Afni, Verizon, TransUnion Fraudulent, Dubious Collection Notice For Old Phone Bill Bloomington Illinois

I have also received a similar collection notice. I am posting this because it includes information that may help you understand and resolve your issue.

The quick on my problem was a collection notice from Afni in the mail yesterday stating I owed a bill from a Verizon Communications Inc phone number. I did a credit bureau check and a reverse phone check for the address of the phone in question. I then files a police report. All of this was unnecessary.

Here are the facts:
Afni IS contracted by Verizon for bill collection.
Afni does try and pull together little pieces from here and there to collect a legitimate debt.

I call Verizon fraud at: 1-877-462-5825.
Ignore the recording and just press "7"

Someone will answer the phone. Give them the phone number of the Verizon debt. They will tell you when the bill occurred.

In my case, as with many other Afni debts, the bill was from 1996. Someone used my name and SS number back then. The bottom line is that this debt is now noncollectible. Notice how Afni does not put the debt date in their correspondence to you. DO NOT call them. Just find out from Verizon the date of the debt. If the date is more than 7 years, then it is noncollectable and they have no recourse. In my case it was over 10 years and cannot even appear on a credit report.

This is the good news.
The bad news is that Verizon follows the letter of the law, but go no further. Anyone can get a phone line with them as long as they have your Name and SS #! If they rack up a big bill stealing your identity Verizon will give Afni your name as a collectible debt!!!! They never really verify you are really you with any sort of identity protection and then turn your life upside down with wasted time because they did not take a few minutes to completely verify the person opening the account was really you.

I suggest that if a company behaves this way that you do not do business with them. I am going to drop my Verizon Wireless account today.

Good luck Everyone.

My wife also received a notice from Afni to collect on a Verizon residential line. The phone number is a New York area number and we/she has NEVER lived in New York. We immediately sent a letter to Afni via certified mail to include copies to the Illinois and Nebraska Attorneys General and Verizon.

Yesterday, we received a notice back from Afni that they would cease collection on the account and that it was opened under her name, address, and social in Kansas (although they did not provide the SSN). Anyone else scratching their heads? How do you get a New York land line with a Kansas address? It's a little baffling.

At this point, I am working on writing a letter to Verizon, with a courtesy copy to the New York Attorney General about this. I would think that, if someone wanted to sign up for service in one state with a billing address in a state half way across the United States, that someone would verify their identity. Her credit report checks out fine, so I don't think it's a true identity theft case. However, I'm still fuming over this issue. It just gets stranger the further we go.