AMO Recoveries - What allegations have people made against them?

well we have meetings about it every day and we get training on fdcpa before we are put on the phones, unfortunatly as i am sure you can imagine there is a huge turnover rate in collections and the new collectors make mistakes, dont get me wrong older employees make mistakes as well but not as often and not as big of mistakes. we try our very hardest to follow all the rules and if mistakes are made and pointed out to our supervisors we are definatly repremanded and told the right way to do things, unfortunatly because there are so many rules and techniques to collections only time and experience can teach a collector about the rules of the trade. does that answer your question?

Actually it does.Thank you for the honest observation of how hard it can be from both sides of the fence.

no problem i wish we could all just get along and everyone could just see where everyone else is coming from. i have to admit before i worked for a collection agency i had the same feelings as most everyone on this site has had but really working for this company has enlightened me a lot. i am still a debtor and still get collection calls but i realise where these people are coming from. there is always going to be those people who give debt collectors a bad name just like that one person at the fast food resteraunt who is rude and messes up your order. there are people like that in all fields. it is unfortunate but true

Yes, I heard of AMO Recoveries.

This collection agency retained my debit card information and without my authorization debited my checking account one month later for $421.00. The agent lied about the matter by stating I gave my permission to process this second transaction. The practice of retaining your bank card information seems more common than you are told.

People don't seem to understand that as a consumer they have more laws to protect them, then the collection agencies have to persue them for the debt that they knowingly and willingly incured. Collection Agencys are just doing a job. If people would pay their bills on time and understand that credit cards and cell phones are not necessities, they are luxuries.

Actually when I worked in EMS a cell phone was a necessity. There are places in my area where radios do not reach (due to mountains blocking a repeaters signal) but there are cell towers available. The area which I am referring to has a mine there. Whenever we would get toned out for a accident at that mine it is always bad. First for every 10 miners there is a supervisor who is also a certified Emergency Medical Technician-M (meaning mine, which is like a EMT-Basic but has additional training to deal with some things almost exclusive to mining) so any minor injuries can be taken care of by a EMT-M. Whenever my company got called out by county 911 for a mining accident that meant that it was going to be bad, not only that but by the time we got there they are rarely at the surface yet as they generally operate some 2+ miles below the surface. That cell phone is the only link that I have with medical command to get certain medical orders for certain procedures that require a physician's authorization. (we have the land line while we are there but after we leave and for the next 20-30 minutes it's cell phone or your on your own) It wasn't a necessity for my life, it was a necessity for other peoples lives. I had a person get their torso crushed in a cave in. I didn't see the tell tale signs of a punctured lung until we went in transport, if I didn't have the cell phone to get orders for a chest tube he would have drowned in his blood.

Additionally due to the mountainous geography of that location aeromedical transport is impossible.

I work in collections and waht i am reading is dishearting to me never have we been able to degrade people or harrass them. the law clearly states 1 contact per week at place of employment! I also can tell you telling a co-worker is against the fdcpa as well that's called 3rd party disclosure! If i were any of you I would contact an atty and get compensated for the way you are being treated. I know of a woman once who got $500.00 for each phone call made to here after her do not contact letter was sent . So keep a record of all the calls!!!
P.S. we are not all like that and the one who are aren't making any $$ so there mean !

Im a mother of two and when i was working for AMO they treated me like i was someone special. When it came time for me to quit and take care of my family they owed me a bonus check. It took me a month to get the money they owed me i woulod never prefer someone to work for them they will trest you like some one at first, but in the end they will hurt you bad :evil:

5 years ago a Verizon wireless bill of mine got sent to AMO. The rep told me for about half of the balance, they would settle the account. I was behind on many bills at the time, but sent little or nothing to the others for 2 months to pay what I thought was a good deal to settle the account. 5years later, this past fall, I was applying for a loan (we still have a lot of debt, but are able to keep up on payments now) and I found out the other $400 was still on my record. They lied and never settled the account. Now they're giving me a run-around and being extremely rude and condecending. They don't harrass me because the debt was sent back to Verizon's in-house recovery, but they won't cooperate with me to get information about what happened back there so I can settle with Verizon. Be sure to get documentation of any agreement the claim to make with you.

That is correct guest, always get agreements in writing and signed by some official within the agency.

:( Every month it's the same. I can't pay all of my bills. I pay the ones that are most important, rent, PGE, car and house insurance. It's hard when you can't get by paying those bills let alone any others. So to tell someone just pay your bills w/o knowing why they can't :oops: not a good thing. Pray and or have good thoughts and things will get better...they have to.

