American Express and Allied Interstate Collections Abuse, by Robert Paisola

Mr. Robert Paisola,

My husband and I have about 20K of debt on our personal American Express card from a Business franchise that we bought that went out of business. We have managed to talk with our other creditors and set up payment plans and lower interest rates. American Express refused to work with us and we have been making payments for the past year (the account is closed) to try and get the balance down which is virtually impossible at a 30% interest rate.

We had been making payments but have fallen behind with Amex and are now at approximately 50 days past due. We tried to contact Amex again but they have already turned it over to the collector (Allied in Ohio). We have been receiving phone calls on both our home and cell phones, they have also started calling other family members in other states. (We have been through this with them once before when our business first closed and we had our company Amex to pay).

My husband talked to the collector this morning and tried to work with him. The collector proceeded to call my husband a “liar” and said that we have the money to pay for this debt! We do not have the money to pay up front, he said that he was looking at a credit card we have with $6,000 free on it and he wanted that plus payments every month for 6 months and then the rest of the balance at the end of the 6 months. This is ridiculous, for one, we have closed ALL our credit cards and are in the process of paying them all back, secondly, we have repeatedly tried to get Amex to work with us to pay it off. The Collector finished the call by telling us that he is going to Amex to tell them that we will not cooperate and they will be suing us.

Can you help?

Best regards,
Stacy