Southern Oregon Credit Service Inc

We are unable to confirm the correct file - the full social security number is revealed in the complaint but we do not have a match for that - and our account number is masked and I cannot match the name exactly without our account number in full

Account *** was assigned for collections 2/28/with a date of last charge 7/10/12. We have never received an account for collection that was currently paying or by someone who had never missed a payment. The debtors did send in payments to the hospital but refused to contact our
office until after a lawsuit was filed in April. The first call we received from the debtors was April 18, in contrast to the claim we were called in February. At that time we offered to arrange for a stipulated judgment to allow the debtors to make payments, but the offer was refused, as was the offer to have a manager call them back. Instead, our collector was told they would talk to their lawyer about this and the interest rate and call us back
As to item #in the complaint, we CANNOT give legal advice under any circumstance. Only lawyers can do that, so why would anyone expect anything different? Also, once the debtor tells us they are represented by an attorney, we are required to only communicate to the attorney
We received an offer to settle for 70% and asked the hospital on occasions to review the offer with managers. This took several weeks as they had a number of managers review the account and offer. During that time we continued to accept small payments and held the legal action from going forward. At the end of July we finally heard from the hospital that the debtors had already been granted a 15% discount and that more could not be offered
The case went to trial where we agreed to payments of $month. This was done in court and agreed by all parties. At no point was our office ever asked for statements or other documents, however they would have all be available at the request of the debtor's attorney and in court at trial that day. See item #and #3. As for #4, reporting to a CRA, accounts sent to collection are in default and if they meet the criteria under the FCRA they can be reported. This account meets those requirements and can be legally reported
#- billing for "simple phone calls at $300-$500/hour" - I have no idea what this is about. We don't bill the debtor for our time. #- simply not true. The stipulated judgment made in court with all parties was agreed to. Payments were made for over a year according to that agreement and no communication was necessary. We got a call December 15, and the debtor wanted to argue the balance due, saying he didn't agree to the costs and fees involved, when in fact it was agreed to through the court. In February, the debtor wanted to argue the balance due and the court order with our staff. He was told he needs to consult his attorney who arranged the deal, since he was seeking legal advice and we cannot give it to him. We did provide a copy of the payments and balance due, which matched to the stipulated agreement from court
As to the second #item - a total of $in attorney fees plus $in interest was paid in addition to the original debt, for a total of $2930.81. Again, avoidable costs by communicating with our office instead of ignoring our initial communications. These costs were eventually agreed to by the debtor through court
The debt has now been paid in full. I understand the debtor believed he was current on payments with the hospital, but they did not agree and turned the account for collection when it went into default. The debtor ignored our communications until it was into a legal process, only then did they communicate with our office. After having a settlement turned down they agreed to a payment plan. Then after paying on it for quite a while they wanted to argue the agreement and disputed what had been agreed to previously

Our records do not show someone who is willing to pay their bills in a timely manner.  Starting October 28, 2016 we received a voice mail indicating the consumer knew she owed bills and would be paying them.  This was after numerous notices and unanswered phone calls.  No payments...

were made until after the lawsuit had been filed in December.  The notes indicate several calls arguing over whether the consumer would or would not pay certain amounts and when.
These bills could have been paid long before they were assigned for collection.  they could have been paid for several months prior to the lawsuit was filed, and the consumer has confirmed knowing about them.  We have a payment plan for small amounts established for the consumer to get these paid, but the court fees will not be waived as it was up to the consumer to pay the bills in timely manner to avoid them.

