Consumer complaint received 2024-03-22
Product: Debt collection — Credit card debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action — Threatened to arrest you or take you to jail if you do not pay
Company: ENCORE CAPITAL GROUP INC. (NY)

I constantly have been receiving phone calls from different numbers but associated with the same company, which at first they called XXXX XXXX, saying they want to collect a debt I had with XXXX. They usually call early morning or in very inconvenient times when i'm at work and can not talk. I never received any official information from them, other than those very suspecting phone calls. XXXX at XXXXXXXX XXXX, when i was running late to work in the cold weather of XXXX, they called me again, from another phone number I never saw. Without even identifying themselves, they asked to confirm my name and my address. I said i could not talk at that moment and that I did not feel comfortable to confirm personal information by phone not knowing exactly who i was talking to, and if for some reason they were an official company, to please mail me some letter or documents and information I could trust more. This lady was trying to settle an agreement to pay my XXXX credit card debt, even though i told her I wasn't feeling trust, and I lost my access to my credit card information on my XXXX  account, for a long time. She was very misterious and refusing to answer my questions about the company, but threatening me and trying to give me an ultimate chance to no get into a legal action, accepting an agreement immediately. Then she transferred the phone to a man who identified himself as the " manager '', without giving me his name either. He was speaking in a very agressive tone and forcing me to accept an agreement asking how much could I pay by-weekly. When I asked more information about the company, he refused to give me and said I should accept the agreement first, before he could give me any information about my debt or the company, and threatening to send me to court, have the money taken from my bank account and be charged all the legal fees to myself, if I didnt accept this blind agreement by phone, with people I dont know, phone number I don't know, and company I don't even know if its official. I asked what was he could offer me and he said he would not charge anymore interest, from the date I started my payment plan. After a lot of disrespect and harrassment he decided to give me more information and provided me with their webpage, surprisingly the name was different now " Midlandcredit.com '', and an account number they created for my case. He did not give me too much time to look, and was always pressuring me about the by-weekly payment deal. I asked if I would need to see at least my late statements, to have an idea of what was going on, and then he showed me some he got after XXXX assigned the debt for his collection. I started look into those statements and notice XXXX had already accumulated a lot of interest and late fees from all this time since they closed my card, asking him to clarify, but heis answers were always very aggressive and intimidating. And I told him I could agree to pay my original balance in full, from the day of the last payment if he avoided all those fees and interests after that. He agreed but only if I payed immediately. I asked more time to check the company and the rules, and he said Monday. He immediately asked for me to tell him by phone my routing and checking account number, for him to charge me almost XXXX dollars. I felt super invaded, insecure and told that to him. That I would prefer to pay on the website, after I checked the accuracy of all that. He them started being aggressive again and threatened to snd me to court, " if that was my choice '', and hung up the phone, in a very unpolite disrespectful and violent way. This man did not seem like a manager or a lawyer, he really seemed like a scammer that was anxious and frustrated to have almost touched my big money and being caught.