Consumer complaint received 2024-01-03 00:00:00
Product: Debt collection — Credit card debt
Issue: Written notification about debt — Didn't receive notice of right to dispute
Company: Lloyd & McDaniel, PLC
State: MI

Complaint narrative:
Please look at LLOYD & MCDANIEL. See what people are saying. I worry what they will do even knowing I'm filing a complaint. I really want someone to take a look at this company and see what's going on and what people are saying. I am NOT the only one. There are so many people who had the same thing happen to them as I have. Someone needs to take notice. People aren't just bitter that their money was taken/garnished and saying negative things because they are mad. There is more to it and ALOT of deceptive lawyering going on. Very misleading to people. I've never dealt with a company who did these things to me and it seems like it'd be illegal. It's dishonest I know that. 
I wasn't able to get details on the debt provided to me, but I was told it was for an old XXXX debt. From when I'm not sure. I'd like to know how old it was. I set up payment arrangements with them to avoid garnishment. Id remembered id paid {$100.00} twice on the debt a few years back and wanted to take sure that was applied to the debt. The girl I spoke with on the phone had the dates for that and it was noted. I remembered I paid online back than to a XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX. I believe it was also under XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX before that. Now being Lloyd & McDaniel. I went online to make payments and noticed there was a total owed around {$1400.00}, but I didn't see the {$200.00} payments showing. That should've been put in there. To show the dates and that I paid towards it. But nothing. No details on the debt itself either. I requested itemized information on this and didn't receive it. Could've been past the statue of limitations or close I suspected. Also, it made me VERY nervous that the only form of payment could be from my checking account. I couldn't even use my debit card? I had to put in my checking/banking info. After I made a few payments I set up auto pay for piece of mind. I wasn't comfortable with it, but wanted the debt paid. I noticed id make a payment and basically only 1/2 of it was being applied to the amount owed! I emailed the girl id spoke with and had been emailing before when I first started the payments. I said I understood interest being accrued, but how high is the interest! It didn't show details of my payment amount broken down. I was noting my payments myself and deducting Everytime I made a payment, and my balance never matched theirs. I was paying {$40.00} a month towards it and not even {$20.00} of it was going towards the balance. I asked in the email why it was like this and said I'm never going to get the balance down. What I'm putting towards isnt even helping. I've never seen anything like it! And I have credit cards that have high interest rates I only pay the minimum payment on, and those balances are in line with what I'd expect. The balance goes down and there's progress. It eventually gets paid off. This was odd. It barely made a dent. And I was paying {$40.00}, which is a decent amount for the amount owed. More than the typical {$25.00} minimum that averages most payment plans. No response. I tried a few times to contact her and now she just ignored me. Before it wasn't an issue though. Every month after setting up auto pay I'd get an email confirmation of the ACH withdrawal from my account. It was going fine for months. This was last year. *** Then those emails stopped. THEY stopped my auto pay. I didn't disable it. They stopped it. Why I didn't know. I contacted them for answers and again was ignored. I asked why my payment wasn't being taken out and how could that be when I set up auto pay. I'd made no changes to it. I set it up for peace of mind to NOT worry about missing payments, and here I was missing payments. Soon enough 8 understood why. They stopped the auto payments, to instead garnish my account for apx {$1200.00}. I believe they planned this all along. Wanted to take a large sum at once the most they could when the time came, so they weren't putting hardly any 9f that {$40.00} towards the balance. They wanted it to stay higher for when they garnished me. I thought setting up payment arrangements meant you were working with debt collector. There was no reason to garnish from me. I also believe that's why they only allowed 1 form of payment allowed when making an online payment ( ACH bank account ). So they could get my banking info. I think they were deceptive and it was in the works. I think they were checking my bank account for when there was enough to take. No warning. No court documents received. I only received a copy of a court document months later saying in XXXX they garnished that money form my account. Yeah that had been months ago. When they stopped my auto pay. They were either going to file a lawsuit, had, or did in that time, but I was told they wouldn't because I set up arrangements. It makes no sense to be paying them and than get hit with a large garnishment. The garnishment paperwork also doesn't give any info. On if it's paid in full, or what the balance us, if any. No letter from them included. They don't want me to know. They want to take more. I would think that would be settled, satisfied. But from reading reviews by others that's likely not the case and they are known to take more than you owe. Take more after the debts been paid, and not uphold the statue of limitations for a debt or provide details on it upon request. After a bank garnishment and late court paperwork sent showing what's already occured, there should always be something stating the status of the debt afterwards, and what is left that is still owed. I couldn't of disputed anything! I didn't get the opportunity to, or know I could. There was no need to do this. It was purely dishonest and selfish. It seems to me like something just isn't right. I can't even trust now paying on a debt and making arrangements because even though I'll do what's right and work with them, I'll get screwed. There is no protections in place for us anymore. They can do what they want. Know the law better, though usually don't follow it. This law office has screwed ALOT of people and with so much negative feedback and claims, they must be doing something that's not right.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation