Consumer complaint received 2017-07-20
Product: Debt collection — Private student loan debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action — Threatened to sue you for very old debt
Company: ZENCO COLLECTION, LLC (CA)

This is regarding a private student loan from XXXX XXXX that was taken out more than 4-5 years ago, which is beyond the statue of limitations for a private student loan that was not secured by the federal government. I received a voicemail from XXXX XXXX. XXXX stated, " XXXX XXXX, our office received a very serious legal complaint that is associated with your social and the attorney on staff is needing to know your involvement with case # ( case number ). You will be speaking to XXXX XXXX ( sp? ) at XXXX. As of XXXX central standard time tomorrow morning, which will be XX/XX/XXXX ( although this call was made on XX/XX/XXXX, so this was likely an error on XXXX XXXX part ) a decision will be rendered and your documents will be forward ( sic ) to X County. My number again is XXXX XXXX. '' At that point I called XXXX. A woman answered the phone and said " Processing, can I have your case number? '' I asked her for her name. She did not give me her name and said, " I need your claim number. '' I asked her for the name of the company she was with. She did not give me her company name and instead said, " I ca n't tell you anything without your case number. '' I told her that federal and state regulations required her to tell me who I was speaking with if this was an attempt to collect a debt. She suddenly knew my name ( I 'm assuming from a caller ID match on her side ) and forwarded my call without giving me any information about who I was talking to, what the company name was, or if this was a debt collection attempt. At that point, a man picked up the line and identified himself as XXXX. I asked XXXX what company he worked for. He said that he did n't need to tell me. I said that he did because state and federal regulations required that he tell me. He laughed and placed me on hold. When he came back he said that the company 's name was Zenco. I asked him to spell it, but he refused. I informed him that, thus far, nobody at his company had performed their debt collection attempt according to regulations if this was even a debt collection attempt. He yelled that, " You are in no position to bargain because your wages are going to be garnished, '' and then hung up the phone. At that point, I tried calling back XXXX, but every time someone picked up the phone they either hung up the line immediately or transferred me to a voicemail box that did not even have a name associated with it. So, I was left to assume what this message I was left by XXXX XXXX was about. I looked up my credit report and saw an old debt that this call might have been about because, to this point, nobody had even told me what the debt was, how much it was, or anything that I could use to verify if this was even valid. I decided to call the number listed on my credit report. The company named on the credit report was XXXX XXXX XXXX. I spoke with a helpful woman named XXXX who listened to exactly what I went through with Zenco. She even verified what I owed, what the account had been, and everything I needed to validate that this was a genuine item that needed my attention. She put me on hold for a while so she could go discuss everything I had told her with someone. When she came back she told me that I needed to go through Zenco to settle my debt. I asked if I could just settle through her because she had treated me like a human being and I would rather just deal with her since she was already on the line with me ; but she said that Zenco had the account at this point and XXXX XXXX XXXX used Zenco for this purpose. So she told me to call Zenco at XXXX and ask to speak to a manager. I called Zenco at XXXX and a woman answered the phone saying, " Zenco, how may I help you? '' I asked to be transferred to a manager, as instructed by XXXX. She transferred my call to a voicemail box that had a man 's voice, but the man did not state his name or position. So I called back Zenco at XXXX and the same woman picked up. I told her that I had just spoken with XXXX XXXX XXXX and wanted to speak with someone regarding settlement of a debt. She transferred me to a woman named XXXX. I will admit that XXXX was a nice person who treated me with respect and was very forthcoming about the situation. There was no talk of legal proceedings, garnishments, or anything. I was starting to have my doubts about whether those initial statements left on the voicemail message from XXXX XXXX were even truthful. After XXXX and I verified the debt and details of it, I told her that I wanted to settle the debt. XXXX calculated a settlement amount and we reached a mutually beneficial agreement to resolve the debt. However, despite how well XXXX performed as an ethical and reasonable debt collector, I felt that it was necessary to file this complaint with the CFPB because the initial practices of Zenco were not very ethical or humane and quite possibly illegal. In addition, how is Zenco able to collect on a private student loan debt that has gone past the 4-5 year statue of limitations? I finished my degree program in XX/XX/XXXX and it 's XX/XX/XXXX. That is 9 years. The loan was taken out before that time. It has been 10+ years at this point since that XXXX XXXX loan was taken out.