Complaint: [redacted]I am rejecting this response because: 
I expect this rebuttal to be futile. SOCS works to collect, not to give service to those collected from. In that order, they are as good as any Mafia. Congrats.
This response is insulting. It implies that all accounts they get are from deadbeats who are not paying what they owe to a creditor. We are not that type. 
#1 SOCS has a record of the phone call wherein the SOCS person did indeed tell me to "just let the time window lapse and go into default and then we can negotiate the penalty" That is legal advice, and bad advice. SOCS defense is that it is not policy to do it, but it happened. And they know it.
We did agree for payments of $350/month that we paid for over two years. We requested statements, recorded by SOCS as "argue the balance due". Seems like the easy way to resolve a balance question is a statement of account. None was rendered. Three times was requested.
I did call to discuss the account and had a successful interaction, in 11/2015. SOCS agreed to send a statement, since by my calculations we were near to a zero balance. None came. I called back, and was told this time that since we had an attorney they could not talk directly to me, the debtor. I did get a call back the next day that our account had been flagged as permissible to discuss with debtor directly. Mistake acknowledged and apology accepted. The account was flagged the entire time for direct communication.
Charges for phone calls: Since SOCS refused to talk to me despite our account being enabled for such, they required attorney involvement for even a balance inquiry. Their attorney is not cheap, and we did not find this out until punitive charges were added to our account as 'additional attorney fees', that we did not discover until we had hired a second attorney ourselves. SOCS did not charge for calls, they just deflected them to their attorney who did indeed charge. In short, we 'got handled' by SOCS, and resent it. I don't expect anything to come of this interaction, because SOCS is not my client, indeed, I am the adversary. We paid a total of 2700+ in punitive charges. Interest and penalties were to be held in abeyance until or unless a default was made in payments. Two of the "argue about balances" phone calls were to find out why our balance kept going up despite paying $350/month. Now we know why. They just declared default and added them. This is NOT about a court action. This is arbitrary and slimey. I don't have the energy or cash to find out if it was legal. We gave a lump sum cash, whatever they said, plus my attorney fees, to get them to go away.
BTW my credit report is still not fixed, and this account is still shown in default, though we 'paid in full' well over a month ago. Slimey company indeed.
 
Sincerely,[redacted]

There are a number of discrepancies between our records and Ms. [redacted] complaint.  The account was placed for collection for patient [redacted]. on 3/4/14.  Ms. [redacted] signed the contract for financial liability, which makes her additionally responsible for the debt.  Our...

employee spoke to Mr. [redacted] 3/18/14 where he acknowledged the debt, did not dispute it, but said he was not in a financial position to make payments and needed to talk to his mom about it.  We made several attempts to talk again and finally spoke to him 5/2/14 where he again informed us he was a student with no income, lives on the east coast with his mom, but wanted to try to make payments.  At his request on 6/20/14 we sent an itemized statement of the debt.  He indicated he wanted to contact his insurance company and find out why they did not pay.  We again tried to follow up and finally spoke to him 8/21/14 where he again said he wanted to make payments but again needed to talk to his mom first. 
We got a call from Ms. [redacted] on 10/30/14 asking for us to again send documents so she can follow up with the insurance company.  Nothing ever happened and no further contact came from either party until 6/24/16 where once again Ms. [redacted] wanted to know why the insurance company has not paid this and asked us about a possible settlement, which the employee gave an initial amount she could pay.  The account has since been disputed regarding credit reporting and validated according tot he FCRA.  Ms. [redacted] called our office again asking for an itemized statement on 7/13/16 and asked us to ask the doctor to rebill insurance.
It has been 3 years and neither debtor has done what they said in regards to contacting the insurance company even though we have sent the necessary documents to them.  The billing is not related to record retention, and has nothing to do with our office.  Ms. [redacted] should be made aware that Dr. S[redacted] is deceased and closed his practice.  No one else has taken it over and he is not practicing in Florida as alleged.  If the patient had left a referring dentist on the financial forms all records were sent to that office when Dr. S[redacted] closed his operation.  If there was no other provider listed, records were put in storage by the trustee of the estate, Oregon Pacific Bank.
Since the insurance has been billed multiple times and the debt is well past time limitations, it is solely the responsibility of the debtor to get the insurance to pay at this date.  If they want to offer a settlement to pay the remainder of the debt and potentially have the debt removed from credit reporting, we are authorized to entertain such an offer.
No offer to settle and no payments have ever been made on this debt to date.

