i found this information from this website:
azbanking.gov/Lists/CA_List.HTML

home office #0907015

Started:03/03/2005
Expires:01/31/2006

Bureau of Collection Recovery, Inc.
7575 Corporate Way
Eden Prairie, MN 55344
(952) 934-7777

i am also going to contact cingular and ask them how they normally handle debt collection.

Balance: $199
Date Updated: 02/2004
Original Balance: $338
Original Creditor: CINGULAR WIRELESS CHICAGO
Past Due: >$19<
Pay Status: >Collection Account<
Account Type: Open Account
Responsibility: Individual Account
Loan Type: Open Account
Remark: >Placed for collection<
Date placed for collection: [ 01/2004]
Estimated date that this item will be removed: 12/2010

I owe cingular NOTHING!

MARISSA,

If your creditor has reported your account wrongly, you can contact the credit bureau and submit all the documents of your payments to them. Then the bureau will investigate and they will rectify the incorrect entries if any.

Some errors might occur on the part of credit bureau also. Few members of this forum have found some discrepancies in their credit report and it seems that the bureau has mistaken with the entries. In that case, you have to contact credit bureau too, to fix it up. Check the discussion here –
http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com...editscore.html

For any more information, feel free to ask in the forum.

Bryan

I too recieved a collection letter from this people for an AT&T account I never had. They are rude on the telephone and ask for SSN to verify you owe them. DUHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Section 809 of Fair Debt Collection Act will take care of these people. Tie them up in paperwork. If you never had an account demand a copy of your contract. Contact your state Bureau of Consumer Protection with a copy of there letter and your write dispute. This will let them know you mean business.

i think most of you out there r looking for an excuse not to pay your bills, any excuse, or any way to place a blame on anyone but yourselves for being irresponsible.
read your contracts, and remember what you agree to
get things in writing and remember a bill is a bill
and a service is a service, arm yourselves with knowledge and do not run from your bills, face them head on and commit to a positive resolution. most every one is a good person in this world. don't ruin your name and credit. be smart and make wise decisions
and please do not pawn your debt on others. own up and
do what is right.

First off please note that this is just a job...only a job. I work at BCR in MN, maybe I can give a little insight.

I won't excuse a co-workers rudeness, but please understand that we deal with rude, hateful, dishonest people all day. I am forever cussed at, insulted and lied to. Again, while this does not excuse rudeness, perhaps it will help you understand how our day typically goes.. Another note is that collections is NOT customer service. I myself try to keep calm and polite at all times, if you are polite with me then there is no need for me to be rude to you, Im a normal person just like anyone else out there.

I'd like to adress the points posted by InertiacticESP:

