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>Challenging the dispute would at the very least involve contacting the customer and letting them know what the charge is for, at which point it can be determined whether it's legitimate or not. It isn't that easy - The credit card company does not spend much time on the case and will not get involved in examining complicated evidence. Also, the company does not have to contact the customer, the company just submits a statement and possibly a supporting document with a list of charges. I've done two (won one and lost one) The one I lost was based on an illegible receipt. The writer didn't mention if this was a business or personal credit card. In the US, chargebacks for a business credit card have different rules - If there is an ongoing business relationship, there are no chargebacks, only third party fraud reversals. [I have read the Credit Card Act - many consumer protections are excluded from businesses.] >So what? The debt has yet to be determined as legitimate.... This depends on the type of collection agency. [I've dealt with two types for my old business and for some friends who needed advice.] A collection agency that collects on BEHALF of a company will often act as a mediator to figure out what is going on. I dealt with two of these for disputes over debt amounts and both were reasonable. [One was initially very aggressive and started the conversation by filing a lawsuit to "get my attention," but we discussed the situation and worked it out.] A collection agency that BUYS the debt doesn't care about fairness. They paid a fraction of the debt amount and they want to make money. In one case, I was getting double billed under two account numbers. The collection agent repeatedly lied, harassed and threatened me (carefully scripted to just barely stay legal). I sent copies of the duplicate bills and they didn't care. [I finally got them to back off due to some regulations specific to the type of bill - They knew debt collection law, but the regulations I threw back at them would require them to do a lot of research] Another problem with a debt that is sold to a collection agency is that when they give up, they often make back some on the money they paid by selling the debt to another agency. Then you start again..... [I was getting collection calls to my new phone number for the previous owner of that number. I would tell them the situation and they would accuse me of lying. When they finally gave up, a few weeks later another collection agency would start calling. This lasted over a year.] |