Revdex.com:I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. Sincerely, [redacted]

We have received one phone call since the debt was paid in full, not three as claimed.  It was 2 days ago.  California law requires all court filings by corporations to be done by an attorney.  After the call we received on 5/9/17 from the consumer we confirmed with our attorney's...

office the satisfaction had been filed by their office.  They offered to file a second motion of satisfaction.  Our office has been reporting this debt as paid in full since 5/31/2016 to Trans Union and Equifax.  We have no control over the public records section of a consumer credit report.

After reviewing the files we have for Mr. [redacted] it appears we made an error in communicating between collectors and the file notes.  This second file for him was inadvertently sent on to the legal department.  We will dismiss the case and a manager will contact Mr. [redacted] today and...

let him know his current payment plan is acceptable and there will not be additional costs or fees incurred in this matter.

To set  the record straight: the consumer was served via restricted delivery of documents March 26, 2007 - so only she could have received the papers.  She did not reply or try to communicate with our office about her debts.  There are 4 different accounts involved in the lawsuit that...

are unpaid, not one.  We have made dozens of attempts to communicate by mail and phone with the consumer over the years.  It is not the creditor's responsibility to keep address records current for debtors, and we cannot read people's minds as to where and when they move.  We finally got a good phone number  May 12, 2008 and the consumer hung up on our collector.  We spoke again on January 8, 2009 and we were told the consumer was unemployed and could not make payments.  Trying to communicate again, we contacted the consumer again February 10, 2009 and she hung up on our employee again.  She called our office back on Feb. 12, 2009 and said she was unemployed and could not pay anything.  We called and spoke to her again March 24, 2009 and were told the same thing.  Over the next several years we did not hear from the consumer, but did receive more accounts for collection and tried to communicate via phone and mail, to no response.August 26, 2016 she called our office and acted like she had never heard from us, didn't know anything about the debt, and could not have lived where she was served.  She entered into a payment plan for $100 per month, then promptly asked to lower it to $50 per month, which we agreed to.  All of our payments plans are temporary for 3 months and all consumers are told they need to communicate with our office after their 3rd payment and discuss their plan.  After her February payment was received, she did not call our office and a reminder letter was mailed March 22, 2016.  She again refused to communicate with our office.  A garnishment has been issued to her employer.These debts have been owed for many years and at any time the consumer could have tried to pay them.  We communicated several times and at no time before 2016 was there any discussion she was not served legally.  Interest accrues at the legal rate allowed by law.  Unlike other creditors and collection agencies, all payments made to our office are applied to principle first, so making payments regularly will reduce the debt owed.

Obviously, we have a serious disagreement of the facts and at this time, and calling names and making accusations about someone's character is not something I will get into in this forum.
The account information as Paid in Full has been sent to Equifax and Trans Union with our July 31, 2016 file upload.  We will rest on the facts of the court agreement for answers to the other accusations.

Complaint: [redacted]I am rejecting this response because:
Nobody is calling names. We disagree on the facts. We disagree that I have documented phone calls that SOCS does not have record of. And I and SOCS BOTH know that I requested a statement 23 Feb 2016 and SOCS has no record of the written or phone call request. I spoke to Mandy.
The court document is entitled "Stipulated Judgement with Covenant Not to Execute". It was executed by sole discretion of SOCS, without ANY court involvement, contrary to what SOCS claims. The reader can make up their own 'names' for that behavior.
I documented a phone and written request 9 Feb 2016 for a statement. None came. When I called 23 Feb Mandy had no record of my letter or call. I'm not calling names here either. 
The terse response by SOCS that they will not discuss such things 'in this forum' is EXACTLY what I have been getting for two years, along with 'execution' of penalties that are NOT according to court documents, and are NOT court-ordered. 
Again, SOCS is not my client, but the collection agency. I am the adversary, calling myself names for them. Nothing will happen as a result of this complaint, I am sure.
 If you want a strong-arm collection service that keeps bad records and is dishonest in 'execution' of court orders, these are your guys.Sincerely,[redacted]