Encore Receivable Management is harassing me. How to stop them?

But once you have a zero balance, you can request for it to be closed and they will do so then. Hope I helped. I'm not an expert in the group here, (and God knows that my financial situation is a mess) just trying to help from experience.

Capone will not close your account with balance – false
Capone will close your account at any point in time however we do not have the ability to close the account, and most of the time when people try to its because of the misconceived perception of closing the account stops fees and finance charges…Not true if it was people could get a credit card rack the bill up to 5000.00 in a few days close the account and look at that they would have just borrowed 5000.00 at 0 % apr and now really without fees would have no motivation to pay back the account rest assured if you have a Capone balance you qualify for all Capone fees including membership.

I just got my very first call ever from Encore. The call was for my wife, and Encore refused to tell me the nature of the call, or the nature of their business, as it was a matter they had to discuss with "my wife" not "me". They've already charmed the pants off me. I can't wait to deal with the next round. Expect more posts and probably questions from me. Thanks for the board.

Without your wife’s permission we will not speak with you once she has given verbal authority do discuss any and all account information we will be more then glad to discuss the bill with you however we run into situations everyday were spouses request their better half not be contacted nor the debt discussed with them, Because it is not their account

Finally im going to list a few misconceptions out there…
Calling over and over is not harassment if there is reasonable grounds to believe the card holder can be reached at that number we are only allowed to speak with the CH once each day unless the Card Holder Specifically requests otherwise. However it is not harassment is calling without intent we have the intent to contact the Card holder and to collect on the debt

We contact accounts from 8AM-9PM 7/365 if you can charge on it any day of the year we can call you any day of the year!

Cease and Desist needs to be sent to Capone General Correspondence not to encore if your cease and desist order is not received within 10 days your account will be contacted again by our office

i appoligize about this being posted so late this should be attached with the ealeir post ending with they charged at tommy hilfiger...

brand name clothing stores, bars, clubs, 5 star reasturants, and so on earlier in the week the list goes on and on.

But my personal favorite i didn’t make a payment because I haven’t received a statement

once, ok your human.

Twice, you’re forgetful.

Three times, and all 3 months you've been charging on the account???You’re avoiding the bill.

I’ll bet if any one of you didn’t get your car or mortgage bill for even 1 month the day before it was due you would call and say "guys I didn’t get my statement, how much do I owe you?"

After 3 years with encore and Capone it is my firm belief that there are 3 kinds of capital one customers. I train my direct reports to probe and exam each account and card holder (as a general rule of thumb) and to associate that Capone card, with that kind of person...

1. Good people, hard times = bal >1000 had account for over a year never late, and all of sudden they stop making payments, most times when they stop something happened someone died, lost their job, got sick ect.

2. Liquidate accounts...First payment defaults, cant make 10 dollar payment each month or even every other usually had account 1-6 months before default and continued to use account while in default

3. The card holder who doesn’t know how credit works... makes huge payment usually more then 50% of balance every 4 months but will not continue to make a min payments each month. So 4 months later the balance and account are the same size and delinquency because of fees and finance charges, no matter what we tell them and them always end back up in our office.

Generally, Which ever category you fit into is going to determine the aggressiveness of the call.

Encore manager, you remind me of myself as a collector. You have a good idea of right and wrong, and a good conception of irresponsibility and circumstances, and yes, Arlen was embarassing you a bit. Anyhow, since you're on the up and up, you know and go by the laws and communicate intelligently, you're ok here! Unfortunately, your collection agency has a bad rap here with regards to certain fdcpa guidlines. Since you are a manager there, how about you hold a meeting for your staff to refresh them on their FDCPA knowledge. This is good for you, them, the agency, your clients, and your debtors.

You need not be an expert to share your knowledge and experience with others in this community. Several collectors past and present) have come here and shared their knowledge and experience and help many understand what is happening when they have debt, how to gain control of it and how to keep it under control.

It is refreshing to see someone in the collections industry admit they don't have pristine credit and 850 FICO score,




This is a false statement. My wife had a account with Capital One that was assigned to their "internal Collections (later we found out that is really Encore). Capital one refused (in witting) to close the account until the account was paid.

While closing the account would not have stopped interest and other fees, it would have stopped the $5.00 monthly membership fee which capital one had no problem collecting.

I have personally dealt with encore once, relating to a Sprint PCS account. the lady I spoke with and made my arrangements with was very nice, and willing to work with me to address the situation. However when I called back (after all payments were made) to get a paid off letter, all I ever got was a run around, and to date I have been unable to get that letter stating I have paid the debt off.

