ripped off by a collection agent

you should confirm your account info with the law firm and see that you get everything in writing which will confirm that they have the authorization to collect

How do you know you are being ripped off? More information would help.

Yes please. Can you give a little more information?

I know how you feel. At the end of December I was contacted by Apex on a WAMU account I have. It had been almost a year since I paid on it cause my wife was out of work. They wanted to set me up with an end of the year arrangement. I asked them if they were collecting for WAMU and they stated yes, so I set up a couple payments cause I really wanted to get rid of this account and maybe get a settlement by tax refund time. Well, I called WAMU a couple days ago to see what the balance was on the last date that I had made a purchase on the card and found out it had been sold in early December to NCO. I called Apex back started asking questions and found out they are collecting for NCO. That the account was bought by NCO and they were hired by them to collect. I told them what I had been told in December and they said I must have misunderstood or just assumed they were collecting for WAMU. I am starting to realize just what a CA will do to try and collect on accounts now.