Consumer complaint received 2022-03-01
Product: Debt collection — Medical debt
Issue: Written notification about debt — Didn't receive enough information to verify debt
Company: American Collections Enterprise, Inc. (MD)

My XXXX  child was born XX/XX/XXXX. He spent 8 days in the XXXX  and died from XXXX in XXXX of XXXX. 

My XXXX child was born XX/XX/XXXX. He spent almost one month in the XXXX. 

My XXXX child was born XX/XX/XXXX. She spent almost seven weeks in the XXXX and I ended up in the XXXX  after giving birth due to a XXXX XXXX XXXX 

Each of these incidents resulted in the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX sending me multiple different bills, and ACEI sending me very few notices of debt to bills that had not been paid and transferred to them. To get clarity on what bills still needed to be paid in XXXX, I called the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX. They notified me that several of these bills from me and these XXXX different children had been transferred to ACEI. I was surprised to learn that there were any outstanding bills from my medical care or the medical care of my first two children, as I had not received any notice from ACEI of any medical debt owed them for myself or my first XXXX children from XXXX and XXXX. I spent two hours on the phone with a very helpful service representative from the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/XXXX where she looked up all of my children 's and my individual outstanding bills that had been sent to ACEI for collection. She and I walked through each invoice and she marked them all as paid and told me this information would be sent over to ACEI and that they would also need to mark my debt with them as resolved and report the resolution of that debt to the CRAs.

I called ACEI within a week of paying XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX trying to see if they had in fact received this information and if it was resolved. I was initially told I had no debt with them. Then I was told on the same call that that was not right and I actually had a ton of debt with them. I was transferred to multiple representatives and finally landed with compliance. From the beginning, the compliance manager was unempathetic to me even when I told her I was just trying to gather information, pay them for any outstanding bills, and resolve any lingering problems with my credit. I explained our unique and traumatic medical situation. There was no sense of humanity, only a sense of annoyance that I was creating extra work for her and complaints about how many invoices I had and how convoluted their system was for communicating with the original creditor, the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. According to ACEI 's representative, my information is sent over from XXXX XXXX Physicians on a hand-updated excel spreadsheet by email, and then ACEI has to go in and update all the invoices by hand.

I called ACEI again yesterday. I also spoke with XXXX XXXX XXXX yesterday. They have remained helpful, forthcoming, and happy to confirm the information about my account and medical debt. They confirmed again yesterday that they had processed my payments on XX/XX/XXXX, that they had processed payments for all the outstanding medical debt I had with them, and that they had sent over notice of all these payments/resolutions to ACEI on XX/XX/XXXX. When I spoke to ACEI yesterday, I was cut off more than once, told how horrible and slow XXXX XXXX XXXX is, told that they had not received the information on the XXXX but on the XXXX, and told that they refused to give me ANY reasonable prediction of timeframe for when they will process on their end that my outstanding medical bills had been paid. I asked if they would be willing to have a call with me AND XXXX XXXX XXXX and the compliance manager for ACEI did not respond to this request or agree to doing a three-way call. She basically said she did not care about the circumstances that led to my medical debt or that I was trying to resolve the medical debt once and for all. She said ACEI had no obligation to give me ANY sense of when I could expect resolution. She was rude and hung up on me when I said I would file a complaint with the CFPB if she refused to allow me to speak to anyone else or even provide me with the information I was requesting : WHAT debt I still owed them and WHEN I could expect to have clarity on what bills they had marked as resolved and HOW they would communicate with me which debt had been resolved and which debt was still owed ( if any ). I am just trying to get information regarding whether they have processed that XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX had marked my medical bills and resolved and how I can pay ACEI for any outstanding debt.