1. no real letterhead or official stationery
---i have not myself seen the letterhead so im no help here..the letters are sent out by an outside vendor
2. immediate demand of payment
---this is collections, the full balnce is due. this is typical of collections..by the time the debt has arrived in our office the creditor has attempted to to collect the debt in good faith for generally about 3 months.
3. 30 days until we consider the debt "valid" seems a bit odd
---this is the law..it gives a debtor an amount of time to send in a dispute..its for your own protection. you can still dispute the debt after that time but if the matter ever goes to court it looks better if you complied with the law. the collection company also has more leeway in their collection efforts if they havent recieved a dispute in that 30 day window
4. no itemization of the charges
---our company is not provided with this info right off the bat. in all honesty, when you have an account in collections you typically know exactly what it is for. but according to the law we must provide you one at your written request. it doesnt really help matters that they dont provide us with this but there it is.
5. no official cingular logos
---again we have a letter vendor that does this, and i dont think that in collections that it is common to have sumthing like this on the letters, this point is moot.
6. no contact information for cingular
---while i guess it wuld be helpful to provide this for you, i guess all i can say is its not our responsibilty...you have a creditor and u dont have contact info for them?
7. i doubt a huge company like cingular would need a tiny company in MN to collect their bills
---they have several collection companies working for them, our company small (about 100 collectors) but we have do well against our competition or cing wouldnt hire us.
8. harassing phone calls
---this the the common method of collection..the phone call part, not the harrassment part. a collection agency will typically call you to the extent that the law will allow in "an attempt to collect a debt".
it may be a bit misused, but is allowed by the law, with certain restrictions.
9. when we do talk to them on the phone, we can't understand their foreign accents
---this doesnt have anything to do with anything. you think you can tell the judge "hey i didnt pay the bill because i couldnt understand thier accents?
we outsource. we have a call center full of operaters in india. i guess its just cheaper for the company.
i think this is also a common practice for call centers.
10. no communication from cingular about this
---cing doesnt have to tell your father the debt is in collections, by the time it is they have made many attempts to get him to pay. feel free to contact cing if you want. this always seems like a lame excuse to me, if you want to verify that the collection agency has been hired and you are serious about getting to the bottom of the matter, you'll contact the creditor and make sure everything is correct.
11. i looked up the business online and found at least three different phone numbers different from the ones in the letter
---??? who cares. a business cannot have more than one phone number? to answer this, we have more than one department here, they all have thier own 800 number. there is also an 800 to reach the receptionist. seems to me you are just reaching.
12. also while looking online i discovered that the business was started on 3/3/05. a business that young is a bit suspicious.
---this i cannot explain, but there must be erronous info or you are reading it incorrectly, i myself have worked at BCR since Nov 2003. I know many people that have worked here much longer.

you people who whine and complain on the phone make me sick. we call you every day to help you get back on the right track. pay your bill. it is as simple as that!
you don't like the phone calls...quit paying the phone
bill or do not answer the phone. use some common sense
people. you got a debt, pay it is the easiest thing to do. yes, we ALL have hardships, but does it make sense
to whine and cry on the phone???
i wish everyone that i called and asked them to pay their bill would be reasonable and humble.
don't block out the idea of actually paying the debt.
use some simple math and work out a payment.
it really isn't that hard. pay the bill or do not
pick up your phone.

****Adult term removed - Jason

I Hate Whining Debtors and others:

Don't you People understand that if I had the money right now, then I wouldn't owe anything. If I had the money, I would have paid it. People fall on hard times, and I hate to say it, but maybe if it happens to you, you will understand.

I have even tried to work out payment arrangements, the common answer is, "we don't make payment arrangements, you need to pay the balance in full". Why won't they take what money I am offering? Isn't some better than none?

As for this MN company, they sound like a total fraud, I would suggest reporting them to the police.

to slover:

Payments are not always what the creditor will allow the collection agency to accept. They have already tried to get you to pay for the account. They have offered you payment arrangements. Why would they hire an outside company if they could get the money from you themselves.

Typically a collector won't even get that far into the conversation. A lot of debtors will just start off slinging insults or hang up or refuse to pay.
They wont take out the time to explain their situation. I wont say all collectors will listen, but you'd be suprised how far simple polite tones will get you.

As for how you feel about my company, I could really care less. You can look into it or not. I think that yelling out "total fruad" and "...to the police" must be easy for you. Maybe throwing out the word "police" makes you feel a bit more empowered than you normally would in this situation...whatever makes you happy. And after they tell you that you are wasting their time perhaps you should take the rest of your day looking for a second job; or dare I say it, a first.

of course we all fall on hard times. who in this world does not? the key to this situation is not to excuse
your own behavior of not paying. it is so very easy for me to throw away collection letters than it is to open and call them and have them demand payment in full. it is so easy for me to say i am on hard times and can not afford to pay my bill. but take a step back and think...you took the time to gain the creditors trust. you took the time to open the account. you took the time to use the service.
i of all people am in no place to judge my fellow man
it's just that all of the excuses and blame i feel
have no place to be discussed when we call about
a bill in collections. also, if you feel we are a
fraud company and feel someone needs to call the police.....i say be my guest.
it's just another excuse and stall tactic to avoid
the real issue...the real reason we call...
think about it. marinate on that quote you posted
who should be claiming fraud? who should be calling the police? you're the one who isn't paying your
bills.

