Today I received a letter from a collection agency called Afni, Inc. alleging I owed $63.00 from 11 years ago - 1996. Verizon has provided my phone service for the past 10 years and I don't believe I have ever missed a payment. They never once mentioned I owed them a cent from 1996 and even sent me a refund for overpayment when I moved out of Verizon's service area in 2006. When I called Afni, Inc, a particularly rude young female told me she wasn't interested in anything I had to say. I hung up and will be filling complaints with the NYC Dept. of Consumer Affairs, NY Attorney General, IL Dept. of Consumer Affairs, IL Attorney General, and the IL and NY State Bar Associations. If we band together we can stop these gluttons and put their management and employees behind bars where they belong. I also may send letters to the NY Times, Daily News, and Post. I'm sure Ruppert would get a charge out of organizing a national multimillion dollar class action suit.

I received a letter from AFNI stating that I owed AT&T Long Distance a balance of $76.12, but AFNI was allowing me to get off the hook for half that amount.

To my knowledge, I never had a long distance account with AT&T, but I decide to call AT%T to verify (sometimes this stuff can slip your mind). AT&T had no records and said my account was just fine. I went to 3 different people in AT&T--all of them said the same thing and had no idea what this AFNI letter was about.

So I called AFNI and asked for more information on this. She said it was a delinquent account from 1993?? They gave my parents address (I never had my own account there).

When I asked the operator to give me more details, she said, 'what kind of details do you want?' I said, 'Understand, that if you expect anyone to write you a check, you are going to need to provide more details, such as the original phone number, etc.' She had nothing more than an address I was at in 1993. I then asked her if they were going to put a mark on my credit rating and she said 'no'. She said they purchase these accounts from creditors and try to collect for half.

So the letter is crafted in a way that makes it look like you will get a bad mark if you don't pay up, but in actuality, all they are doing is making a basic statement about the laws of creditors in general. A very sneaky company. This woman sounded as if she had already had a million conversations just like this one.

I received a collection notice, stating the Original Creditor is Verizon Communications and that I should NOT contact them. The phone number is bogus. It is not even in the correct area code to where I live! They suggest that it is in my best interest to resolve this account. They threaten a negative credit report reflecting on my credit record if I fail to fulfill the terms. They refer to Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Federal Fair Debt Collection Practices act. I shall contact the FTC to report this fraud. I hope others do the same. This is outrageous considering I have not had a Phone in my name for TWENTY YEARS!!!