I received a collection action letter from a company called CRB. CRB indicated that they were trying to collect a debt for a company name R & R Resources Inc located in Las Vegas, NV. The letter indicated that I owed over $523.68. I called the name provided in the letter for an explanation and spoke to a Ms Martin. She indicated that you know you owe the debt and I told her I didn't. She said that she would be willing to take $250.00 as a debt settlement. I additionally questioned why the company hadn't made any attempt to collect the debt, Ms Martin indicated that they where handling this action for this company and with this I finished the phone call. I got on the internet and started doing research as to what my options relative to the debt was. I found out that I could request that CRB provide me with verification of the charges. I sent a certified letter to them indicating that I had no knowledge of this debt and I was requesting verification of the debt. The information provided to me was a plain piece of paper with eight transaction which indicated multiple transaction with a web site and the address of some company named R & R Resources Inc In Las Vegas without a phone number. The charges broken down as follows Transaction amount $29.97, Chargeback Fee 25.00, and Collection Fee $10.49 this information was provided eight times. Also, my credit card number was shown with some number not provided.

I sent another certified letter indicating that I was disputing these charges. I received another letter with the same information previously provided. I did some additional read on debt collection procedures and found out that I am responsible for proofing that the charges are not validate but the debt collection agency should provide me with a way to dispute the charges. Ms Martin didn't provide me no such details of how I could proof that the charges where not validate. A few days later I received a letter from CRB indicating that if I didn't paid the bill the information would be sent to the credit bureau.

Heads up. CRB WILL put a negative entry on your credit report. They did it to me. It is best to deal with them directly via certified mail and recorded phone calls (let them know BEFORE the conversation begins). Don't run to the Attorney General or your credit bureaus quite yet. Try your best to deal with them directly.

Request, via certified mail, for CRB to provide the full credit card number, date of charges, the merchant, the type of services, how it was billed (online, in person, over the phone). Ask for as much information as possible to help you research it because true to their word, they will place a negative entry on your credit report and you need to be able to show you tried to work with them to resolve it (via certified letters and recorded phone calls) if you have to go directly to the credit bureaus to dispute it. FYI, out of all 3 credit reporting bureaus, Equifax was the least helpful and seemingly took the side of company when I tried to dispute it directly through them. Once I figured this out, I gathered all of my information, organized it in an easy to understand fashion with a flow that even a 2 year old could understand that the charges were fraudulent. CRB replied that their client dropped the collection request and promptly removed the record off of my credit report. Today, I enjoy an 800+ credit score across all 3 bureaus because I took time to go to war with CRB and won. Good luck.