Debt collector or scammer?

September 19, 2024 9:09 AM

Got a call from someone claiming he works for TSI and is collecting a debt my husband owes to the local hospital. Suppose that it’s not the scam I think it is, but actually a real debt, that inadvertently went unpaid—what would be the best thing to do?

The caller said he was calling from TSI, which on being pressed he said stood for Transworld Systems Incorporated. The caller ID said “Spam? Not Available”, but I do have one real medical supplies caller whose calls get labeled “Spam?”, so that’s not 100% reliable. The guy claimed he was collecting on a debt. I refused to get my husband, but took down a callback number. The call was from 832-941-0446; the callback number was 800-371-1321.

We’ve been targeted by scammers before (the worst one is a Medicare scammer who actually spoofs my husband’s physician’s phone number and claims to be calling “from your doctor’s office”), so I am suspicious. But suppose that a debt really did go unpaid—what would be the best practice for dealing with the situation? He did have a procedure done at that hospital a couple years ago, which as far as we know insurance paid for.

posted by metonym to Work & Money (14 answers total)

Scam. Robokiller record.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:15 AM on September 19 [3 favorites]

You could also call the hospital and ask them if you have this debt, and your insurance company to see about what payment was made, if Tell Me No Lies link doesn't convince you.
posted by Windopaene at 9:18 AM on September 19 [11 favorites]

Best answer: Yep, if you think you might have an unpaid bill and you want to know more, you or your husband should contact the hospital's billing department directly to find out. They're usually pretty matter-of-fact. You're under no obligation to do anything else with that information—some hospital billing departments, if they get you on the phone, might try to pressure you to set up a payment plan, etc. But you can just tell them you need to follow up with your insurance first (which you should, if you thought everything was covered and it turns out that it wasn't).

If the debt collector calls again, note that they are required by law to provide you with a validation notice if you request it. Do not give them personal info or confirmation that it is your debt without first receiving and reviewing that. Like Tell Me No Lies, I looked up the number you said they called from and got nothing useful except one person reporting it as spam.

But when I looked up the callback number you received, it is listed on this site. Does that match up with where you think the debt might have been from, if it were legit? That at least does appear to be a health-care website. Check your records and see if you have any other phone numbers or contact info for the debt you think this might be, but otherwise, that number seems like it might be legit.
posted by limeonaire at 9:22 AM on September 19 [4 favorites]

You can also tell debt collection agencies you want all communication to be in writing. It's a great way to opt out of their pressure tactics and gain time to consider whether their claims are legitimate, both in terms of this being debt you ever owed anyone, and debt you now owe them. Some people feel very strongly about paying their debts on moral principle, and that's fine, but the onus is on the collection agency to prove it's a real and legitimate claim.

That said, one wonders why this would be the first you'd have heard of such an expense. The hospital has its own billing department that certainly should be capable of communicating something like insurance having not fully covered a single procedure. If he were being seen often and by many different departments, then it'd be easier to imagine a bill having been overlooked, but one procedure years ago doesn't seem very plausible to me. Be very careful you never mention that procedure to whoever's calling you, because if it is a scam I'm sure they'd seize upon that information to build up a better story for you.
posted by teremala at 9:38 AM on September 19 [8 favorites]

But when I looked up the callback number you received, it is listed on this site.

Interesting. When I looked that number up I got the TSI contact page.

So I withdraw what I said about it absolutely being a scam. I would call TSI and verify that the call actually came from them, and then go with what teremala said and require all communication in writing.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:49 AM on September 19 [2 favorites]

That said, one wonders why this would be the first you'd have heard of such an expense. The hospital has its own billing department that certainly should be capable of communicating something like insurance having not fully covered a single procedure.

You might think so, but something similar happened to me and I got a demand letter from a collection agency in the mail for a family member's bill. It was 2 years or so of "missed" copays from a medical network they go to every two months and the network themselves never reached out to us. The hospital might be the ones who screwed up here. Many have staffing issues.

I'd check with the hospital directly to make sure this is real, check your own accounts to make sure you didn't already pay this, and then offer to pay the hospital directly and not TSI if the bill is legit. They can deal with reconciling the account with the collection agency. Also, keep an eye on your credit to make sure this is not reported and flag it if it is.
posted by soelo at 10:35 AM on September 19 [8 favorites]

I would ask them to snail mail you a notice with more information about the debt. I would not give out any personal information including your address - if it’s legit, they should already have it. If it’s a scam, they probably won’t send you anything. If they do mail you something, you will have the information written down and can look into it at your leisure.
posted by maleficent at 1:16 PM on September 19 [4 favorites]

Best answer: TSI is a real (and really bottom-feeding) collections agency, unfortunately.

Talk to the hospital; they should be able to tell you if they sent any debts to collections. Then you have to figure out whether your insurance should have covered it. If not...the issue is that the hospital may have actually sold the debt to TSI (they've got a bad enough reputation that I doubt too many hospitals are hiring them to act on their behalf), which means paying the hospital won't help, and in the meantime TSI may well have tacked on all sorts of bullshit extortionate charges for nothing.

So...ask them for a validation of the debt. The notice should tell you who the current creditor is. If it's the hospital, by all means work with them to pay the bill directly (after getting a bill from them so there's no doubt you're paying it all). Hopefully that will cut into TSI's commission from them. If it's TSI, get a clear sense of what the original bill actually was, and offer to settle for that amount (or a little less, to give them room for a counter). But make sure not to acknowledge the debt is yours, ever, or pay them anything until you've reached a written agreement with them.
posted by praemunire at 5:40 PM on September 19 [3 favorites]

The only thing you should say to debt collectors who call you is "I dispute the validity of the debt. Do not call me again."

Any legitimate debts will be validated by their client (the original creditor) and then the debt collector will follow up via postal mail. Then you have everything in writing and can research and pay as you see fit.

Source: Used to work in B2B collections but sometimes covered incoming consumer debt calls and thus had to go through all the training. Legitimate debt collectors will stop calling you and follow up via mail with source documents from the original debtor.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:30 PM on September 19 [7 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you all tremendously. We've managed to look at the charges from the procedure in 2022, the only time he's been to that hospital, through his account with the hospital via MyChart, and they look fine! Massive charge, immediate copay, insurance paid almost all of it, and he paid the small amount left over through MyChart right away. Balance $0.00. It couldn't be clearer! It's handy that he's only ever had this single procedure done there, and no other appointments or anything.

What I said to the guy on the phone yesterday morning was "I don't believe you," though I eventually took down the callback number just in case. (I'd just a few minutes before been talking to our usual Medicare scammer, who won't give up no matter how many enjoyable career advice lectures I give him, so I was primed to react to a scammer.)

I'm going to be checking our credit reports (I've gotten a little behind on that). I'm printing out the detailed billing pages from MyChart. And now I know what to say and do when I get another such call, which helps so much with my current stress levels that I can't thank you all enough!

(Hard to pick a best answer because they are all so good.)
posted by metonym at 9:34 AM on September 20 [2 favorites]

Just a caveat, but we were told that MyChart isn't necessarily the official billing record. I'd still talk directly to the hospital.
posted by soelo at 9:44 AM on September 20 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: limeonaire, it's a different health care system, in a different city, but I suppose that Vanderbilt might be directing questions on old bills to a collection agency they use. Seems like a bad thing to do.

A web search for the call-back number prompts a suggestion to ask the question "Is TSI a real collection agency", and the lawyers' pages responding to it indicate it is.

Thank you, soelo, I didn't know that, so we'll be calling the hospital to confirm.
posted by metonym at 9:51 AM on September 20 [1 favorite]

If you think the debt collector is violating the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, there are links at the bottom of this Consumer Financial Protection Bureau page for reporting to the CFPB and the FTC.
posted by donut_princess at 2:52 PM on September 20

I just posted this exact same article in another thread about debts, but it's an enjoyable and informative. Read. It's originally about credit card debt, but I think it mostly applies to any debt.
posted by AbelMelveny at 3:54 PM on September 20 [2 favorites]