[font=Impact][/font][color=DarkRed][/color][size=6][/size] So yesterday I was talking to an AMO agent and she started insulting me! I do have quite a bit of debt with them (aprox. $2,500) and this woman told me that I "know nothing about real life" and continued to insult my intelegence by lecturing me for 10 minutes about how I have to pay this off. At the beginning of the conversation I told her I could give her three checks over the phone in advance ( I had done this previously so I knew it was possible) she told me that that was not good enough and I needed to either start paying it imediately (monday) or pay the entire thing off in March. Can I go to her supervisor and request another representative?

What state do you live in? Do you know if it is legal to record calls in your state without the other parties knowledge?

What a novel concept! None of us thought of that, I am sure!! Paying bills on time WAS the first thought, however things like hospitalization, job layoffs, family deaths, etc. do happen to some of us out here or maybe just a human mistake that rolled out of control. Maybe you have never experienced this? I used to collect local bad check debt and sometimes STUFF happens. When it finally happens to you ms commonsense you'll feel awfully sheepish!

Hey my first post was for ms commonsense on page one, Not to the great guy suggesting phone recording!! Sorry!!However, I want to ask if you guys have ever considered a class action harrasment suite?( I'm sure it has been mentioned before, but it is good to always bring up..) I mean we got a lot of intelligent sounding folks out here with some real life issues and I see on other sites that this has been an ongoing policy with AMO to treat folks like this. There are several folks with issues from the University of Wisconsin selling out their collections to AMO, so Wisconsin alone could start one I bet. Also, if Nothing else, keep a journal of what has been said to you so if somebody can get a suite started you have something documented.

Class action suits may bring heavy civil penalties to the agency being sued however the rewards to the individual victims are meager at best.

Also, no insult taken.

They called me at work, and offered me two solutions.

1. Pay $220 (that I can't afford) a month for 3 months. (I can afford $157 barely).

2. They will garnish my wages. She said it would be 25% which I cannot afford, even more.

So I called them back and arranged payments of $175 a month. Then when I told them I would be mailing a money order, the guy told me that I have to have my payment in by the end of the next day, because they have to close it by the end of the month. Doesn't make sense to me, since I only had 1 day to pay and get it to them by the end of the month.

My question is: I checked out western union, who charges an ungodly amount of $27 per transaction. I might as well be paying the $220. So I won't be sending it that way. I'm planning on mailing it, which means they won't get it until three days later. If they decide to be a pain in the butt about it, can they reject my payment and garnish my wages anyways?

They can't threaten to garnish your wages, they have to have a court order to do that, which means they would have to sue you, win, and get a judgment. Just send the money order, overnight it if you really want to meet their deadline. Don't use a wire transfer or anything with your personal account information or they may take more than what is needed.

JCEMT- She did threaten me with garnishment. In your post, it sounded like you're saying they can't threaten garnishment at all, until they have a court order. Is that correct?

Well, yes and no, they can't threaten it unless it is their intent to do so. They have 30 days to follow through with it, after that it is a violation.

I'm having a similar problem with them. I let my sister use my bank account once to pay them and they keep charging my account! After they had assured the both of us that it would no longer happen. i'm now over drafted by $155!! I've had my account for nearly 3 years and this is the first time i've ever over drafted.

LJ: Did you have this CA validate the debt? You do have the right to make sure that everything is on the up and up. Oh and if you do go through with this payment plan, get it in writing or the CA very well may say they never entered into any such agreement! The fact the CA used a threat of garnishment against you makes me think they are one of the bad CAs. Don't let them get away with this.

Hey buddy, I hate to break it to you but just because laws are in place doesn't mean that everyone is going to abide by them. There are many collection agencies out there that are just trying to earn the honest buck and conduct business according to federal/state law. There are also some really abusive ones as well.

Butterfly: I find your generalizations a bit insulting honestly.

You say no one can call 3-4 times a day, but that doesn't seem to stop them, now does it? You say they do everything by law, but now that isn't quite true either now is it? They break the law constantly, it is only now how much this is coming to light because more and more consumers are learning their rights and fighting back. Heck, one big CA conglomerate was even quoted as saying that paying off FCRA violations and lawsuits was a "cost of doing business".

If you notice no one here is suggesting they not pay their bills, but let????????s come back to the real world shall we? No one can generally come up with these ridiculous sums (oh and many, many times these sums are not even original balance anymore, they are ridiculous fees and interest rates so there goes your highborn theory of people buying stuff and not paying for it.

Oh and I love how you suggest that people should turn off cable...wow..ok, let????????s have the debtor incur another past due bill with early disconnect fees..but who cares as long as I get my inflated interest and fees and bleed the general consumer dry.

Not to mention the little bit about the account not hitting a CA till it is past due..that is such a minor section of the whole???????what about old junk debts that may not even be debts? Accounts that are illegally jacked up? Hmm? A comment about that?

