They called one year ago (2015) claiming I owed them thousands of dollars on an account from 2010 that was now in collections. The account in question was opened and paid off in 2010, reopened in 2013, and paid off again. If I owed them anything, why would I have been able to open another account with them? Why would they wait five years? Why wouldn't they have contacted me directly? It smell like bull to me.
I asked them to mail me an itemized invoice and they refused. I called them a scam and said I would look into their claims. I figured that'd be all from them. Then, they mailed a one page bill with fraudulent claims of debt on it. No dates. Just a "You owe this amount and must pay us directly" bill. It was something I could have made in Word in 30 seconds. No return address (of course). So I called them, told them I checked my bank statements and everything was paid. I owe them nothing. They became hostile, so I told them I have a very good lawyer, and if they kept this up they would be paying me in the end. That stopped their inquiry. Until today... one year later...
They called me again claiming the same spiel all over again. So I played along for a bit. They claimed they had sent me an invoice (never did). Claimed they never received payment (obviously). I told them I never received an invoice. They said they sent one and it was never returned with payment. I said, "Well duh, because I never received one." I asked them again to send me an itemized invoice with dates and times of billings. They unsurprisingly refused and just kept demanding payment. So I said, "Alright, how about this. I'll give you twenty bucks to stop calling me. That seems fair and worth it to me, because you are wasting my time, and my time is far more valuable than yours." The woman on the phone got pissed and said the account must be paid in full. I laughed. She said, "So are you not making a payment on this account today?" I laughed again and she hung up on me.
The beautiful part is, I checked all my credit reports. I have no open collections. Never have. Never will.
Don't buy their bull if they call. Do your research. I'm pretty positive whoever is calling is fraudulently claiming to be CCI. They have enough information to get you curious, but not everything adds up. They tried to get my married name (they only have my maiden name) and they tried to get my SSN. Both times, I told them if they were legit they would already have that information.