Don’t panic if you see the name Apelles, LLC on your credit report. There are several ways to deal with this Columbus, Ohio debt collector, and you can probably guess which one they’d prefer you to choose.
Apelles, LLC, has been hounding consumers for over 22 years, and seeing their name on your credit report is meant to prompt a knee-jerk reaction. Here’s what they don’t want you to know: The relationship between consumers and debt collectors is not exactly the David and Goliath proposition they want you to believe it is. But you do need to know how to use the few facts that follow as ammunition.
Who is Apelles, LLC?
Apelles, LLC, is a third-party debt collector based in Ohio. They collect on debts owed to banks, retail establishments, governmental agencies, medical offices, and a long list of other business service providers. They employ about 30 people and bring in between $4.5 and $5.4 million in annual revenue.
An Alarmingly Large Number of Consumer Complaints
Despite being accredited by the Better Business Bureau with an A rating, Apelles, LLC, has amassed a concerning number of consumer complaints over the years. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 48 complaints were logged against the company since July of 2013, and 98 percent of those complaints were related to debt collection practices.
It’s worth noting that as of April 2015, only 17 complaints had been filed against Apelles, LLC. That means that 31 more complaints were added in just the past 7 years. That’s not a good trend.
The story told by federal court records is not a good one, either. Apelles, LLC has been the defendant in over 50 federal lawsuits filed in 16 states, most of which concerned violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA).
So what do they want from you?
Every debt collection agency operates in basically the same way: they acquire debts for pennies on the dollar, then attempt to collect as much of the balance as possible while expending as little as possible in the process. When you understand their business model, you begin to understand why they want you to react in a particular way to their presence on your credit report.
They hope you’ll panic and pay immediately
That’s probably the simplest and most important fact of all. Apelles, LLC wants you to feel guilty, or shamed, or frightened enough to pay the balance of your collection account as quickly as possible without asking too many questions.
Why? Because when you panic and pay, they reap immediate benefits. They get to keep the money you pay without having to pay much of anything themselves to collect it. And they never have to prove that they have the legal right to collect on the debt in question because you’re not challenging them to do so.
That’s why their business model relies on your panicking and paying immediately. They can’t afford to have to dispute your claims for too long.
They’re Counting on You Not to Do Anything
When you do nothing, the collection stays on your report. Your credit score suffers, and the collection agency doesn’t have to prove anything. Apelles LLC is counting on the fact that most consumers will either pay the debt or do nothing and allow their credit to suffer.
What the collection agencies know, and hope you never learn, is that doing nothing can be a powerful strategy if you do it the right way. The difference is whether you’re doing nothing out of fear or ignorance or if you’re using the dispute process to force the collection agency to prove its claims against you.
For example, we found several complaints where Apelles LLC tried to collect on debts that had already been discharged in bankruptcy. I
n a complaint filed in May 2018, the consumer stated that Apelles sent a second collection notice on a debt that a federal bankruptcy court had discharged in 2012. The notice had the effect of re-aging the debt even though the consumer included proof of the bankruptcy discharge with her response. The consumer said this was the second time the agency pulled this tactic.
That’s a bold move for a collection agency to make, but it works only if the consumer doesn’t know her rights or doesn’t take action to enforce them.
The Dispute-First Strategy
Many consumers’ first instinct when they find a collection account on their credit report is to pay it right away to make it all go away. Unfortunately, this is often the worst thing you can do for your credit score. A better strategy is to dispute the account first and sort out the details later.
Why You Shouldn’t Pay First
One important fact about paying collection accounts is that once you pay, the account’s status on your report changes from “unpaid collection” to “paid collection.” That still hurts your credit score, though. So, you pay the collection, but the damage to your credit remains.
Furthermore, about 79% of credit reports contain errors or serious errors, according to a study by U.S. PIRGs. That means the collection account that Apelles put on your report could contain the wrong information about how much you owe, the original creditor, your payment history, or even whether the debt is yours at all.
Paying the debt doesn’t fix these errors. All it does is put money in Apelles’ pocket while you’re still left with a flawed credit report and no recourse for removing the errors you just confirmed by paying the debt.
How Disputing Inaccuracies Works
When you dispute a collection account, you force the credit reporting agency to investigate. The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires credit reporting agencies to verify the information on your report within a reasonable amount of time. If the agency can’t verify the information, it must remove the information from your report.
So, disputing the account is often all it takes to get rid of it, even if you don’t send in proof of the inaccuracy. This process works to your advantage when you’re dealing with a collection agency like Apelles. That’s because collection agencies often don’t retain all the information about the original debt. When it investigates the dispute, Apelles may not be able to verify the information.
As a result, the agency must ask the credit reporting agency to remove the account from your report.
It doesn’t matter whether you send proof that the account is incorrect or not. The burden is on Apelles to prove the debt. If it can’t do that, then the information comes off your report.
Check out these examples of how this works. According to data from a consumer law firm, Apelles has settled several lawsuits with individual consumers for between $2,700 and $3,100 each. As part of the settlement, Apelles also agreed to dismiss the debt entirely and remove it from the consumer’s credit report. The consumers didn’t get these results because they paid the collection agency. Instead, they disputed the debt and forced Apelles to respond.
