BCR and You! Has this company harassed you?

@beeeckie (802)
United States
July 18, 2008 10:38am CST
Warning, this is long. BCR (aka Bureau of Collection Recovery) seems to be the go-to collection agency when an AT&T/Cingular customer defaults on their payments. I know, because I defaulted on my cell phone, let the payments get out of control, and before I knew it, had a $900 bounty on my financial head. These things happen, and never did I deny to any company that I indeed owed this money. I was trying to pay it off in bits and pieces, but as many of us unfortunately know, things can turn into collections very quickly. Enter BCR. This company took over the collection of my monstrous AT&T bill over a year ago. At first I tried doing their online payment system, which was fishy because it required giving my routing number via a questionably secure site which did not email confirmation of payment, etc. I stopped paying online and waited for hard copies of bills so I could instead send money orders through the mail. And I waited. And waited. Every four months or so, a paper bill would come. In the meantime, they called. And they called. Every day, sometimes a few times a day. I asked for a bill to be sent, because I would not send them money without a statement in hand. Why would anyone remit payment when their last payment hasn't even been confirmed?! Their calls were horribly annoying and unprofessional. I would answer, and a woman would start by saying my name loudly, like it was a question. When I said "yes", a man would come on the line and ask me where my payment was. I told them to stop calling. When the calls didn't stop, I flipped out one day and began calling them. Over and over. I told them to remove my number. When they said my number would be removed yet it would take 72 hours to take effect, I said "Fine, I can call you all I want for the next 72 hours." So I spent about an hour calling their toll-free number. This stroke of immaturity and prank calling on my part actually worked, because they ACTUALLY, FINALLY STOPPED CALLING! However, two months ago I called again, asking for a freakin' bill to come in the mail. I mean, I WANT TO PAY THIS STUPID BILL! WHY DO THEY NOT WANT MY MONEY?! The lady on the phone asked for my social security #, which I refused. She said it would speed things up. It is not smart to give out a social # over the phone, even if it's on their file. C'mon, people! She said I'd receive a bill in June, which apparently means mid-July in their weird world of shady billing. Finally this week I received a settlement offer in the mail and since I had managed to pay the original $900 bill down to $600, they offered to settle for just over $200. My very kind father lent me the money. The bill is in the mailbox now. BCR has a very poor standing with the Better Business Bureau. Hundreds of complaints stand reported, mostly pertaining to the harassing, constant phone calls, along with people being called regarding OTHER people's bills! Not to mention the wrong amount being stated over the phone. Indeed, many times when they called, my balance was incorrect. And they wondered why I didn't want to just give them money, bill unseen? Even yesterday, when I called them to get a window of time for the settlement offer, they tried to make me pay over the phone. I firmly said that they would receive payment in the mail. Period. DON'T DEFAULT YOUR AT&T BILL!!! Dealing with this insane and shady company is not worth it. Has BCR harassed anyone here?
2 responses
@ShealM (388)
• Canada
18 Jul 08
A lot of collection agencies are like this. It works like this. AT&T are fed up of calling for collections and SELL your debt for so much on the dollar. Making money on selling your debt to a collection agency while ridding themselves of the uncollected debt. The collection agency now starts harassing the person with the debt to make their money back on the debt they payed for. This type of debt reselling leads to shady practices and bad business ethics. Which in turn leads to tons of complaints from consumers about the ethics. If I had been in your shoes I would have (and you still can) reported them to the BBB and to the government department that deals with the laws of business ethics and code of conduct (in Canada there is a whole government branch and set of laws governing business and code of conduct called the Consumer Protection Act). They can get fined heavily if found to be unethical by the government here, hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.
1 person likes this
@beeeckie (802)
• United States
18 Jul 08
BCR is like a lazy loan shark who was kicked out of the Mafia and incorporated instead. I plan on reporting them to the BBB as soon as this final payment is confirmed and settled.
@ShealM (388)
• Canada
19 Jul 08
You should see Capital Recovery! They are the most disgusting example of unethical business practices I've ever seen. A while back we were with holding rent from a landlord for breech of contract and frustrated contract (for repairs that are never done, the landlord is a slumlord and very shady). He evicted us instead of dealing with the issue without giving us the Tribunal papers. We left, fine and dandy I already had a new rental lined up anyways then sicked this Capital Recovery on my hubbs. They called him at work (which jeopardizes his employment status), called the house about a dozen times a day. When I got a hold of this guy, it didn't go his way that's for sure. Because of the evidence I kept and documented on the landlord about breech of contract and frustrated contracts and knew my rights from the Landlord & Tenant Act I nailed them to a wall, gave them a cease and desist letter, told them I would pay what I owed and no more (like 500 bucks and really I shouldn't have even given them that) and that the ludicrous 4000 dollar claim would never be given. I even cited the L&T Act and CPA (consumer act) and they stopped calling, stopped sending letter, stopped bugging us. You have to be firm sometimes, yes we did owe about have a months rent and I conceded that and they got that but will never get the inflated unreasonable and fake amount they wanted. Landlord must have been ticked off seven ways to Sunday *lol*. I mean we're not stupid people here, they seem to think they can bully their way around and think people don't know their rights. To heck I am just going to roll over and take it just because they think they are in a position of power because they aren't when the evidence hits the table and the cards are played.
1 person likes this
• United States
18 Jul 08
I just tell them I do not have any money and when I have monet to pay it I will send it in the mail and hang up! I do not have a money tree to shake. They do not call anymore. I do pay my bills on time but once in awhile some thing does come up more important!
@beeeckie (802)
• United States
18 Jul 08
If you have caller ID, have you noticed when they call, it's from all sorts of different area codes? The most frequent one for me was from Washington D.C. yet the company is based in Minnesota. Get it together, folks!