I signed up for Verizon Cell and Home 5G services in November, online. Somehow I created 2 separate accounts. After several interactions with Verizon support via phone/chat, they were able to combine them and give me a login that would access them both. I happily used both the Cell and Home 5G services without issue for several months, paying my bill in full each month.
In May, I received a notice that a late account had been posted to my credit report. It was Verizon. I immediately called Verizon CS who confirmed I had a $0 balance and sent me a text message to that effect. The CSR did not seem to understand what a credit report was or why I was concerned about this, so this did not feel very helpful.
Within a week, I sent certified mail to all 3 credit reporting bureaus and to Verizon, with copies of my credit reports showing the reported account, copies of the text from Verizon saying I owed $0. The credit bureaus all responded that they verified the account with Verizon. And... the Verizon mail bounced back to me. Apparently I had gotten bad information from the Internet. I searched for a better address online and sent another certified letter to Verizon in late June. I never received any response from them.
But, last week, I started receiving emails from a collection agency about this account. So I went in to a Verizon store to get assistance with this, because it's now been sitting on my credit report for 4 months and has been sent to collections. The guy at the store was unable to do anything except give me a # for Financial Services.
I called Financial Services today. The woman who I spoke with seemed to understand what I was telling her, but when I gave her the partial account # that I read off my credit report, she said she had to transfer me to another department, then transferred me to the COLLECTIONS AGENCY.
I hunted around and found a number for Recovery Services (the department I have sent two certified letters to!) and when I entered my SSN after calling, it also immediately tried to transfer me to the collections agency.
I don't want to talk to the collections agency, because they are not going to have any insight into the origin of the debt, which is almost certainly from the duplicate account I created when I was trying to sign up for services online. I literally never received any bill or attempt to collect this amount UNTIL after it was posted to my credit report, and sent to Collections. It is listed as a different account # than the one that is active that I pay off every month.
Whenever they combined my accounts, they should have closed the other one. But whatever... right now, I need to know how to make contact with a human being THAT UNDERSTANDS WHAT THE SITUATION IS AND CAN LOOK INTO IT. I highly doubt that is going to be the collections agency. I am more than happy to pay any amount I owe but I am not going to blindly pay it when I am 99% certain it is bogus. I have done everything "right" as far as I have been able to determine, including sending certified letters, calling Financial Services, Account Recovery, going to the store to talk to someone in person, etc. I have finally, at this point, this morning, after 4 months of chasing this, reached the point of being livid.
Someone, PLEASE, help me make contact with someone who is able to COMPREHEND this situation and able to HELP ME with it.
Thank you!
