Consumer complaint received 2019-06-08
Product: Debt collection — Other debt
Issue: Attempts to collect debt not owed — Debt was paid
Company: Ray Klein, Inc. (OR)

On XX/XX/XXXX, I made payment arrangements with Professional Credit Services, toward a debt owing in the municipal court for criminal and traffic offenses. I believe I owed about {$4600.00} in total ; which i believe includes the interest and fees charged by the agency ( the debt had been handed to professional credit services to enforce collection ). 

The contract i entered into, was to pay {$400.00} per month plus an initial downpayment of 1/3 - equal to {$1400.00}. I went down to the agency with a friend and signed the pertinent paperwork initiating the {$400.00} ACH payments which were to start on XX/XX/XXXX. 

I noticed that the agency was taking {$100.00} on the XXXX of each month, in addition to the {$400.00} i agreed to. 

I did not worry about it though, since i assumed these amounts were going toward the cause. Having entered into the payment arrangement on the municipal court amounts, made me eligible to regain my driving privileges, and i in fact, did so in XX/XX/XXXX. 

The last payment that came out of my account was for XXXX. Given that this amount differed from the rest ; i assumed that the debt had been paid in full. i received no further attempts to collect and no correspondence or phone calls from the agency indicating otherwise. 

But in XX/XX/XXXX, i received notice from the DMV which stated that my driving privileges would be suspended due to a balance outstanding on two docket numbers ; those docket numbers i believed were involved in the gamut of those i had paid on for the preceding months under agreement. 

I contacted the municipal court and they told me the debt was in fact with Professional Credit Services ; and i would need to contact them to settle it. 

During the first conversation, the call was lost or else the man on the other end of the line had hit mute, since i suddenly couldn't hear anything. I hung up and called back. This time a woman helped me ; and i asked her three times if i could get some type of an accounting from them because what she was telling me did not add up to what i knew my records reflected. She was talking only about medical files and other, newer files, but made no mention of the nearly {$5000.00} in payments i had made since last XX/XX/XXXX. She avoided the question about whether i could see an itemized accounting of the files to which the {$400.00} payments were applied. Then she said something about not being able to upload one of the files ; and when i started to become annoyed, she pushed back, interrupting me and rudely telling me to calm down. 

I then went immediately down to the office, and requested copies of all transactional details, itemized statements, and accounting, plus contract agreements signed by me, that they had within their files, under my name, since the beginning of time. 

The receptionist took a very long time, scrolling, clicking with her computer mouse, and then, talking with a supervisor, once, and then twice, verifying she could provide some information ( i couldn't hear what was being said ). 

She handed me a packet of documents ; which consisted of : two open ( unpaid claims ), unrelated to the court, and one satisfied claim, which was one of the claims the {$100.00} payments had supposedly covered. 

I went home and pulled up my financial institution documents, and found every payment i had ever made to Professional Credit. No fewer than {$5400.00} was paid to the agency since last XX/XX/XXXX ; and no documentation was provided which clarifies and substantiates the application of any of the {$400.00} payments. But i can see where on one of the files, there are substantial interest payments that this agency has taken. 

The conclusion is this. What i believe happened is that, Professional Credit services either assessed more interest or else it decided that interest had not been paid in full. Therefore, they reallocated the applied payments to cover their " interest '' fees on the dockets already covered, thus, creating " debt '' with the court system that had otherwise already been paid for. I believe the monies in their open file were reallocated to cover the interest and fees ; and then they simply failed to supply the information. This created communication to be generated, that alerted the court that i was out of compliance with payment arrangements, causing the court to take action to suspend my driver 's license. The agency thus hopes that i will make a new payment arrangement to cover the amounts they now say are owing, some six months after the debt had settled. In effect, they indirectly leveraged the power of the court to gain additional funds to cover fees and interest to which they weren't entitled. And that, i believe to be illegal.