Consumer complaint received 2023-04-25 00:00:00
Product: Debt collection — Medical debt
Issue: Attempts to collect debt not owed — Debt is not yours
Company: W&A Intermediate Co., LLC
State: FL

Complaint narrative:
I will preface this letter by stating that I'm highly responsible and have never in my life had any bill go to collection ... nor would I EVER let that happen! It's equally relevant to mention that I have a PERFECT CREDIT SCORE with all 3 credit bureaus! However, much to my horror, a bill for {$670.00} that " supposedly went into collection '' ( which I DO NOT RECOGNIZE OR KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BECAUSE IT WAS NEVER MY BILL ) suddenly appeared on my XXXX credit report two months ago. I immediately disputed the debt because it is not mine... and I then proceeded to dispute it SIX MORE TIMES because XXXX kept sending me an automatically generated response that the " debt was accurate and verified ''! But in actuality, the debt is NOT MINE and not even calling XXXX yielded any results! The name of the collection agency is Wakefield & Associates, and I learned they have offices all across the country... moreover, Wakefield. & Associates ONLY handles unpaid medical debts... BUT I DO NOT USE DOCTORS! Also, I had NEVER received any letter from Wakefield & Associates even though a collection agency MUST make the consumer aware of a debt before it " hits '' their credit report! So that in itself was a HUGE violation on the part of this sorely unethical collection agency!! I also have no idea how Wakefield & Associates acquired this " fraud debt '' that is NOT MINE... and if they bought it from the original creditor, then someone obviously linked it to my name by mistake! To make matters worse, this " debt '' lowered my credit score by XXXX POINTS and I am livid over this!!! THEN... this same {$670.00} " debt '' ( which I know nothing about and is not mine ) also showed up on my XXXX credit report and lowered that score by XXXX points too!! THIS IS AN OUTRAGE AND THIS " DEBT '' WAS NEVER MY BILL TO BEGIN WITH! So I decided to address this nightmare scenario with Wakefield & Associates directly and spent an entire afternoon repeatedly calling ALL six of their offices ... XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX.. and 3 other numbers I found for their shabby company. But much to my disgust, NO ONE COULD FIND MY NAME OR MY SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER IN THEIR DATABASE... and I spoke with over 16 different agents! According to Wakefield & Associates, their exact words were, " You do not exist in our system, so how could we have placed an item in collection on your credit report? '' Yes, that is precisely what happened ... THEY were asking ME how this could have happened because I am NOT even in their database!! I also spoke with Wakefield & Associates supervisors who confirmed that my name and social security number are NOT IN THEIR DATABASE! I couldn't even ask them for a goodwill deletion on this fraud debt because they have no record of me in the Wakefield & Associates database!! However, this {$670.00} " bill in collection '' is on MY CREDIT REPORT even though it is NOT MINE! I then realized that XXXX has also been LYING TO ME because their response to all seven of my disputes was always, " the item is accurate and verified '' ... First of all it is NOT ACCURATE because it is NOT MY BILL... and secondly, it couldn't have been " verified '' ( as XXXX claims it was ) because Wakefield & Associates has NO RECORD OF ME IN THEIR DATABASE! So XXXX NEVER TRIED TO VERIFY THIS FRAUD DEBT ... they couldn't verify it because I do not exist in the Wakefield & Associates system!!!! I am now appealing to you for help because this item MUST BE REMOVED from my XXXX and XXXX reports immediately!! It's just a matter of time before it also appears on my XXXX report as well! I have made it perfectly clear that I have NO KNOWLEDGE of this debt, the bill was NEVER MINE TO BEGIN WITH, the collection agency NEVER sent me any mail correspondence before this fraud debt " hit '' my credit report, and XXXX has been lying to me by saying that the debt is " accurate and verified '' because they had no way to verify it since I do not even exist in the Wakefield * Associates Collection Agency database!!!!!! I am depending on you to help me and have this item removed from my credit reports!! This was never my bill and the collection agency who put this item on my credit report has no record of me in their database!!!!!! Therefore, this fraud item in collection MUST BE REMOVED FROM MY CREDIT REPORT NOW.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation