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Report: #228872

Complaint Review: Charter Communications And Afni Collections - Fort Worth Texas

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  • Reported By: fort worth Texas
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  • Charter Communications And Afni Collections 4800 Blue Mound Road Fort Worth, Texas U.S.A.

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In 2002 I cancelled my cable service and was told to take my 2 boxes to the drop center off Denton Hwy. When I went into the store it was extremely busy and only one older woman helping a long line. She asked if I was just dropping off boxes and told me where to set them. I did and she never told me that I would need a form of receipt . I later got contacted through mail I believe stating I owed for the boxes. I contacted them letting them know I had already turned them in. The situation never got fully resolved but I really didn't hear much or receive anything else after that time period. I am in the process now of trying to purchase a new home and just discovered from my mortgage consultant that I have a debt on my credit from Charter and it has recently been turned over to Afni Collections. It had gotten turned over to them in August of 2006 from what my mortgage consultant said. I had not gotten one single thing from Afni nor Charter in years! I contacted Afni to originallly see what this was all about and to get it resolved. They were not only rude and not helpful but insulted me. They stated that they sent me a statement and have been every month since they took over the account. I have not received one single piece of mail or any other information from them on this. They then I asked me in a sarcastic way if i "checked my mail". We spoke to a man named Bryan the first time. Just to try to get it resolved so it did not delay the closing on our house nor our loan we offered to pay them $50 and they said that they would accept$800. We laughed at the offer and denied it. The next time we called we spoke to another extremely rude person named Tiffany. The second a ttempt to get any type of information on this debt was unsuccsessful. She had no informaton other than the amount. We then thought we maybe could call Charter and get the help we needed. We first spoke to a representative that was no help and couldn't give me any information besides telling me it was an equiptment charge. We asked several times to speak to his supervisor and he made up different exuses to why she was not available. He told us to resolve it we wouldd have to go to the store location we originally dropped the boxes off to. We asked him what the next step we should take because we knew we were going to get the runaround there also. He had no answers for us. We then asked for the phone number to that location to call ahead of time to make sure there was a supervisor on duty so we didn't waste a trip. He couldn't find a phone number to the location after trying numerous times to get one. How does a huge company like this not know how to contact their own store locations? This makes it more clear as to why they can't even keep track of the items people return at the store. Finally after refusing to hang up until spoke to someone we got one. Her name was Jam. She was nicer but still just told us we had to go to the store to resolve it. Later that night we did a search on Afni on the internet and one of the first links to come up was a section on Rip Off report.com where Charter Communications and Afni Collections were ripping people off with similar stories as ours. We now know we are not alone! We are going to fight this until it is resovled! This is not only not right but unfair. This has been on my credit for a long time and I haven't even known. Now it is effecting if I am going to be able to get my home or not. Please help.

Shelly
fort worth, Texas
U.S.A.

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 01/05/2007 09:40 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/charter-communications-and-afni-collections/fort-worth-texas-76106/charter-communications-and-afni-collections-ruining-my-credit-with-false-charges-ripoff-228872. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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#4 UPDATE Employee

One thing to add

AUTHOR: Barby - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Monday, June 25, 2007

I only have one thing to add to what was said in regards to the folloing comment:

"We then asked for the phone number to that location to call ahead of time to make sure there was a supervisor on duty so we didn't waste a trip. He couldn't find a phone number to the location after trying numerous times to get one. How does a huge company like this not know how to contact their own store locations?"

Employees aren't given access to the local office contact numbers, we aren't allowed to give them out to customers even if we would happen to know them. This is because we can't have customers calling the local office when they're having a service issues, they need to go through our call center contacts.

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#3 Consumer Suggestion

How to get this corrected...

AUTHOR: R - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Wednesday, June 06, 2007

First of all, I will say that I am not blaming the original poster for anything. With that being said, it should be common sense that you get a receipt when returning something like cable boxes. When Charter brings them out to install them, they make you sign stating you received them. Why shouldn't you have them do the same thing.

There is an easy fix to this situation. Since Charter is stating that you never returned the boxes, call them and ask for the serial number on the boxes. When they give you the serial numbers, go to the store. This cannot be handled over the phone because their customer service department is in Guatemala or somewhere and they either can't understand you or pretend they can't.

