Michael Harrison Esq 3155 State Route 10 # 214 Denville, NJ 07834-3492 Took funds from a federally insured Bank account Two plus years & NEVER forwarded monies to the original Creditor on Account! This acct. was never purchased by this CROOK WHO HAS TAKEN OVER $800 FROM Denville, New Jersey

I can relate a similar experience I have had with subject individual, Michael Harrison, who apparently also operates an office in New City, NY. In my case, I paid my invoice prior to referral to collection. I am unsure why my account was referred to collection, but no matter, I responded immediately to Mr Harrison with appropriate documentation, including the Payment Confirmation issued by the provider's payment Web site.

To my surprise, 45 days later Harrison responded with a followup dunning letter stating "As set forth in our previous correspondence, the account detailed above has been placed with this office for collection. To date you have failed to satisfy your delinquent account. While we have no desire to continue our collection efforts, nonpayment of your account will leave us with no alternative. I trust you will be be guided accordingly."

I will refrain from analyzing the obvious vagueness of this nonsensical dribble quoted above, but focus on the fact that 45 days after responding to Harrison with documented proof of payment, he continues to demand payment for an account that had been paid more than two months prior!

My response to Harrison:

"Mr Harrison,

As set forth in my previous communication to you dated 28Sep2013, the above-referenced account has been satisfied as of 12Sep2013. A copy of this correspondence is attached. Also attached is a copy of the Payment Confirmation dated 12Sep2013 that was sent to you under same cover on 28Sep2013.

As this matter is closed, I request that you cease all communication regarding this closed account that has been paid in full as of 12Sep2013.

If you contact me again, I will refer this criminal matter to William V. Grady JD, District Attorney of Dutchess County as a fraud complaint again you, Mr Harrison."

[Yes, I intend to file a criminal complaint for both Fraud and for Harassment - but first I will give Mr Harrison the opportuntiy to review the documentation and to close the matter. To be fair, his office may have simply overlooked part of the original correspondence?]

As I have learned on this site, others have had trouble with Mr Harrison. As suspect as the apathy toward my correspondence may be, both his eyewash response to the previous complaint that does not address the other party's issue, and the fact that he has apparently moved his practice from one state to another, is worrisome. The latter is particularly alarming.

I trust that his office will resolve this matter without the need to seek counsel from my District Attorney.

All the "Ripoff Reports on this site regarding Michael Harrison Attorney at Law neglect to state that the individual being sent collection letters got notified with 3 letters sent to them before a call was made to them. They (in the letter) would have been told they need to make a payment or call the office to find out about the bill that the medical facility or doctor(s) or Radiologists (our clients) they saw submitted to this company to collect a debt. Many calls/attempts to work with the subject are done before any futher legal action is taken. The law does (after going through all required legal steps to collect the debt has been done & we won a lawsuit filed against the individual) allow for bank accounts to be garnished to get the debt paid.  Mr. Harrison has been in the Medical Collection business for over 30 years & has an excellent reputation as stated by all of our clients (i.e. medical facilities, doctors, surgeons, Radiologist's or facility that the patient in question as a debt with. It is up to the debtor to know if the place they went to is in-network or out-of-network & not for us to tell you, if you don't know, we encourage you to call you insurance provider to find out (which could be done even before you have a service done). When you call we state what our client has provided to us & do our best to answer any questions you may have. If you have financial hardship we will do our best to come up with a payment plan for you, we may need proof of the hardship for legal reasons. We will work with you as long as you work with us to get the debt resolved, we do not sue until all other methods have been exhausted. If you did make payments & have the proof as such, we will make note of it and send out a corrected copy of your bill. If you call & need to send proof we will provide you with our fax number. We always do our best to get the bills our clients send to us resolved in the quickest time possible. Calling the office when you receive a collection notice is the fastest way to start getting the bill resolved. If you pay the facility or doctor after your account was turned over to collections, it can take quite some time to get it verified by our client, if they do not show a record of payment, then we have to pursue to collect the debt until proof has been provided that payment was made. We suggest that if you made payments & the facility does not or has not applied to your account that you call your bank to get copies of your check(s) & forward them to either us (which is the quickest way to get the debt resolved) or the client & we will then try to get confirmation from the client that proof of payment was made. Mr. Harrison is a licensed attorney in the states of N.J., Pa., & N.Y., there is in no way any fraudulent business being conducted by this office. We follow all HICFA & FCCA & FICA laws. We will be as polite to you as you are to us (we are just doing our job, just like the doctor or radiologist you went to & just like any job anyone has). There's that old saying treat other as you would want to be treated, when you call & yell or use rude language then of course the person you talk to might sound irritated or offended, who anywhere who's talking to anyone would not be affected with that type of conversation. Also, you should know we Do Not purchase any accounts, a client hires us to collect the debt, the clients typically are referred to our service by another doctor or facility or lawyer, and basically the vast majority of our clients find us through word of mouth. We do not advertise at all about the services we provide. A perspective client calls us & we state what we do & the decide if they want to hire us to collect the debt, we do not pay them to get the account. As to this person in this particular complaint, if you were making payments for as long as you stated why did you not follow up when you saw your bill was not going down. Most people I would assume would call within a month or possible two when they saw their bill (which is sent out every 30 days from this office) going down. Waiting for over a year to find out what was going on sound a bit farfetched & suggests yourself as being neglect in paying attention to your bill. I'm not stating you were, but like I said most people would have followed up much sooner. Keep in mind that if your bill is as big as yours, our clients require us to not except payments that are below a certain percentage as it would take way too long to get the bill resolved. If you have a service done and the bill has not been paid, collection agencies & offices such as ours are completely legal, as the law states, if you doubt it you may want to find out the laws that pertain to medical collections. It may save you time & show you why youre in collections & perhaps give you a better attitude to get it resolved. If the way you wrote your complaint on this site is reflective of the way you talked to one or more of our representives, it would explain the way you perceived the way you were talked to or dealt with.