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Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Allied Interstate

I have been traumatized lately by faulty data that Trans Union reported to one of my creditors. This has left me frazzled and has hurt me financially. Trans Union asserts that they are still conducting their "investigation."

This has left me on edge and frazzled. Recently this company who says they are Allied Interstate has been calling me. They ask if I am Dickie Richards. I ask what this is about. They insist on me stating that I am Dickie Richards in order for them to divulge any information about why they are calling. There is no way I'm going to do that. After a long struggle I managed to obtain a number that I can call them at:

1-866-207-8333

Call this number. I hope that you will call it often in fact. The first thing they do is ask for a Capital One credit card number. I called Capital One. They say they are not affiliated with Allied Interstate and know nothing about this number. I asked Allied Interstate to give me the number of a human being at Capital One that I can speak to to verify that they are who they are. They simply refuse to do that but they do not refuse to stop calling me.

Allied Interstate has a seriously bad attitude as well. The most recent person who called me claimed that I was being "evasive." Funny hearing that from people who won't even tell you why they're calling. They have left me so frazzled and crazy after these confrontational phone calls that I have had to take anti-anxiety medication. I have found myself screaming at them at the top of my lungs and yelling profanities at them. This is not me. I haven't wigged like this in a good decade.

There are numerous posts on the Internet about this company being a collection agency. I read in cardreport.com that collection agents can't talk to you about the debt unless you acknowledge that you are the person they're requesting. This would be consistent with Allied Interstate's behavior. However their snarkiness calls their legitimacy into serious question. I asked them for their address. After what felt like pulling teeth, they coughed this up:

Allied Interstate
3000 Corporate Exchange Dr
Columbus, Ohio 43231-7689

I cannot find this in the business directories that I looked. When I asked them who the president was they said that they don't give out that information, that I should obtain it from the Internet. When I asked what their website was, they said they had none. Why is the president of the company a secret? The president of a company should be public information. Why don't they have a website? And most importantly, why do they say they are affiliated with Capital One when Capital One categorically denies this?

I reported Allied Interstate to the FTC and will be reporting them to the Massachusetts Attorney General. I don't really think that Federal and State Government gives a flying fuck about consumers, so I don't expect much.

I have made the decision that I am not going to risk jeopardizing myself by volunteering any personal information at all to these motherfuckers. I'm just going to have to put up with them calling me and annoying me, and perhaps they will fuck me later down the road and report some faulty credit info. It's the price you pay for this lovely system of unregulated capitalism. You can't win, even if you're the kind of person like me who always pays his bills on time. I am not even going to pick up the phone. For now on I screen all calls.

If anyone has any experience with Allied Interstate please post a comment.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This lovely company is also on my tail. I feel your pain. While researching them, looking for their Achilles heel, I came across a job ad that they placed here: triad.careercast.com/careers/employerDirectory/detail/compId/255231
("global call center network of nearly 6,000 employees." Shudder.) If you will notice, there is a link to the website for Allied Interstate, but it takes you to www.iqor.com (their new name, but the same #1 company, in their parlance). I cannot copy anything from their site, so you have go to "Consumer" on the left hand menu, then go to "Code of Conduct". I laughed when I read it, but -- hey -- they welcome you to report your bad experience. Personally, I would rather sue them, which is the direction in which I am headed. Somebody has to stop these monsters and I guess it may as well begin with me. Let us know how you fare.

-Kathleen

Dickie said...

Kathleen,

They have not called me for two weeks. This is probably a result of Trans Union removing false information from my credit report, but I will never know because at no time did Allied Interstate ever properly identify themselves or explain to my why exactly they were terrorizing me.

According to THE FAIR DEBT COLLECTION PRACTICES ACT

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/credit/cre27.pdf

Allied Interstate violated the following law by failing to send me any follow-up written correspondence whatsoever:

§ 809. Validation of debts
(a) Within five days after the initial communication with a
consumer in connection with the collection of any debt,
a debt collector shall, unless the following information is
contained in the initial communication or the consumer has
paid the debt, send the consumer a written notice containing—

I found this from the FTC site, but there is also a like to it from their own site that you showed me:

http://www.iqor.com/

All the subterfuge that this company (whatever their name truly is) engages in leads me to belief that this is a criminal operation that perhaps makes their money from shaking down people who don't owe anyone anything. I wish you the best of luck and am would be willing to act as a witness to Allied Interstate's criminal actions.

Anonymous said...

Well, lucky you! Two weeks, no hear? Congratulations! I have already won two suits against the brethren of Allied Interstate and I can verify for your own peace of mind that they definitely do NOT follow any rules at all. They will pretend to be law-abiding when they present themselves to a court of law, but I have learned how to pick and choose my own interpretation of the laws, just like they do, and then simply turn it around so that they hang themselves with it. They are the ones that taught me how to do it. I appreciate your offer of acting as a witness, but there are thousands of us who are witnesses for each other. The judges seem to know all about it too. Apparently, even judges get these obnoxious phone calls at their own homes.