Consumer complaint received 2018-12-07
Product: Debt collection — Other debt
Issue: Written notification about debt — Didn't receive enough information to verify debt
Company: Access Capital Services, Inc. (CA)

My business applied for a business lice with the City of XXXX XXXX, but did not follow through with it. The city still charged us for the business license. We received no phone calls or letters from them stating we owed anything. They did send emails to one of my employees that went unanswered. This debt was then turned over to collections on XX/XX/18, according to the City. The collection agency claimed they sent an initial letter to the incorrect address, received return mail, updated the address then sent out two more letters. We never received a single letter in our office. Apparently phone calls were placed to an employee 's cell phone several times but went to voicemail. On XX/XX/XXXX, the employee received another call and happened to answer it. The employee let me know about the call and that is when I contacted the city, confused on where this debt came from. I asked to be emailed the collection agency info from the city. After not receiving, emailed the city on XX/XX/XXXX and received a reply with the information. Upon receiving I called the collection agency to inquire on debt. This is when I let them know I had not received anything. They told me about the incorrect address and that the number they called is the only number they had. He explained to me that they did skiptracing but this is the only info they could come up with. This really confused me because all I have to do is go to XXXX and search " XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, California '' and our office number and fax come up. Obviously they didn't skiptrace too hard. I asked for a bill to be emailed to me in order for me to look it over and get it paid. The guy told me they could not legally email me something, but he could get approval to fax me something. Gave him my fax number, but never received anything. On XX/XX/XXXX I received a call from a woman at the collection agency. She was condescending and had a tone I didn't care for. I was in the middle of a meeting so I told her I just need a copy of the bill sent to me so that I can resolve this and asked her to get to the point of the call. She then got extremely rude so after listening to her yell at me, I yelled at her and hung up the phone. On XX/XX/XXXX I still had not received anything, so I called the collection agency again. I spoke with a very nice and helpful lady that said she would email me a copy of the bill. I told her I was previously told I couldn't be emailed anything. She said they just say that because of security purposes, but in reality I knew the only reason she was offering this now is because she was attempting to collect the debt right then and there on the phone so she was trying to provide an incentive for me to do this. I ran a collection agency for 7 years and I know all of the tricks of the trade. I told her I had two options, either she can email or fax me the bill, I will look it over and give her a call back to pay it or since she gave me the amount owed I could just take that number, look at my accounting for the week then give her a call back to pay it. She said she would just go ahead and either fax or email the bill to me and I could give them a call back to pay it. I told her that was fine. As of this morning, XX/XX/XXXX at XXXX, I have still not received a single thing from them. I shouldn't be begging a collection agency to pay my debt. If you look through the finances of my company you will see that we pay our debts and we are NEVER turned to collections for anything, this was just a freak accident that happened because of lack of communication. I will call one more time requesting the bill and if not received, I will not pay and they can write it off or have a lawsuit on their hands. This is absolutely ridiculous and the fact that a collection agency is ran this way makes me wonder how they ever collect money from anyone.