I am a former employee of Asset Acceptance LLC

Asset Acceptance is a member of the Better Business Brueau, and I for one and glad I had the chance to work for them. I learned a lot in the year that I was with them. Not only were the people that I worked with helpful to the people who had encountered debt, but they did everything they could to get the best deal. They are a legit company, and they do have the power to sue people. I had to sue 12 people a month, every month. And the people we sued were the ones refusing to pay us when we had their signed contract and current driver's license on file(all the proof in the world, and they still said they didn't owe any money). They do everything they can to help out debtors. And I for one and glad they are such a large company and can help out so many people. I do know that their are some bad apples that threaten people and say they will never get a car again, but I for one am not one of those people and would report to my superiors if I had heard such things. This company has training on the fdcpa regularly, and if they find anyone in violation of it, they are repremanded as soon as possible. Training for this company was mostly based on the FDCPA and what we can and cannot do or say to these people. I am happy that I helped so many people with this company and frankly, I am gald that I got to sue the rude people who cussed me out for calling them on their $3,000 debt. You get what you give and it really does help to be polite when you talk to a debt collector. Some times they alone (the person that keeps calling you) has the authority to give you 50% off your cuurnt debt. I for one think that is a great deal. They do dual verifications when they take a check over the phone meaning: you tell one person how much and when you want Asset to take money out of you account (or anyone who gives permission for Asset to use their account) and they have another person to repeat what you want to do to make sure you agree to this. They cannot verify this if you go not agree to what they say. The problem is that when it is repeated back to a person, they don't listen to what is being said. I don't know how you people feel about Asset, but if I ever have bad debt, I hope it will go to Asset.

- Former Employee

Former Asset Employee

Everything is fine what you said but one thing surprises me. How can a collection agency have the signed contract and the driver's license when the debtor is denying the debt right from the beginning?

When they purchess the old debt, the can also purchase the original contract and any paperwork they have on file. They cannot always get what they need to sue someone, different companies give different things when they sell accounts. Different stories have different circumstances. A lot of accounts I have come across that Asset has bought without the knowledge of a fraud account. According to the previous companies policies, the account was legal. A lot of people don't know about fraud being commited until Asset gives them a call abut an account they have no idea about. In that case, they have a fraud department to take care of that. All most people have to do is file a police report and a few weeks later when they have recieved the report they can disput to have the tradeline deleted. But Asset cannot just delete it right off the bat with one phone call. There are policies that have to be followed to ensure that every side is being truthful. If someone is just saying it isn't their's to get out of paying, having the original contract sure is heplful. And when they hear their old address and refreneces read back by me over the phone to verify they did open this acct, people still deny it is them simply because they don't want to pay. That is when I decide to sue them. My policy was if they were mean to me for no reason when all I was trying to do is help them, I sue them. I never sued the nice people and did everything I could to help them.

Asset bought my old credit card acount from First USA the jacked up the amount to 27,000.00 and send me a letter every month and report it as collection balance on my credit report. They assigned a new account number and reaged the account with the three bureaus, So this will never go off my report as the last activity with First USA was 2/1999 that was the date it was supposed to be removed 7 years I know it is past the statue of Limitations, how do I get this information removed from the credit bureaus do I have to sue them for inaccurate information. By the way I wrote First USA and they could not find me responsible for the account, but they said they would report it to the bureau's as disputed.

my mother recieved a statement stating she had a
balance due of 9313.79. there is no past mail of
any such account.

With the First USA account, they didn't jack up the price, there is an interest rate on the credit card you agreed to by signing the contract for the card. Most likely pretty high considering it is $27,000. Most people don't read the fine print when they sign the cc contract. It is legal to keep the interest rate because they purchased the debt and by law they can add the interest you agreed to. If it is past the SOL and you don't want to pay, most likely they cannot sue you, but for each state there is a different amount of time a creditor or collection agency can report it on you credit report. Some states it is 6 years 9 months, some it is 15 years. I would check out how long your state allows reporting on you creadit report. If Asset is reporing this account and so is First USA, you need to let First USA know that it is illegal for them to report on an account they sold to another company. You will most likely have to dispute the First USA tradeline and then call them to let them know they have to delete it. As for asset, they will continue to send you mail until either you pay or tell them to cease communication. They cannot just delete the account if you have not paid. Asset cannot delete anything until the credit bureaus say they can. If you want to get a good deal on the debt to have it shown as paid $0.00 balance, I would suggest to save up some money and pay it off in one lump sum, you will get a better deal with them if you have like, $5,000 available to pay it off. They will probably accept that. And make sure to call on one of the last days of the month, better deals then. But if you don't want to pay it off, send Asset a cease communication letter, and all you can do is wait for it to fall off your credit report. But make sure only one company is reporting on the one account.

If your mother has passed away, get a copy of the death certificate and send that to the company, along with the letter they sent you. That should get the collection efforts to stop. They will send it to the probate department and contact you about it then.

