Consumer complaint received 2025-04-19 00:00:00
Product: Debt collection — Credit card debt
Issue: Attempts to collect debt not owed — Debt was result of identity theft
Company: ENCORE CAPITAL GROUP INC.
State: GA

Complaint narrative:
In late XXXX and during the pandemic, as well as recently from XXXX and XXXX, is where suspicious activity was surfacing. From having troubles with multiple credit cards, bank accounts, and personal information being compromised, leaked, hacked, and breached. From years back, from XXXX about the years possibly around XXXX, some speedy loans I've never heard of were in my name and were secretly hidden until last year, XXXX, that I just found out, and now I am hearing about them. All when a family member, my brother, was on drugs and was arrested for multiple serious charges and including theft, and took my information and used it without my knowledge, and kept it hidden for a long time until I found some evidence of clues he was stealing from me. He was known to steal items from my property as well as have a bad affiliation with a bad crowd that robbed me at my residence or vehicle. He is serving prison for 33 more years. I was also robbed by an unidentified person who robbed me and took my purse, which had personal information such as a social security card, license, credit/debit cards, cash, etc., from my vehicle and residence. I had accounts hacked over the years, and information breached/leaked from what I hear, the dark web, somehow. Been constantly getting spam calls, texts, and emails, consistently, as I do not disclose my information. I reported this as nothing has been resolved, repaired, or fixed from banks/companies, as they turn me into a collection agency after supposedly having identity fraud insurance protection. I have been disputing repeatedly since then and have a police report stating my situation/incident, court documents of a fraudulent affidavit as leading to some evidence traceable, while other evidence remains untraceable, as hackers/thieves keep getting away with scheming. I have had people throughout my entire life misspell my name, which is making my situation worse, as I disputed all the wrong information on my credit history report, such as other names, addresses, XXXX, etc., that were used to as identity theft. Recently, my significant other, XXXX XXXX, had his information breached/leaked/hacked from accounts and a Missouri bank credit card from XXXX in his name that he never knew he had that someone else was able to get a hold of his information and was left a bill of a payment of {$2200.00} in collections in which I am helping him dispute it and report it. He gave me consent to do this for him because I have more patience to handle this than he would, as this will raise his XXXX XXXX. We as a family suffer from chronic health problems genetically passed down, so his condition in dealing with this situation won't be feasible for him. I have about {$18000.00} in collections that were stolen from me from credit cards/loans that I have been disputing repeatedly over the years and dealing with the pandemic during that time is where the suspcious activity was occuring along with what already happened from being robbed by a robber and a theif of a family member. The student loans I am still making payments on or still owe, and other debts that are in good standing and on time with making payments or already paid off, are mine. I own that. One prepaid credit card that is {$100.00} that I owe is mine. I had a financial hardship and was not able to pay on time, and I am 120 days late. Will fix that soon. I even had the Department of Labor billing me over thousands of dollars, saying an overpayment is due, and I do not owe them anything, as I pay my taxes on time and have taxes taken out throughout my entire life of working life. During the pandemic, is where that surfaced as I did everything legally, by the law, and by the books, so I do believe someone messed up there on their end or someone stole my idenity and is falsifying saying I owe that when cleary I was approved and met all critieria during the pandemic and have proof of the evidence to state that. I thought that was suspicious, so I am most certain my identity has been breached from past and recent events, and now, I want our lives back because my family is suffering from this, as we are below the poverty level and can barley afford or make it by becasue of the inflation/economy. I have been fighting to protect myself, mine, constantly, and not one person has helped me resolve this and repair and fix the situation, as our identities have been compromised and without our knowledge, knowing if we are ever gon na be safe, since it has been getting worse with identity theft happening. Please help, I would like my identity back and be able to restore my credit as well, with XXXX XXXX 's situation being fixed too. It is not right that we have to suffer or be responsible for someone else stealing our identity or our information was breached/leaked out by the market/web somehow, when we all are very protective about our information and do not give it out to anyone, and no justice is served for us.

Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief