Consumer complaint received 2024-10-25
Product: Debt collection — Medical debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action — Threatened or suggested your credit would be damaged
Company: Renton Collections Inc. (WA)

On XX/XX/XXXX around XXXX local time, I was contacted by Renton Collections Inc. claiming they were collecting on a medical bill for my son ( who is currently XXXX ). They were adamant that I provide my son 's date of birth, which I refused given I could not verify that they were legitimate, as to the best of my knowledge all my son 's medical bills were taken care of ( we are fortunate enough to be covered by two medical plans ). I asked if they can mail something to verify and they provided an old street number and city for mail-in address they had on file - an address my son has never resided at. At that time, I explained that I could not provide what they were requesting, because I could not verify the legitimacy of their request. The agent then responded in saying that they would close the issue and report my account to credit bureaus. 

At XXXX local time on the same day, after verifying the public-facing phone number of Renton Collections Inc , I called back and was connected to another agent. The agent was again adamant I needed to provide my son 's DOB before she could disclose anything, citing HIPAA. When I pushed back to say that I can not do so unless I can verify their request was legitimate, she said I should just XXXX " Renton Collections Inc '' and realize that they are a real company. I did so immediately and asked her to verify the address listed on the " Contact Us '' page for company she purportedly represented. She gave me an address that did not match. When I let her know that the address she provided did not match what was on the company website, she claimed that the company recently moved and provided an address that was supposedly the previous address ( which also did not match the address provided on http : //www.rentoncollections.com/contact/ ). At that point, I said that I can not provide DOB if she can not even provide a consistent business contact address. At this point this agent got very aggressive and said " she didn't have time to play [ my ] games '' ( even though, I would like to point out, that it is literally her job to interact with people whose accounts her company is trying to collect ) and again threatened to report my account to credit bureaus " tomorrow '' and it will " be on my credit report ''. ( Her use of the word " tomorrow '' is important here, as I was to find out later ).

Seeing I was no able to get anywhere with Agent # 2, I
decided to hang up, call back at aroun d XXXX local time and request I speak with a supervisor. After confirming the third employee of Renton Collections I was connected with was indeed a supervisor, I gave her a summary of my previous two interactions. I also explained that I understand the limits in how they can operate due to HIPAA, but the fact that they provided an address for my son where he has never lived ( though where my wife and I had lived before he was born ) was very suspicious and that either ( 1 ) they themselves were trying to collect on a fraudulent/ fictious debt or that ( 2 ) they were defrauded themselves and purchased a fictitious collection. It was at this moment that the supervisor informed my that Renton Collections does not purchase debts in collections and they were contracted by a certain provider group. I recognized the name of the provider group immediately, as my son was once seen once by that provider group in his life.

I then called provider group 's billing office and they explained the billing address they had on file was my old address, and it must have been linked through my account ( I had not been seen by that provider group in years ). Consequently, that was the mailing address I had on file, and explains why I had not seen a bill come in. Additionally, the billing office had neglected to bill my son 's secondary insurance, which I was then able to confirm his secondary insurance details to resolve the debt.

I was able to then learn from the provider group 's billing office that my son 's bill was only referred to collections on XX/XX/XXXX, and that the outstanding balance was only {$240.00}.

This means the fact that both agents at Renton Collections whom I spoke with yesterday could not credibly threaten to record my account to collections, as it had only been in collections for 15 days. With regards to the second agent, there was no way she could legally report by account to collections " tomorrow '' ( I.e., XX/XX/XXXX ), after it was only in collections for 16 days. Further, she could not threaten that reporting it would " be on my credit report '', because the outstanding amount was under {$500.00}.

I do appreciate that the supervisor clarified with me that they wouldn't be able to report to any credit bureaus until at least a year, but the fact that individual agents threatened to report my credit nonetheless ( and even made the implicit threat of negative consequences to my credit report ) indicate at least one of three things : ( 1 ) Inadequate training ( 2 ) An environment in this agency where management does not take rules set by the CPFB and other federal agencies seriously, and so implicitly allow these tactics by their employees ( 3 ) Malice on the part of the individual agents