I received a letter in the mail addressed to my maiden name with my current address. I've been married for 12 years now so I found that to be very strange. I read the letter and couldn't figure out where the debt was owed. My husband took it from me and started to read it himself.
While he was reading it, I saw there was printing on the back of the letter. I took it from him and saw in very small letters that the debt was owed to PP&L Electric Utilities Co. It gave an account number, the address it was regarding, the purchased balance, interest, interest rate and then a total owed.
I laughed out loud when I saw the address was from the apartment I lived in my first year in college in 1991-1992. Knowing that none of the bills were in my name in college, I immediately called my mother - the one who actually paid all my bills while I was in college!!
She said it was wrong, she paid all my bills and that too much time had passed for them to collect that money. I put it in the cupboard and ignored it. The next day while I was at work, my husband called PP&L. They backed up the letter and said that they SOMETIMES do use that particular company to collect past debts.
This made me think that it was legit. My husband then called ALW Sourcing and they said that they had to talk to me. I called when I got home from work, and told the girl I refused to pay a bill that 3 other people were also responsible for. She told me that the account was connected to my social security number (which she knew) and that I was responsible for the debt. I refused to pay it and she said that another company would probably take over the case and they would find a different way to collect the money. And that it would negatively affect my credit rating.
The credit rating thing didn't really bother me because it's already pretty bad to begin with but I figured if they contacted me again I would contact a lawyer. Today, my mother told me that my father received a similar letter today from a different company. My mom searched the internet for them and found that it was a scam. So I did the same thing tonight and found that mine is also a scam.
I'm thankful that I didn't fall for this scam and I hope these people pay for the mental stress alone that they caused me and many others.
