Fraudulent Qwest Bill that's 6 1/2 years old

Question

I got a great letter today. (sarcasm)

I should say my husband

Ok so we lived in Oregon from 2001 to 2004

We get a bill today that supposedly from April 2002 for a phone number we have NEVER had to a address we NEVER lived at in my husbands name for $121.XX. I called to collection agency they don't flipping care and once they find out that we did live in Oregon during that time frame and did have a qwest account ( different number) the tone changes completely. I started thinking, Why didn't we get anything from Qwest from 2001 to 2004 regarding this number? Why now 6 1/2 years later after we have moved from Oregon in 2004 to Iowa for 2 1/2 yrs. now been in Texas for 18 months do we get this? Is this a real company? The address the collection agency has that the "bill" went to I searched online and it doesn't even exist! The spelling and zip code doesn't line up with any in the city! I have checked our credit multiple times over these last few years and bought a house recently and NEVER seen anything about this bill!?! It would have been addressed a long time ago. The collection agency is supposedly doing an "investigation" I'm thinking it's going to be more like, yep you lived in that town and had qwest then so your screwed. Ughhh. So, if worse comes to worse won't this bill drop off in approximately 6 months anyways?

Answer 1

It's a zombie debt collector who did a skip trace for someone with a similar name.

Don't waste your time talking to them on the phone.  Send them a certified, return receipt letter telling them to cease and desist all contact as the debt is not yours.

Check your husband's credit report to make sure they haven't reported the debt there.  Dispute it if it is with the credit bureau.  

Derogatory items stay on credit files for 7-1/2 years form the date of first deficiency.  So it would be almost another year before this would age off.