Geez I just might change banks before to much get's out of hand. I didn't know if I really liked capone or not only dealing with them for a few months, but after all this I may go with my gut instinct. We were banking through a different bank when capone bought them out so we have just been trying to get a feel for whether it would be worth staying or switching our account to another bank. As of today I can not rush to do that because I have pending checks and utility payments to be made but, give me a week and unless anyone has anything nice to say about this bank I will do just that and close out the account entirely.

Phone Calls… Capone like most creditors has a predictive phone system i.e. if your account is tagged possible fraud/suspicious activity once you call the customer service phone number and put in your account number the call will be transferred to fraud…not customer service. We are connected to this phone system if your account is in collections no matter what Capone number you call, when you enter your account number it is transferred to us. Furthermore within Capone and within encore there are multiple departments upon departments you may receive 15 calls a day from encore, however 3 may be from our skip department, 7 may be from our small business department so on and so fourth



Validating debts…we have the last 6 months of activity on the account. Once you have verified your information if you would like to validate the debt with us or inquire about possible fraud activity please do not get snotty and rude, demanding written validation. However, if you state to a representative I think I might have fraud activity on my account can you go over my charges we will be more then happy to go over the last 6 months of charges and provide you with the amount, date charged, merchant name/location and all other corresponding information we are able to provide. Item by item, statement by statement.

Cease and Desist/written validation

Be weary of this because it is used as a stall tactic, however if you stall and your account is charged off because you did not make payments you will reap the consequences

Consumer credit counseling Services

In my experience most cccs do more damage then good, there are a few out there that can be a useful alternative for a struggling consumer however most are not… you end up paying someone else to pay your bills, when you already don’t have enough money to do so. They stay in business by placing the money you send them each month into a bank account and collect interest. (This is how they stay in business also some cccs will make minimum payments or half minimum payments to stall until your account with them is large enough to settle with that particular creditor) Then after a few months they contact your creditors and settle your bill (for the same settlement offer you would be extended as the consumer) or let the account charge off. Bottom line you pay someone else to pay your bills…

Accounts ready for Charge off
You are given 210 days from the last payment that brought the account current to make a payment 180 days from the time you miss your first payment on a 1500 dollar account you are given 6 months to make a 45 dollar payment if you do not it will be charged off and considered a recoveries (charge off account)

Finally I ask you consider a few things while contacting us…
First we work collections, we don’t typically deal with the kindest people on a day to day basis all day we are cussed at screamed at and hung up on. We also typically deal with a lot of people who do not care… which can be very frustrating when you get a hold of someone who owes 3000 dollars but says “so what”, or “Well my credits already ruined so I’m not going to pay… I can pay, but I won’t unless you reverse my CBR”

We are human, we make mistakes, get frustrated, angry, and defensive. If when you speak with us and you’re screaming, yelling, stating you’re to stupid to deal with my call send me to a supervisor, blowing whistles or horns on the phone. You will not motivate that individual to assist you any more then what is necessary. However if you speak to us like a human being it is a nice change of pace from what we typically deal with, and you stand a much better chance of getting your situation resolved in a manner that is less financial stressful for yourself and still acceptable for our client

I hope this information has been helpful and that you do understand we are not out to harass anyone we are simply trying to retain our clients possible losses

Encore manager

we are based on a dialer system which means each rep has a button on their computer which states dial when they click that button the system dialers 3 diffrent phone numbers per rep (average) who ever picks up will be thrown to the first rep to hit dial. keep in mind we may have 20 people dialing at any given time that means there are 60 phone calls going out half my be disconnected numbers, fax machines, or answering machines if we call you and there is no one on the other line we do appoligize however this is caused because of 1 of 2 things 1 all reps are already connected to a phone call, or you may have taken to long to pick up the phone and the dialer has disconnected the call

In reply to the earlier post call us WITH your mom and we will be more then glad to discuss what the calls are about with you after she gives us permission to do so...

i appoligize about that im not sure as far as capone's policy on closing an account while in collections, however i do know they do have the ability to do so where as at encore we cannot unless you pay the balance. however if you account is in good standing then you can close the account at any point in time but if you have a balance on the account you qualify for all capone fee's. i know because i deal with accounts on a day to day biasis which the card holder closed the account and didnt make any payments for 3 months afterwards and there balance is 250 dollars higher then what it was when they closed the account because of 29 dollar past due fees a 49 dollar membership fee which put them over the limit and then two 29 dollar overlimit fees. this is the current policy however due to customer complaints and complaints made by our company ON THE DEBTORS BEHALF! a new fee policy is in the works and will be implemented shortly when the actual date this will happen im not going to disclose however it will be a very significant decrease on the amount of fees your account will qualify for each month