Your Rights When Dealing with Apelles LLC
When you’re dealing with a debt collection agency like Apelles LLC, it’s essential to know your rights under federal law. These laws are on the books because collection agencies have historically taken advantage of consumers who didn’t know their rights. Now that you know your rights, you have the power to enforce them.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act
The FDCPA is a federal law that prohibits debt collection agencies from engaging in unfair or deceptive practices to collect a debt. For example, a debt collector may not:
- Contact you at unreasonable hours
- Use threats, harassment, or abuse to collect the debt
- Misrepresent the debt or the collector’s authority
- Contact a third party about your debt except in limited circumstances
You have the right to sue a debt collector if it violates any provision of the FDCPA. The lawsuits alleged several types of violations, including:
- Misrepresenting the character, amount, or legal status of a debt
- Threatening to take action that can’t legally be taken or that the debt collector doesn’t intend to take
- Improperly contacting a third party about a consumer’s debt
- Harassing a consumer with excessive telephone calls
- Failing to validate a debt
- Continuing to collect a debt after the consumer sent a cease-and-desist letter
In one of those lawsuits, Hughes v. Apelles LLC, the plaintiff alleged that Apelles violated the FDCPA because of the language it used in a collection letter. The letter included a warning that if the consumer accepted Apelles’ settlement offer, he may or may not incur tax consequences.
However, Apelles didn’t include a breakdown of the principal and interest so the consumer could make an informed decision about the tax implications. The lawsuit alleged that this language was deceptive and misleading under the FDCPA.
The Fair Credit Reporting Act
The FCRA governs how credit reporting agencies manage information on your report. It includes several provisions that protect consumers from inaccurate information. When you dispute an inaccuracy on your report, the credit reporting agency must investigate and verify the information. If the agency can’t verify the information within a reasonable amount of time, it must remove the information from your report.
Most consumers don’t realize how often errors occur on credit reports. In fact, 79% of credit reports contain either errors or serious errors, according to a U.S. PIRG study. So, the odds are in your favor when you dispute an inaccuracy.
Unfortunately, many consumers don’t know their rights under the FCRA, so they just accept the information on their report as accurate. That’s what collection agencies are counting on. When you dispute an inaccuracy, you’re forcing the credit reporting agency and the collection agency to prove that the information is correct. If they can’t do that, the information comes off your report, which can help your credit score recover.
Don’t let collection agencies push you around. Know your rights under the FDCPA and FCRA, and enforce them if necessary.
How a Credit Repair Company Can Help
Although you have the right to dispute inaccuracies on your credit report, the process can be daunting if you’ve never done it before. A professional credit repair company can help. Here’s how.
The Benefits of Working with a Pro
A credit repair company has extensive knowledge about the dispute process. The company knows what language to use, how long to wait for a response, and what to do next if the credit reporting agency doesn’t respond adequately. Armed with this knowledge, the company can help you challenge inaccuracies and get them removed from your report.
Check out this example of how it works. The BBB keeps track of the complaints it receives about businesses and whether those complaints were successfully resolved. According to the BBB website, Apelles has responded to all the complaints the agency has received about the company.
However, the consumer didn’t mark only about one-third of those complaints as resolved. In some cases, the consumer didn’t respond to the BBB’s request for information. In other cases, the consumer didn’t accept the company’s response as a resolution to the complaint.
Either way, the data suggest that consumers who deal with Apelles on their own may not always get a satisfactory resolution to their complaints.
A credit repair company changes the equation. The company brings its expertise to your situation and uses it to help you resolve your disputes and repair your credit. You get the benefit of the company’s knowledge without having to develop that knowledge on your own.
Plus, since you’re not as emotionally invested in the situation as you would be on your own, you don’t have to deal with the stress and fear that can sometimes cloud your judgment.
Credit repair companies work with consumers like you all the time, so these situations don’t intimidate them. As a result, you’re much more likely to get the outcome you want if you work with a credit repair company instead of trying to navigate the situation on your own.
Why You Shouldn’t Try This on Your Own
If you try to repair your credit on your own, you might not get the outcome you want for several reasons:
- You might not know the right language to use on your dispute letter.
- You might not know how long to wait for a response or what to do if you don’t get a response within that timeframe.
- You might not know what to say if the credit reporting agency verifies the debt instead of removing it from your report.
- You might accept the response as the final answer when you could push for a better response instead.
- You might not have the emotional detachment you need to manage the process effectively.
Dealing with collection agencies and credit reporting agencies can be a high-stakes, high-stress process. If you’re emotionally invested in the outcome, you might not make the best choices for your situation.
Credit repair companies don’t have this problem. The process is the same every time for every consumer, so the company can manage your disputes objectively without getting caught up in the emotion of the situation.
We found federal lawsuits against Apelles across 16 states. Several of those lawsuits ended in settlements that included individual payouts of between $2,700 and $3,100. The settlement agreements also called for Apelles to dismiss the underlying debt entirely and remove it from the consumer’s credit report.
In each of those cases, the consumer worked with a professional — in this case, an attorney — to manage the dispute process. If you didn’t know your rights or assert them, you wouldn’t get this outcome on your own.
That’s why it’s essential to work with a professional credit repair company if you find an Apelles collection on your report. An expert advocate gives you the best chance of a successful outcome.
Are you ready to fight for your financial freedom? Contact FightCollections.com today for help with your collection account.