Former Asset Employee

Thanks for the update. I have a strong feeling that when asked to validate the debt, Asset Acceptance is not willing to provide sufficient details of it. If Asset Acceptance is genuinely holding the debt with legal interest charges, whey don't they want to put it in paper to the debtors?

I will appreciate you answering my query.

By law, in order to validate the debt, all they need is the original creditor info and/or the purchase agreement signed by the lawyers or business owner who initially incurred the debt, or the signed contract by the debtor. When someone asked for a debt validateion, we send out a letter asap with all the original info and if they wanted documentation, they had to request it. 5 times out of 10, when I sent the original creditor info, people realized what it was and paid it or started a payment plan. At lease under laws in my state as I was told by Asset, they have about 20 lawyers on staff everyday to be sure everything they are doing is legal. I tend to believe 160 the lawyers that tell all 8 locations what to do. I genunily feel that anything that happens where they are at fault was not intentional. Even if they do not have on file what the debtor wants, like the signed contract, they will have something like the original application. Debtors tend to say that unless they don't see their signature, they won't pay, which is understandable. But when they know they opened up the acctount, and Asset wasn't given the signature, that is when people cop out of paying off their debts and just cease communication. That is what gets my goat. When they know what they did is wrong and they are not willing to correct it. Even when we are sending them discounts to help them and offereing payment plans. I get that if people can get out of paying anything they will, but I just don't think it is right.

Well, either you worked in the "good part" of Asset, or somebody has pulled the wool over your eyes. My firm has personally had 1000's of accounts deleted of client Credit Reports from asset for duplicate reporting, re-aging debts, higher then allowed interest charges and the list goes on and on.

"They are a legit company, and they do have the power to sue people. I had to sue 12 people a month, every month"

So, are you saying you had a quota?? I fail to see how a quota to sue X number of people helps anyone. If anything it puts pressure to their employees NOT to work out deals for people, and to rush people into the legal system.

I cannot speak for every employee, and I didn't intend for you to take it that way, I know there are certain people there who don't follow the rules, and I apologize for them. This is not a perfect world and all we can do is work with what we are dealt with and make it better for ourselves and everyone else if we can. All I did there was what they told me to do and how it affected each person. Each collector had tens of thousands of accounts and if some collectors had a choice they would sue every single person they could. Others would try to work with them as much as possible and if they had no intention to pay, would sue as a last resort. It isn't necessarily a quota more as a limit. Some people wanted to only sue, others wanted only to have arrangements and get a steady flow of cash that would be more stable. Maybe I did work in the "good part," but I was happy to work there. All the accounts that were taken over to our legal, probate, fraud, or paid prior departments, I never saw the outcome, they never updated us on those accounts. The only ones I knew of were my own. I am not defending them, more as I guess I am explaining my ignorance in your eyes.

It is a hard job being a collector and I have much more respect for them than I did before I worked there. I think that you should judge the person you had contact with over the entire company. Yes I know, if they let them work there, it is the company's fault, but just keep in mind it is a necessary job, and we cannot always have the kind of people we want working for us.

Former employee,

Why any idea why agencies are so difficult to deal with regarding letters of terms? I mean most collection agencies don't want to give the "paid as agreed" label to accounts they settle, do they have something against that?

I cannot speak for all agencies, but I know that at Asset, if you paid by a money gram, you could get one faxed over to you - if you paid the agreed amount - w/ in a few hours (they just had to verify the money was deposited and let it run through the system). If you paid by check, you had to wait 21 business days to make sure the check wouldn't bounce. But if you had a check in the system, you can get a "settlement letter" which just shows the agreement you made to pay X amount of money by X amount of time (normally due date is the end of the month). The policy I had to follow was that the debtor had to either call in after 21 days and request the "paid in full" letter, it wasn't automatically sent. Some people don't need the letter, and most of the time, they report on the credit report a few months later as paid 0.00 balance.

AA has comitted perjury in state after state when attempting to collect debt's. See for yourself...
assetacceptancesucks.com




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A telephone collection representative called my home asking for my son who hasn't lived in my home for at least three years now. After explaining this to the ignorant rep, she began to accuse me of being my son!
These people need to employ law-abiding, mature rep's or be treated the same way their rep's are treating innocent strangers! I'm prepared for their next call though. When they call they'll agree to a voice-recorded conversation, or be hung-up on and call-blocked for the future. I'd recommend this same action for anyone else being harrassed by this outfit.

Innocent victim - They did the same thing to my sister! The called asking for Sheliah Someone and when my sister told her that person did not live there, nor had that person ever lived there, they accused her of lying and being Sheliah Someone! When she asked to speak to a supervisor, they mocked her. When she insisted on speaking to the supervisor the CA rep pretended to be the supervisior. The CA rep's behavior was nothing short of shameful. Particularly to someone who had nothing to do with said debt!!!