I think YOU CAs need to stop crying about consumers learning their rights and fighting back..sheesh get a REAL job.

right goldenblast.don't forget threats of immediate arrest,garnishment.i was called 10 times in a day 1 month ago by a supposed law abiding ca.talk about painting with a broad brush. :roll: :roll:

Anyone is welcome to share and post and to help others--however, all posts that are insulting, attacking, vulgar, etc., will be deleted or edited by a moderator.

Please read the Terms of Service..

My husband and I have been trying to get our credit cleaned up. We are now in a better position money wise and have been slowly paying off old bills. The first thing we did is pulled our credit reports. Then filed disputes on everything. The reason, n my husbands report alone, AMO had the same exact bill reported 6 times, same amount, same account number. So after we did this, we sat down with a tape recorder attached to our phone and called each and every debt collector. Before they could say anything we played a recording stating that we were recording the call and it could be used against them. So it was very interesting the response we got when they found out we were recording them. One guy hung up on us, another said he would not deal with us until we shut off the recorder, we got his supervisor on the phone. Anyway then we told them we wanted to know the original debt amount, and we would add about $50.00 and tell them that we would pay that to settle the debt. We were able to pay off the majority of our bills for almost the original debt that way. Te only one we are still paying is AMO Recoveries, we send them payments. I have been requesting a copy of our amount owing and they have so far refused. So I sent a letter this month stating that I would consider the debt paid in full as of this last payment since they have not proven I owe any more.
For the posters that state collectors are just doing their jobs, let me ask you, how would you feel if your son/daughter under 10, answered the phone and some foul mouthed person started yelling and cussing at them, had AMO do this on multiple occasions. Their excuse, they thought we were acting like we were just kids. DUH... how stupid can you be!!!!
It is real easy to point the finger and lump everyone in as deadbeats, but you don't know what each family is going through and the bad apples make it harder on everyone.

Hey I was just curious what steps this company can or will take if you keep putting the payment off and ignoring the calls due to the fact that you cant afford to pay it at the moment? Can they sue? Can you go to prison or anything like that? What are the consequences?

??
It all depends on the company. Some will just harass you and try to get you to pay. Most of the time they have nothing to sue you on so they give up and sell it. Usually then a junk debt buyer comes into the picture and pulls the same crap. From what I have seen the JDB are the ones who sue and break all the laws.
You cannot go to jail for debts. It is a civil action. Although in Massachusetts some judges have put people in jail within the past few years which I believe was a wrong action.

So my wife and I received a call from a CA from AMO yesterday. We have near perfect credit and have never not paid anything. CA said that my wife opened a Discover card in 2001 and paid on it until 2006. (Not true) CA said she had all the proof and we owed her money. (unknown amount) My wife told CA she had the wrong person and again CA called her a liar. CA asked for my wife's SSAN and thankfully my wife refused to give it over the phone. Turns out the CA even has the wrong SSAN in her "file." What should we do from here to protect ourselves? It looks like requesting a letter of debt validation should happen, but is there anything else? I don't want any surprises.

the "justme" lady is hot! You look great justme!

so check this one...i bought a van in oregon, paid it most of the way...remaining balance was 154.01 got behind on bills, and lost my job. after i got back on my feet, i paid the balance to amo recoveries. when I called amo, they told me that I would be charged 15 dollars per hundred to pay by credit card over the phone. i said cool
30 bucks...its paid. I dont care. after calling the company I got credit through a month later to find out where my title was, i found i was charged an extra 10 dollars on top of the amount i had agreed to, and on top of the amount that the credit company had recieved as paid. so i called amo. after going round and round, i was told that the credit company had charged me the 30 dollars, and the 10 dollars that was added was for the service amo uses on a website. (Not what i was told over the phone). so i called my credit company back, and they said in fact that the 30 dollars was charged to me by amo, and that the original amount that they sent was 154.01, not 196.94, like my bank statement said. and now, no one answers the phone when i try to call back amo. weird part is...it goes striaght to a voicemail of one person...

maybe if u guys would open your mail we wouldnt have to call you. C A send out letters before they call. dont be hostile to the collector cause they can help you if they want to be nice and your not beinf rude to them. its a job for them

Super you are blowing smoke! Smart mouth collectors called my son's house and cursed him and his wife for a debt that I owe, yet I have never received the first piece of mail from them!

I have been receiving calls for a former tenant and they will not stop calling the home. Now they are beginning to call me on my cell phone. It's embarassing at work and in front of my boss.

Send them a full C&D letter, CMRRR!

