Consumer complaint received 2025-08-29 00:00:00
Product: Debt collection — Credit card debt
Issue: Took or threatened to take negative or legal action — Sued you without properly notifying you of lawsuit
Company: Patenaude & Felix A Professional Corporation
State: NV

Complaint narrative:
In XXXX of this year, I was very surprised to see a demand letter ( what looked like a court document for a lawsuit ) pertaining to a debt I owed to a credit card company - XXXX. I immediately called the debt collection agency Patenaude & Felix asking them why I received such a notice when I never received so much as a phone call or an email prior and had no idea who they were because I had actually been in touch with XXXX and told them of my intent to work on settling the debt and they told me when I called a few times that I'd have to wait to settle it. Next thing I know, it looks like the debt was transferred or bought ( not sure what that process is ) by this other company. They claimed they sent me something in the mail in XXXX- which I didn't receive or notice ( I get a lot of junk mail from entities I do not recognize ) so I asked them why I would get slapped with a lawsuit when they never even bothered to give me a call or send XXXX. 

Anyway, I went ahead and negotiated a settlement plan with them that I could manage what with my father passing away, I'm a single mother and times have become hard. From XXXX onwards, I have made monthly payments even ahead of the due dates in good faith without fail. Suddenly this week I received another letter in the mail that looks like another court-filed document with the heading " XXXX Day Notice of Intent to Enter Default ''. I called them right away asking why I'm being sent communications like this when we have officially entered into a settlement/payment plan and I have never missed any payments to this day. The representative over the phone was giving me all kinds of responses that didn't make any sense to me such as " you can file/write a stipulation telling the court that you are making payments '' ( they have in fact been the ones receiving those payments and created the terms we all agreed to. She also said " further litigation won't be pursued as long as I'm making payments '' ( so, why the false statements in these forthcoming notices? ), she also said " it's the court 's process '', to which I retorted " no, your company is the XXXX sending me these questionable 'court documents ' and creating these so-called filings even after I have done my part in promptly, proactively being the XXXX to call them up and connect via email ( even when they didn't afford me that courtesy ) upon seeing the court documents in the mail that had odd overlapping numbers and questionable aspects to it in order to verify their connection with XXXX as I never expected to hear from anyone other than XXXX in regards to this and feel that I am being harassed in spite of holding up my end of the payment plan and the inaccuracy of potentially being " in default '' in spite of the fact I have screenshots of every receipt of every payment I've made faithfully as a monthly priority. 

These tactics of misrepresenting the status of my debt and threatening to pursue legal action with poor prior communication without the ability to prove the claim are unfair, unethical and abusive debt collection practices. This has caused me undue stress and discredits my efforts in staying on top of and actually making good on the settlement by adhering to the payment plan that they dishonor by continuing to push what appears to be legal actions. With this grievance, I am attaching copies of monthly payment receipts ( since XX/XX/year> ) made to this firm together with their demand/lawsuit letter that I received in XX/XX/year> with no prior email or phone communications and their most recent " Notice of Intent to Enter Default '' for corrective action. As a debt collections agency, they also constantly imply that they are attorneys in their communications. Whenever I call their offices, it states they are a debt collections agency but in the letters I've received it's always been from a lawyer representing them.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation