edited this to remove email addresses. if anyone needs them, please PM me.
Hi there,
I am new to the boards and thought I'd post my experience with Hunter Warfield in case anyone else was/is struggling to deal with them. They are an extremely difficult collection agency and it took me awhile to even settle my account with them. I found that there really wasn't much info online that I could find from other peoples experiences. This is very long, so sorry about that!
My sister and I shared an apartment back in 2007. She lost her job and we were forced to break our lease and leave. On top of paying the fine for breaking the lease (it was 2 months rent i believe), we were also charged for some misc. apartment fees. The apartment complex sent us a bill for $2800 and expected payment within 30 days, which of course we didnt have. So our account went to Hunter Warfield and has sat unpaid all these years. This year, I wanted to buy a house but realized that this account was holding me back. This past July, I sent a letter to Hunter Warfield requesting a copy of my lease (I wasn't disputing a debt, but just a way to get out of paying it I guess if they weren't able to supply the lease. Since so much time had gone by i figured it was worth a try!).
Anyways, they did send copies of my lease back to me, and a list of the charges accrued from the OC. So I called up there and spoke to 'David'. After some back and forth, he was able to get it down to $3300. I told him that was not going to work for me, so he got his supervisor on the phone. The supervisor tells me they can settle for $2500. At this point, I was already too frustrated and anxious to get this over with, so I agreed to settle for that amount. However, I needed a letter from them first before I was going to pay anything. The supervisor spoke to me like I was a 5 year old. He basically eluded to the fact that it was 'not in their policy' to send out letters, and that he could take my payment over the phone and immediately allow me to log into their web portal to print a reciept. I insisted on the letter ( I know it can be done, they had sent a few letters to me back in 2010) and he said 'well, i don't know how else to explain this to you, but you have until 5pm to pay this amount and i'm done wasting my time', and the he hung up on me.
With nowhere else to turn, I researched HW on the BBB's website and unsurprisingly, found over 100 complaints. On HW's BBB page, there is a paragraph that states, 'this business prefers that you email Julie Long in the resolutions department prior to contacting the BBB'. Her email is **************. I sent an email with the details of my recent conversation and complained that HW was refusing to send me a settlement letter. Within 30 minutes, a different person from HW called me by the name of 'Alice'. I spoke to Alice and explained to her why I wanted a letter prior to paying, and she tried to give me the same spiel that the supervisor gave me (our site is secure, you can print your reciept, blah blah blah) and I insisted to her that I needed a letter and I would pay right away. She told me to email her a request for the letter, and she'd email the letter back to me. The email address she gave me was *************. So I sent the email as soon as we hung up. 3:30 rolls around and Alice calls to tell me she never got my email. So while I'm on the phone with her, I send the email again and hit bounces right back to me. The first one I sent did not bounce back which was odd. I was determined to get my email up to them somehow and knew that this Julie Long person recieved the first email that I sent, so I copied her on the 3rd attempt. Meanwhile, Alice tells me that she is getting her IT person to come over to her desk to see what the issue is... She says she will call me back in 5 minutes. It is after 4pm at this point, and I am getting nervous about paying before 5pm... Then suddenly, a letter pops into my inbox from Alice and it's the settlement letter that I requested. Funny, the email address she sent it from was completely different than what she gave me earlier. I think she deliberately gave me the wrong email address so that my request wouldn't get to her in time to meet the payment deadline. As soon as I got the letter, I paid her over the phone (i DID NOT want to do this, but they wouldn't settle any other way) and when I logged into their account portal, i was able to print my reciept. My reciept also noted that the account was settled in full. In 30 days, I am going to be sure they update the status to all 3 CRA's. If not, I guess that will be another battle.
What a HEADACHE!!! These people are scumbags and even the ones working in the 'resolution department' are shady. Again, I hope this helps anyone else out there who is dealing with them. Good luck! 