Here's one for you.. My friends dad had a car with a payment of 259 saw a nissan dlr commercial. Bring your car in we will sell you and lower your mo debt. Sold him a used one, told him they NIssan would be up his current one. They did REPO.. enter AMO recoveries from Washington, in collection led elderly man to believe the call was from Washington authorities..9-04 They demanded $2000 to settle accountand they wouldn't bother him again, he gave bank info they took $3000.not $2000. only found out now by copy of electronic check. two weeks later or so called threatening asking for more he got so ill had to seek medical attention, Told to stop harrassing. Never called never reflected payment. 1/09 rec'd collection notice from another agency asking to do a $2500 settlement. Called AMO said we never agreed to settle, you have no letter of satisfaction, no note on electronic check. Told AMO Statute of limitation on written contract is 4 yrs, AMO claims it is 6 yrs...in CA. Darn they can rewrite the law. These people think they are something else. All I can say is document everything and make sure they send you their settlement in writing before you mail them anything, and do not give them your check or bank info. Mail it and make copies putting paid in full in the memo or settled in full. Good Luck. Sad these elderly people are now faced with a bad mark on a perfectly pristene credit report.. No heart.

Amo Recoveries has been calling my job to collect a debt on a leased vehicle that i voulantarilly gave back almost a year ago, they wanted to settle for half of the amount that was owed otherwise they are telling me that they can garnish my wages without a judgement against me, im skeptical about this company, it does not sound legit, anybody have any feedback about this company and can they garnish my wages without a judgement???

They cannot garnish your wages without first taking you to court and winning. Record those calls if you can. That would have been a good one to consult with a NACA atty on.

I lost my job back in november and haven't been able to pay off my Target credit card, causing this company to get involved.

First of all, they've called me anywhere from five to eleven times in one day, from 8am to 9pm!

Eventually, I got on the phone to talk to someone, and I explained to them the situation I am in and that I wouldn't have the money for another month, until my taxes came in. The woman I talked to asked me repeatedly if there was anyone in my life if I could borrow money from and when I told her no, she crossed the line by asking: (in the most demeaning, condescending tone possible) "Are you telling me there is no one in your life who loves you and trusts you enough to lend you the money?"

Are you serious?
I'm a nineteen year old female who not only juggles school and school-work, but I am also taking care of my cancer-ridden mother... and I told her this, calmly, the first time we talked.

It hurts to know there are people out there so apathetic to others struggles that they'd say something so absolutely ridiculous.

So I was in the process of paying them $100 a month and they stopped taking it from my account... They did this once before (stopped taking it for two months and then called and said that the person who had my file was no longer working there so it had been in his box un noticed and then they began taking the money again.) They have not taken the last 3 months payments and I am trying to get a hold of them to pay them but i cant find their number and the once posted here, I called and got like fax machines and no answers and dissconnecteds... any thoughts?

none of the replies i'm reading from the self-proclaimed collection agents have such gross gramatical and spelling errors?? are dem ged's required?PROFANITY DELETED...PM
[samebox:3c2659aa1e="paulmergel"]leave the profanity to the collectors okay?[/samebox:3c2659aa1e]

??? :?

edited by FYI- we aren't here to intimidate or harass anyone and we would like the same from our guest. We are to help as best we can.
[samebox:ce45c513df="paulmergel"]biggest bunch of fiction i've heard today.[/samebox:ce45c513df]

I had a bill go to collections, I got one notice for AMO and I have been asking for statements every month when I send in my payment and they haven't sent shit. I have no idea how much I still owe and now I lost that one statement I got from them and I have no idea where to send the payment.

Hey Consumers!!,
I work for AMO Recoveries, and I just want you to know that I am NOT the typical debt collector. I never ever yell at anyone to pay their bill and I NEVER expect anyone to pay the full balance if its over like 200 some dollars. In today's economy, we can't focus on paying the balance in full, but we can focus on making payment arrangements and WORKING with the consumer to reach a median. I tend to be successful because I am extremely nice to each person I deal with and I treat them with respect and dignity, just like any human being should be- and I live by that. Stuff does happen, and not all collectors realize this, and I wish they would. But, to those who are being honest, and do mean well- you rock, we do appreciate the honesty. :)

Can???t believe the kind of services of the???AMO Recovery Services Company.???
They keep calling every day when I am at work, they don???t have education, they
Talk trash not knowing the situation, they want me to give them money over the
Phone??? sure!! Like I am stupid to give this people my numbers; they make me think
about crazy callers want to full me. Sorry, but if this company really exist I need to talk
with someone that is respectful and is going to listen what I have to say. Also I need some kind of paper that shows me that I owe them money. I am not doing anything over the phone

Contact an attorney. Let one vermin go after another. :)

Any advice? I have been paying amo and recently misssed a payment, totally spaced it nonetheless they are now telling me that their client needs a substantial amount now or they are going to pursue court actions, there is no way I can come up with what their asking for, I can barely eke out what I have been paying. Any advice out there? My credit is shattered due to the economy, no possible way of getting a loan.