Turned out to be a bill I had lost from a residence I lived in during university studies.
Agent gave me the name of the company, amount, and was actually quite polite as far as making payment arrangements were concerned (even so much as to say, "We understand the holidays are coming and it can be tough; so long as we receive at least $50 per month, we're happy.").
Suppose I can't blame someone else for something I forgot to do.
It could be "normal" practice for a scofflaw collection agency but it's certainly not right. Learn how to exercise your FDCPA rights as an alleged debtor at FTC-dot-gov.
http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fdcpajump.shtm
These people are a bunch of [***], all these clowns stay behind there desks and pick there
nose and [***], and they think that the fools like us are going to pay them so like that they get thier
commissins, look people if you owe money to big enterprises make them sue you and then you settle
in court with the company and not with these clowns
We have been receiving from then concerning an $860 debt to the royal bank (a defaulted line of credit payment my sister could not make due to an immediate and dire health issue). I tried to speak with them stating that while she was able to pay the money, she was in the hospital and had not been able to send the payment but if they could inform me perhaps I could help. At first the representative named "Mr Delcourval" refused to give out the company name from which he was calling. He also refused to give me any additional information. Due to my sister's condition, I became emotional and asked for his supervisor. He transferred me to someone named "Henri Roman" who also refused to give me the name of the collection agency her was calling from and made claims that "this was the fourth time the RB had hired a collection agency" (Again, this debt was outstanding for just over 2 months) so I again asked for information on the company since Royal Bank did admit they sent it to a collection agency but stated it was a different one from the alleged "Canada Collections" who was calling me. So I suspect collection agencies, one they have purchased the right to collect a debt may sell them to other third party companies.. Is there any government body I can complain to? I did see the link in this thread and will read up further on our rights, but I am still amazed at how much effort they put into hiding their company name and information. The people I spoke to were french so I estimate they may be in Montreal..will do further research and post results in this forum.