dyesberger
New Member
Hello! First of all, thank you for taking the time to read this and potentially offer some help.
Short version:
-I was issued a refund check that was $2000 too much
-No official documentation of $2000 debt from institution ever (but I do not dispute it-I just failed to return it in a timely manner)
-Collections letter received 1 year later asking for 33%
-No pre-collect letter ever sent
-Resolved the issue by only giving $2000 being told that it would be immediately returned to the school
-5 months later found that collections lied to me and only returned $1500 and kept 33% which equals $500
-I now owe $500 to the school, an amount that collections nor my school NEVER made me aware of
-This is 5 months past when I was told it was completely resolved
-I see no reason to pay this because collections took my money by tricking me and never told me what they did with it.
Let me outline the situation. I am a college student, so any help is appreciated, as I am very unfamiliar with such dealings. Anyways---
I was given a refund check from a summer camp in August, 2008 that was supposed to be $150 but was actually $2150. Because of the difficulty involved in getting the $150, my mother and I decided to deposit it and just return the $2000. So I contacted the school and they said to wire back the $2000. They later sent another $150 check (for the normal amount) which we shredded because we had already cashed the one prior.
Well, my mistake was to not take the urgency of the matter seriously, and as a result I never got around to wiring the money due to being in school and having trouble getting to the bank during normal hours (and of course just general unexplainable procrastination). My school never ONCE sent me an official statement documenting what I owed that would have served as an important reminder for me to get that transfer finished. So anyways, come August 2009 (1 year after the original check was issued, without a single warning from the school), I received a collections letter asking for $2,666.66. There was never a warning from the school, nor was there a warning from collections--in other words, I never got a pre-collect letter and was not prepared to shell out 33% for a debt that my school neglected to ever professionally mention.
So, the next day, I called collections and spoke with a representative who got on my case about the debt saying that "I shouldn't have spent the money" to which I responded "I still have every penny of it." She then said that in that case, she would close my case files, take the $2000 without the interest, and return it to my school and leave it up to THEM to decide if collections deserved the 33%.
I transfered the money, tried to call collections every day after that, and never received word of what happened. I got to school in September only to find that the school still hadn't received the money. I was unable to check in. So I spoke with the Financial Director, or Bursar's Office as they call it here, and she called up collections in my presence and told me then and there that it was resolved. So I went through my first semester glad to have gotten past a potentially dangerous mistake.
Now, in January, the problem is back. I couldn't check-in because the Bursar said I owed $500 (this was never revealed to me with ANY official documentation and was invisible on my statement) and now they are demanding I pay. I dealt with the lady who works with collections and she said that based on the notes from my phone conversations with collections, it said that they DID send a pre-collect letter, and they definitely did not.
So here I am stuck with a $500 additional payment to make when I was never sent a pre-collect letter or anything so I see no reason to have to pay any more. Had I been officially warned (pre-collect), I would have returned the money immediately, but I was under the assumption (based on our phone conversations) that they were acknowledging this fact and taking away the interest in exchange for my IMMEDIATE payment.
What can I do!?!?!? The up side is that the $500 is payable to my school, not collections, but the down side of that is that unless I squeeze the money from collections, collections will still have my $500 while I pay an additional $500 to my school. In essence, I'm not really dealing with collections through my school, it will be completely independent, which is why I need some advice!!!!
Questions:
If necessary can I get the phone records? In them the representative stated she would get the money back to Berklee without the interest, yet this was a lie and only $1500 of it was returned.
Also, I am unable to prove that there was not a pre-collect letter (since I never received one), is the fact that I still paid IMMEDIATELY enough to show that I clearly had the ability, but that I was merely waiting too long?
I really don't have $500 to blow, knowing that that much of my own money is in the greedy hands of a deceitful agency, FH Cann & Associates.
Please, any advice offered would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much!
-Devon
Short version:
-I was issued a refund check that was $2000 too much
-No official documentation of $2000 debt from institution ever (but I do not dispute it-I just failed to return it in a timely manner)
-Collections letter received 1 year later asking for 33%
-No pre-collect letter ever sent
-Resolved the issue by only giving $2000 being told that it would be immediately returned to the school
-5 months later found that collections lied to me and only returned $1500 and kept 33% which equals $500
-I now owe $500 to the school, an amount that collections nor my school NEVER made me aware of
-This is 5 months past when I was told it was completely resolved
-I see no reason to pay this because collections took my money by tricking me and never told me what they did with it.
Let me outline the situation. I am a college student, so any help is appreciated, as I am very unfamiliar with such dealings. Anyways---
I was given a refund check from a summer camp in August, 2008 that was supposed to be $150 but was actually $2150. Because of the difficulty involved in getting the $150, my mother and I decided to deposit it and just return the $2000. So I contacted the school and they said to wire back the $2000. They later sent another $150 check (for the normal amount) which we shredded because we had already cashed the one prior.
Well, my mistake was to not take the urgency of the matter seriously, and as a result I never got around to wiring the money due to being in school and having trouble getting to the bank during normal hours (and of course just general unexplainable procrastination). My school never ONCE sent me an official statement documenting what I owed that would have served as an important reminder for me to get that transfer finished. So anyways, come August 2009 (1 year after the original check was issued, without a single warning from the school), I received a collections letter asking for $2,666.66. There was never a warning from the school, nor was there a warning from collections--in other words, I never got a pre-collect letter and was not prepared to shell out 33% for a debt that my school neglected to ever professionally mention.
So, the next day, I called collections and spoke with a representative who got on my case about the debt saying that "I shouldn't have spent the money" to which I responded "I still have every penny of it." She then said that in that case, she would close my case files, take the $2000 without the interest, and return it to my school and leave it up to THEM to decide if collections deserved the 33%.
I transfered the money, tried to call collections every day after that, and never received word of what happened. I got to school in September only to find that the school still hadn't received the money. I was unable to check in. So I spoke with the Financial Director, or Bursar's Office as they call it here, and she called up collections in my presence and told me then and there that it was resolved. So I went through my first semester glad to have gotten past a potentially dangerous mistake.
Now, in January, the problem is back. I couldn't check-in because the Bursar said I owed $500 (this was never revealed to me with ANY official documentation and was invisible on my statement) and now they are demanding I pay. I dealt with the lady who works with collections and she said that based on the notes from my phone conversations with collections, it said that they DID send a pre-collect letter, and they definitely did not.
So here I am stuck with a $500 additional payment to make when I was never sent a pre-collect letter or anything so I see no reason to have to pay any more. Had I been officially warned (pre-collect), I would have returned the money immediately, but I was under the assumption (based on our phone conversations) that they were acknowledging this fact and taking away the interest in exchange for my IMMEDIATE payment.
What can I do!?!?!? The up side is that the $500 is payable to my school, not collections, but the down side of that is that unless I squeeze the money from collections, collections will still have my $500 while I pay an additional $500 to my school. In essence, I'm not really dealing with collections through my school, it will be completely independent, which is why I need some advice!!!!
Questions:
If necessary can I get the phone records? In them the representative stated she would get the money back to Berklee without the interest, yet this was a lie and only $1500 of it was returned.
Also, I am unable to prove that there was not a pre-collect letter (since I never received one), is the fact that I still paid IMMEDIATELY enough to show that I clearly had the ability, but that I was merely waiting too long?
I really don't have $500 to blow, knowing that that much of my own money is in the greedy hands of a deceitful agency, FH Cann & Associates.
Please, any advice offered would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much!
-Devon