Once again I say, if I had the money I would. Some is better than none.
My bills have not gotten to collection agencies. I am trying to work it out with the companies themselves.
You can think what you want about me and anyone else in these forums, but we know the truth about ourselves.
We come to these forums to talk to others in our own situations, to people who understand. It seems to me that you only come to try to make us all feel worse. So why don't you go live your debt free life and leave us alone.

I agree with all of you. I personally had the worst experience with them. For 3 months they called my home number at least 4 times a day every day, and I don't even owe them any money! Everyone there was very rude and unprofessional. They just kept yelling at you over the phone, and never gave you a chance to talk. And when I called them back based on the number shown on my caller ID to request that they stop calling me, they refused to tell me the name of their company, and hung up on me several times. In my opinion they are definitely fraudulent, and stupid. I complained to the MN Attorney General's Office but got no results. I believe a civil class action against the company is warranted to stop the illegal behaviors and to compensate our mentional distress and financial loss.

Let's talk frusterated, I have over 10 years collections experiance, and I was hired at BCR as a team lead for $13.00 an hour (far below with my experience.) I offered to help out in a different department, a week later they said they don't pay people in the new department like they do collectors, needless to say. I pay was dropped from 13.00 to 9.50. Which lead to me telling them that I was going to look elsewhere. They then said, don't go, we have a manager position open for you....for $10.00 an hour, but if 50% of your team makes goal you will get a $500.00 bonus.....Wrong, never saw it. I left. I have refused to work for any 3rd party agaeny ever again. I was at BCR for and 10 months, I have never seen so many peiople get fired in my life. Imagine you are new to this feild, you get out of you week long bogas training, you're on the floor for 2 days, and they say, "ya know it's not wworking out. It happened all the time. Heck I will even float a couple more examples. I was making copies there when I was a lead. One of the "hire ups" asked me "what are you doing?" Now everyone knows me as the funny one, so I replied, Vacumming. The responce was "do you want to keep your job?" Then I was told to get back on the phone and only managers can make copies. Here's one more,we had set breaks, now I really don't have a problen with that I guess, but break was at 9:45 and it was 9:30, I had to use the bathroom, same "higher up" asked, where are you going?" I said to the Bathroom, the reply, "it's 15 min till break. My reaply to that was simple, "I'm 31." For some of you who may think that a collector holds a Master degree, you are wrong. Who seeks a career as a debt collector? In a industry where deception, craftiness, and deceit are rampant, you might imagine most honest people would seek work elsewhere. And you're right. My experience says the average debt collector is male, has a large ego, bounces from job to job, suffers low self-esteem and enjoys using the telephone as an instrument of empowerment. You' shouldn't be surprised to find most of them have great debt problems themselves. Now I know some of you think...hey you were doing this for 10 years. I was but I started at Target Financial, DHOC as it was known back then. I went to college and so on. I wanted to try something a little more challenging and didn't know too much on 3 party agencies, one bad experiance after another, I somewhat turned into the description above. and got to know the politics of the collection agencies. This is a great web site to give you a heck of a little more informaton, and as well as you can put BCR on the list for one of the worst collection agencies in america.

Thanks for your time

Look, some people have valid reasons to complain about collection calls slover238. but I have read your postings. In your post you have not made a legitament complaint. The only complaint that i see is, you complaining about you. Some collection agencies are bad, but you are mad because you are getting calls. If a collection place does you wrong then its valid, if things happn to you, then, put it on a different post

I too have been getting phone calls regarding an AT&T wireless account that I no longer have. I have told these people that I have a statement to prove that my account has a zero balance and have even sent them a copy of it and they still call. Last night someone called and asked for my address. I would not give them my address until he told me what the call was in regards to. He then told me that it was regarding a personal matter and still would not tell me for what. I hung up. Until I receive something in the mail explaining why I supposedly owe money, I'm not paying them a dime. It has to be a scam!

You might want to check out some of that information before you type any errors, well I'm sure just another typical debtor that needs to blame someone else.

****Adult term removed - Jason