Advice on Business Debt > Personal Collection

[Anonymous]

I need some advice on a collection.  Please read the whole post, there is a lot of info as this has had multiple intereactions since the 3rd of April.

I was running a business from 2016 to 2017.  It was properly setup as an LLC with an EIN. 

My cell phone at the time was the primary number for the business and we had no internet at the retail locatoin (Commercial Building and Address) so I choose to sign with T-Mobile.  At the time they rejected it with me as a Personal Guarantor then the Sales Rep reran it without me as a Personal Guarantor and it was approved.  Just to note, I was never at the store nor did I sign any documents before my Credit was run.

Long Story short, the business failed for various reasons.  Hard lesson learned and some debt was still outstanding.   Some of that debt I am personally responsible for because I did sign agreements, but this is not one of them.

Last month it showed up on my CR as a collection through Credence Resource Management.  I disputed it on TU and Exp, but I haven't seen it on EQ.  

Before the dispute was over Experian received notice from Credence that the bill is mine, with no documents to verify.  Just that the credit says the bill is mine.

I re-initiated that dispute and called Transunion because when this happened not only did they post that, they also posted up that I had late payments with them.  This is a collection agency and the notice on my Credit Report was the first I had heard from them, so I'm not sure that was even legal since no payment arrangements had been made with them.

T-Mobile has never reported to my credit for this at all and I believe it is because they do not have the appropriate paperwork to show this is a personal responsability debt.  

So, after the whole Exp dispute failure I emailed them.  They wanted information and at first I didn't provide it, but upon review I realized none of it was personal information I needed to provide to identify the account.  So I responded to the email again.

Now Time Frame before I get into what's next:

Date of account 9/16 to 2/17 (roughly).  Total amount (multi-lines and devices) $1,600.  

First mail or anything received to me personally, 4/3/18 by Credence Resource Management posted to my Credit Report as a collection with a "Commercial Address" that belonged only to the LLC and not me personally.

Disputed on 3/3/18 with both TU and EXP.

Experian updated results, in their favor, 3/14/18 and I reopened the dispute that day as well.

Email Credence Resource Management 3/14/18

Response they are looking into it on 3/15/18 and asked for personal information along with account information.  I rejected and stated it was being handled through the Credit Bureas.  

I then responded again on 4/2/18 after I realized I could identify the account without giving any personal information as I had the phone number, business name, and address.  That should be enough.

4/3/18 I receive this
"

We are in receipt of your email, dated April 2, 2018

You have provided us with specific information regarding your dispute on the above account.

We have investigated your dispute and as part of that investigation we contacted the creditor.

The creditor believes that the charges on your account are valid.

Please be advised that we will cease all communications with you regarding this matter.

Please call the toll free number below for assistance or any queries Toll Free Number: - 1-855-880-4791.

Please feel free to revert in case of any questions and concerns at:"

Now I was preparing to write and mail a letter regarding this and ask for definitive prove of debt, providing only a P.O. Box I have to respond to.  I'm simply not willing to give a collection agency my current information when I believe this is an invalid debt, but they do need someplace to mail to.

So I start searching this morning to write a goodwill letter and I get a notice from MyFico that my score has been updated.  TU pulled it, even though they had another 15 days because I called them.  

EXP has not pulled it yet, and it is still in dispute and EQ doesn't have it listed.

So I'm trying to decide if I should send this letter or not, or if I should wait for the disputes to finish.  And if I win those disputes what are the chances of this coming back?  Should I send the letter anyways?

Thanks in advance.

[IOBA]

It sounds like you provided your personal information (name, DOB, ss#, etc) to T-Mobile when you first applied for the business cell phone.  Is this correct?

It sounds like the T-Mobile rep may have misspoken or there was a misunderstanding when the account was set up.

When I set up the cell phone, the company (Consumer Cellular) did NOT have any of my personal information.  The account was paid on time as they require a cc to be associated with it.  I had them use the first name of the business as the first name of the company. The second word in the business name was the last name.  The LLC was part of the "last name" on the account.  They had the EIN number as the ss#.  

When I had my business credit card with Cap 1 and with Amex, although I had NOT provided my personal information (other than my name), both reported on my personal credit report with the CBs.  When I disputed with Cap 1 for putting this on my PERSONAL CR, they came back and said they had to hold an individual responsible for the account even though it was an LLC with it's own EIN number.  (BS, in my opinion as the business already had an Amex in good standing.  My personal credit score was very good.  I think they did it to ensure I would pay if the business failed to pay.)