When you go to the store with the serial numbers in hand, ask the store to search for those numbers in their inventory. You can be 100% sure that when Charter got those boxes back they then leased them out to other customers. If other customers now have these boxes, how can you be charged for keeping them?

Where you'll be up the creek is if the boxes were not returned to the local office's inventory. While it does no good for someone to steal the boxes as they can never be used again, it doesn't stop people from trying. If you just laid your boxes down and left, there's no telling what could have happened to them.

Once you have checked with the Charter local office to see if the boxes are in their inventory, if they are, ask for the equipment charge to be reversed. When they reverse the charge they will pull the account back from AFNI-Bloom and AFNI's listing will disappear from your credit report.

If the boxes cannot be found, dispute AFNI's listing with the credit bureaus. Do not dispute it as money not owed, dispute it as "account unknown." When you dispute something as account unknown, you are setting the company up to have to prove that the account is yours and if you push it they have to provide documentation. If AFNI then cannot provide you with documentation, you can ask the credit bureau to remove the information and they usually will.

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#2 Consumer Suggestion

How to get this corrected...

AUTHOR: R - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Wednesday, June 06, 2007

First of all, I will say that I am not blaming the original poster for anything. With that being said, it should be common sense that you get a receipt when returning something like cable boxes. When Charter brings them out to install them, they make you sign stating you received them. Why shouldn't you have them do the same thing.

There is an easy fix to this situation. Since Charter is stating that you never returned the boxes, call them and ask for the serial number on the boxes. When they give you the serial numbers, go to the store. This cannot be handled over the phone because their customer service department is in Guatemala or somewhere and they either can't understand you or pretend they can't.

When you go to the store with the serial numbers in hand, ask the store to search for those numbers in their inventory. You can be 100% sure that when Charter got those boxes back they then leased them out to other customers. If other customers now have these boxes, how can you be charged for keeping them?

Where you'll be up the creek is if the boxes were not returned to the local office's inventory. While it does no good for someone to steal the boxes as they can never be used again, it doesn't stop people from trying. If you just laid your boxes down and left, there's no telling what could have happened to them.

Once you have checked with the Charter local office to see if the boxes are in their inventory, if they are, ask for the equipment charge to be reversed. When they reverse the charge they will pull the account back from AFNI-Bloom and AFNI's listing will disappear from your credit report.

If the boxes cannot be found, dispute AFNI's listing with the credit bureaus. Do not dispute it as money not owed, dispute it as "account unknown." When you dispute something as account unknown, you are setting the company up to have to prove that the account is yours and if you push it they have to provide documentation. If AFNI then cannot provide you with documentation, you can ask the credit bureau to remove the information and they usually will.

Respond to this report!
What's this?

#1 Consumer Suggestion

How to get this corrected...

AUTHOR: R - (U.S.A.)

POSTED: Wednesday, June 06, 2007

First of all, I will say that I am not blaming the original poster for anything. With that being said, it should be common sense that you get a receipt when returning something like cable boxes. When Charter brings them out to install them, they make you sign stating you received them. Why shouldn't you have them do the same thing.

There is an easy fix to this situation. Since Charter is stating that you never returned the boxes, call them and ask for the serial number on the boxes. When they give you the serial numbers, go to the store. This cannot be handled over the phone because their customer service department is in Guatemala or somewhere and they either can't understand you or pretend they can't.

When you go to the store with the serial numbers in hand, ask the store to search for those numbers in their inventory. You can be 100% sure that when Charter got those boxes back they then leased them out to other customers. If other customers now have these boxes, how can you be charged for keeping them?

Where you'll be up the creek is if the boxes were not returned to the local office's inventory. While it does no good for someone to steal the boxes as they can never be used again, it doesn't stop people from trying. If you just laid your boxes down and left, there's no telling what could have happened to them.

Once you have checked with the Charter local office to see if the boxes are in their inventory, if they are, ask for the equipment charge to be reversed. When they reverse the charge they will pull the account back from AFNI-Bloom and AFNI's listing will disappear from your credit report.

If the boxes cannot be found, dispute AFNI's listing with the credit bureaus. Do not dispute it as money not owed, dispute it as "account unknown." When you dispute something as account unknown, you are setting the company up to have to prove that the account is yours and if you push it they have to provide documentation. If AFNI then cannot provide you with documentation, you can ask the credit bureau to remove the information and they usually will.

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