Merchants' Credit Guide ripoff, trying to extort money for a 20 year old defaulted credit card, debt was charged off long ago by original creditor Chicago Illinois

Merchants' Credit Guide Co. is trying to intimidate me into paying them twenty four hundred and twenty four dollars for a Citibank credit card that was defaulted on almost twenty years ago.

This is unfortunately not the first time I have had to deal with these scumbags. Two years ago, I received a letter from MCG demanding 82.43 for an A.T and T. cable box that I supposedly had and did not return. First of all, though I did have an account with AT&T in 1997 for cable television service I NEVER had possession of this piece of equipment and clearly remember refusing it from At&t's installer. I was only subscribed for basic cable,(no premium channels) and having A cable ready T.V.
I had absolutely no need for a cable box. Long story short, I moved, got married, had kids and eight years later I receive A letter from MCG and the infamous Ken Hughes generously offering me a settlement for a debt that I never owed. I sent MGC a written reply disputing this "debt" and called At&t (now Comcast) who had no record of this at all. Naively, I thought this was the end of it and it appeared to be until I received another letter from MCG demanding 131.92 on behalf of At&t for the same thing over a year later and with absolutley no communication in the interim.

I own My own plumbing business and work very long Hours and I just dont have a lot of time to deal with this kind of thing. In the past ten years I have worked long and hard to repair the bad credit that I accrued in the stupidity of my youth. As a result I now have outstanding credit scores.

Against my better judgement and not having days to spend on the phone dealing with this mess, I allowed my wife to pay the 131.92 in an effort to make MCG and Ken Hughes go away. BIG MISTAKE! Pay an extortionist once and inevitabley they will
return demanding more.

Now, another year later, they are back demanding 2424.69 for A Citibank card from almost twenty years ago.
This time I did A web search on MCG and found out some very interesting things about them. also I found this website.

Can these crooks actually do any thing to my credit rating
for A debt written off by the original creditor many years ago? Is this A legitimate debt? If so, how is it that in the intervening 18 years I have managed to get my credit scores into the 750 range without ever hearing about either one of these "debts"? There were certainly plenty of other legitimate debts that I had to settle in order to get where I am today.

I have bought Two houses, re-financed numerous times and built a credit portfolio that enables me to spend more money on plumbing materials for my business than the average persons gross income for a year.

Can these criminals with their intimdation tactics actually jeopordize the credit that I have worked so hard to establish?

Please respond to this report as soon as possible if you can give me any clue of what my rights are in this situation.

If there is anything I can do to help put a stop to this racket I am willing to give of my time and energy to do so.

Kent
Firestone, Colorado
U.S.A.