do you know the importance Of not taking a CAs WORD?

Part of this Storey is in this Thread:
http://www.debtconsolidationcare.com/forums/about197.html

Here is why I titled this thread as I dd.

The storey starts when my wife and I decided to Rent to Own a Musical Instrument for our son while in Band at his middle school.

Payments were resonable, and if he later didnt finish band, we were not stuck with a costly "decoration" on display.

Our payments were going to be abour 46.00/month including the insurrance.

We were making our payments on time with no problems for some time, then I got a late payment notice from the place we were purchasing this from, I asked my wife if she had paid it and she said yes and showed me her stubs from her checks.

I again got a late payment, same answer, and then a third time same answer. At this time I was getting frustrated and angry and started to dig into this problem.

As it turned out, it was my wife's fault, she was sending the payments to the wrong place to another account we had and had mixed up the names...the other palce was applying them to our account as she had the correct account number on the checks/MO, just the wrong name..(how they cashed them I do not know).

So what I did was call the OC, up and was informed they had turned this over to collections. I explained what happened and asked if I sent a check over for 700.00 if that would be OK, the Person in accounting said yes, so I sent them a check for 700.00 (to make us current Plus paid ahead).

BUT..the Collection agency in that thread above still was VERY presistant and "abusive" and would not leave me alone. I asked for proof of what they were telling me I owed but to no avail. I then finally called the OC, to ask for a accounting of what I paid in and what I owed (they sent me screen prints of their accounting software it looks like).

Shows a balance of $390.00 principle and a whole list of paymeants (CA claims I owe over 500.00).

After looking at this VERY closely I noticed they had applied my $700.00 payment against late payments until I was caught up and then applied it against "future" dates where it looks like I was "CURRENT" up until March of 2005. BUT..and here is the Big BUT...

They were applying Late fees of 16.50 and 21.50 against all of those payments..EVEN the ones for "Future" payments.

In my state (Indiana) a late fee of $5.00 max. is allowed by state law, and on top of it..how do U charge a LATE FEE on a future payment.

They ate up over $300.00 of my money in bogus late fees and still kept the account in collections after accepting my "LUMP: sum payment to bring my account to good.

I still have to deal with these "so called" late fees, and is one reason I copied my State Attorney General on the last letter I sent to this CA in the above referenced thread.

I didnt want to "spill" my hand as to all the info I was was sent in that "screen" dump. I am curious as to how they Validate my request in that last letter.

BUT Bottom line....CA's and OC's make errors just like the rest of us, and we dont have to lay down and place a red carpet on our backs for them to walk over...

I am so steamed over this I am having a hard time sleeping as it is in my thouhgts a lot lately.

Jerry[/url]