T-Mobile may have a recording of the phone call that has your verbal agreement to pay for the phone bill (personal guarantor).  That may be all they need to persue collection activity, directly or indirectly, on the past due account.

You could dispute the debt as not yours, as it was the business debt and the business was a LLC.

Did you file with your state and county to officially close the business down?  Many places require you to pay a fee to officially "close" your business.  Failure to do so may result in a fine/penalty.  It's not always enough to let your business license lapse.  (I called the state when I closed the business down instead of renewing the business license to find out if I needed to send anything in writing.  There was a state form I had to fill out and return.)

If this was me, I would prepare to dispute with the OC and the CA directly.

[Anonymous]

And that's the thing, this never reported on my personal.  I was on the phone with the rep at the local store.  She first ran it with me on the account as a personal guarantor and they rejected it.  She then ran it without me and they accepted it.

At no time until now has T-Mobile done a peep on my credit, other than I know now they illegally pulled my credit because I had not signed for a business account personal credit pull.

At the time when I went down I looked over the forms I was signing and at no time do I recall a personal guarantor statement.  

That's why I'm thinking I need to send the letter and ask.  

[Anonymous]

And yes, all things were handled with the state.  There was more than one owner on the LLC and it was completely shut down correctly to avoid things just like this actually.

There is some stuff I personally guaranteed, but it is being handled separately and is not on my credit.  Most of it was paid off months ago.

[Anonymous]

Few other things.  If I was the personal guarantor why I have not received anything in writing notifying me of the default?  They had my home address when they ran the first run for me as personal guarnator.  This is from spring of '17 and this was the first I had heard about it.

The address listed on the CRs is the business address, not my personal address.

If I personally guaranteed it I'll figure it out.  I took on that responsability if I did so when I opened the account.  But if I was told correctly, and read what I signed correctly, I didn't. 

I guess I do need to send a letter just to verify if they provide such documentation.  If so it changes not only the validity of the debt, but my personal responsbility to the debt.

[Anonymous]

Well I won.  I have never had a collection agency give up this easy.  Regardless of what they may have on file, they always pursue it to the ends of the earth in my experience.

I guess Credence decided I would fight and it wasn't worth it to them.

"

Hello,

We are in receipt of your email, dated April 5, 2018

Thank you for inquiry.

Your account was recalled from Credence Resource Management, LLC and returned back to T-Mobile US, Inc. on 04/06/2018.

Please refer any questions you may have about this account to T-Mobile US, Inc.

We received your request to delete the credit reporting of a debt. We have requested that this be deleted from your credit by Experian and Trans Union.

Please understand that it may take 30 days for the Credit Bureaus to update their files, and this is beyond our control"

[IOBA]

That's great!

When you signed the paperwork for T-Mobile, did you sign the company's name or your personal name?  If it was your personal name was signed on the contract, "they" may have a recourse to hold you financially responsible.  It probably won't happen.

[Anonymous]

Prior to their response I sent this email on 4/5/18.

"This isn't a question of the original charges.  This is a question of you attempting to collect from the wrong person.  Do you even understand what I was saying?  

Either way, you have chosen to cease communication as you said not over whether the account is actually my personal debt, but over where the account charges are valid.  I will speak with someone so I can verify how the legal standing in the US is on this before I decide what to do.  I prefer to understand the laws behind it before I take action and then make the other side attempt to dispute that.

In this case I did not sign a personal guarantee.  This means the debt is not a personal debt or even valid to be collected upon me unless you can provide proof of such guarantee in writing.  Which as far as I know you can't.

If this has to proceed further than this and I verify that does not exist and you can not provide said document I will look into what damage and harm your false collection attempt did to me.

Regards,"

[IOBA]

It appears that the account was returned to T-Mobile.  This is a good thing.

Has T-Mobile contacted you directly (home address) regarding the business bill?  T-Mobile may end up sending the debt to another collection agency.  If they do, be prepared to state the bill does NOT belong to you, but to a LLC that closed down in 2017.  

[Anonymous]

Yeah they might but up to now they have never sent me a single document about this. Right down to the point the address it was posted from the collection agency was the retail store business address.