situation and none of the information beside the boxes fit my situation. They give you a box for " other '' and the ability to describe your situation but allow too few characters to adequately describe it. Later they will allow you to upload documents but limit the documents to too few pages for a case where many emails were written and received. The collaborated extortion seems to work like this : THE COTTAGES OF XXXX charges amounts not owed. If consumers pay them, the scam ends there. If consumers don't pay them PROCOLLECT INC. is all too happy to, for a fee from the consumer, to collect the extorted money. If the consumer is unhappy with getting extorted by PROCOLLECT INC., the extortion continues to XXXX which I assume is being paid by PROCOLLECT INC with a membership fee. This collaboration is good for everyone but the consumer which assumes that they have limited ways to fight. As an example, I contacted XXXX today and I spoke to 6 different agents. Each time that you get transferred to a different agent, they ask for lots of information. It seems that they assume if they transfer you to enough agents, which take enough of your time, you will just give up. The collaborators win. The consumer loses.

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation