The wife and I arrived home on Saturday from a trip to The Keys (where I received 3 "Go Dawgs!" greetings on a short walk down Duval Street. Football optimism is high in the Conch Republic) greeted by a pile of mail. One piece was addressed to her, and since she never bothers to look at mail I opened it. Inside was a collection notice for an account with Carroll EMC in the amount of $174.89 accompanied by the usual 30-day notification to dispute in writing or court action will be initiated.
It included an account number along with a street name and number (but no city). After a quick Google I'm pretty sure I found the right place in Temple, GA which, if Carroll EMC is indeed located in Carroll County, would check out. Here's the deal though: we live in Barrow County and have for 33 years. Neither of us have ever even been to Temple, much less opened an account with a utility company. After some further internet sleuthing on the property records I discovered the owner of that address has the same name as my wife, albeit a different middle initial. So I suspect this is part of a wide net being cast by the collector.
We haven't called them yet but plan to later today. This obviously is not our debt, but I'm sure they hear that all the time. I absolutely refuse to pay anything that we don't owe, but I also don't want to risk the perfect credit she has established her entire life to be jeopardized by something this stupid (although I don't know how they could without her SSN).
So my question to the Vent legal wizards: what's the best way for us to approach this? My initial reaction was to call and cuss them out, but also understand that perhaps this isn't the best course of action.
It included an account number along with a street name and number (but no city). After a quick Google I'm pretty sure I found the right place in Temple, GA which, if Carroll EMC is indeed located in Carroll County, would check out. Here's the deal though: we live in Barrow County and have for 33 years. Neither of us have ever even been to Temple, much less opened an account with a utility company. After some further internet sleuthing on the property records I discovered the owner of that address has the same name as my wife, albeit a different middle initial. So I suspect this is part of a wide net being cast by the collector.
We haven't called them yet but plan to later today. This obviously is not our debt, but I'm sure they hear that all the time. I absolutely refuse to pay anything that we don't owe, but I also don't want to risk the perfect credit she has established her entire life to be jeopardized by something this stupid (although I don't know how they could without her SSN).
So my question to the Vent legal wizards: what's the best way for us to approach this? My initial reaction was to call and cuss them out, but also understand that perhaps this isn't the best course of action.
