Can I stop a new company from buying my charge off?

Creditors mostly sell the file to outside collection agencies when they are unable to recover the complete amount from the borrower. You need to make sure that the collection agency has the exact information about your account. Send a debt validation letter to their mailing address and wait for their response.

Do you have the contract copy signed with the original creditor? You will know the charges and the collection fees that can be added on your account. The CA has to follow the terms mentioned in the contract.

In regards to charges,
1) A company that buys your debt isn't automatically entitled to charge interest. To continue charging interest at the contracted rate, the buyer would need to be licensed to charge interest. To be safe, check your state laws and I think you will find that an assignee of consumer paper (sales finance agency) needs to have a license. Just like the PDLs, most junk debt buyers are not licensed, and so it would be illegal for them to keep charging interest.

2) Collection fees/costs can really only be charged once; even at that, the contract needs to have a provision that provides for collection costs to be paid by the debtor. It is not legal for one company to tack on all sorts of fees, resell the debt, and then the next one charges fees too. Also, many states will find that the creditor is only entitled to "actual costs of recovery" -- meaning if they call you 3 times (5 cent X 3 calls = 15 cents) and send you 2 letters (39 cents X 2 = 78 cents), then they cannot try to tack on $350 in collection costs.

Can Collect America's "law firms" now charge 26% interest to the Collect America debt when the total amount due on Experion's credit report show NO INTEREST has been added to the debt? I have been making payments for two years now. According to my credit report, the debt is being reported as being paid and the total amount due has been decreasing. HOWEVER, the Daniels Perelli and Scott Lawry firms are charging a whopping 26%, saying that the creditor added this interest. Can you help me? Thanks for whatever you can do. Jani

Collect America sounds like a CA. Did they buy your account and then send it to their attorney? Who's the original creditor.

As stated above, they most likely cannot charge interest unless they are licensed to do so. Again that is up to your state law. But generally being licensed as a debt collector doesn't automatically confer priviledge to charge interest, and most CA's are violating laws if they try to tack on interest.

What state are you in? Maybe I can help find laws re interest for your state.