If you're reading this article, you may have discovered a mysterious collection account on your credit report from a collection agency called Benuck and Rainey. If so, you're not alone.
Every day, thousands of unsuspecting consumers are surprised to find one or more collection accounts on their credit reports that they never knew existed, and in many cases, the debt may not even be valid.
Benuck and Rainey, Inc. is a debt collection agency based in New Hampshire. The company has been in business since March 2004, which means they have over two decades of experience in the debt collection business. The company primarily focuses on collecting medical debts and other consumer debts on behalf of the original creditors who placed the debts with the agency for collection.
Here is some basic information about the Benuck and Rainey collection agency:
Address: 25 Concord Road, Lee, NH 03861
Alternative Address: 221 Old Concord Tpke, Barrington, NH 03825
Phone Number: (603) 868-5566
Toll Free Phone Number: (888) 697-5566
Fax Number: (603) 868-1640
Years In Business: 21 years (founded March 1, 2004)
President: Nancy Rainey
Number of Employees: 19
Licenses: Nevada Collection Agency License CAD11791, NMLS license # 931908
What is Benuck and Rainey’s History?
Now that you know a little bit about Benuck and Rainey, let’s take a closer look at their track record to see if they have your best interests at heart as a consumer.
One way to determine this is by reviewing the complaint history maintained by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a consumer advocacy agency of the U.S. government.
According to the CFPB complaint database, Benuck and Rainey has had 18 closed complaints filed against them. Here is how those complaints were closed:
50% of consumers rated the response from Benuck and Rainey as unsatisfactory
0% of complaints resulted in the consumer receiving monetary relief
0% of complaints resulted in the consumer receiving non-monetary relief (e.g. a change in business practices)
100% of complaints resulted in Benuck and Rainey providing an explanation to the consumer
As you can see, in every instance, the consumer complaint against Benuck and Rainey resulted in an explanation to the consumer, but in no instance did the company provide any type of relief to resolve the issue. The company’s standard practice appears to be providing explanations rather than actual remediation.
Benuck and Rainey has also been a defendant in at least 6 federal lawsuits that we could find across various U.S. District Courts for violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). Those lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Courts for the District of Massachusetts, Southern District of Indiana, Northern District of Illinois, Middle District of Florida, District of New Hampshire, and Northern District of Georgia.
In some cases, the lawsuits were settled within as little as one to three months, suggesting that Benuck and Rainey may have chosen to settle the claims confidentially rather than contesting the allegations in court.
Benuck and Rainey has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), and is accredited by the agency. However, the company’s Google reviews are abysmal, with an average rating of just 1.9 stars. It’s not uncommon to see a discrepancy between review sites like the BBB and Google, but in many cases, the Google reviews may be more representative of a company’s customer service and business practices.
Do You Actually Owe This Debt?
Could This Be Someone Else’s Account?
Before you do anything else, have you confirmed that the collection account belongs to you and not someone else? You may be surprised to learn how often errors occur that can result in the wrong consumer being targeted for a debt.
According to a study conducted by U.S. PIRG, 79% of all credit reports contain some type of mistake or serious error. That means that the odds are stacked against accuracy from the start.
It’s relatively common for collection accounts to appear on consumer credit reports as a result of a mixed file or identity theft, and it may be even more common for accounts to appear due to simple human error (e.g. a typo in a SSN).
For example, let’s say that you have a very common name, and someone with the same name has an outstanding medical debt. If the collection agency accidentally types a single incorrect digit in a Social Security number, that debt could appear on your credit report instead of the correct consumer’s report.
While this type of error may seem unlikely, the simple fact is that it happens, and it could be happening to you right now.
In one CFPB complaint filed against Benuck and Rainey, the consumer indicated that a representative from the company called them repeatedly and threatened to sue the consumer and ruin their credit if the debt was not paid immediately. The consumer advised the representative that the debt was not valid and attempted to explain the situation, at which time the representative hung up the phone.
In multiple other complaints filed against Benuck and Rainey, consumers advised the company that the debt being collected was not valid, only to be ignored or met with additional harassment and intimidation tactics by the company.
Can They Prove the Debt is Valid?
What Happens When a Debt is Sold?
If you have received a collection notice from Benuck and Rainey, or if you have found one of their accounts on your credit report, do you know what their proof of the debt entails?
When an original creditor determines that a debt is uncollectable, they will typically write that debt off of their books as a bad debt, which means that the original creditor has already accounted for the loss associated with that debt.
At some point after charging off the debt, the original creditor may have sold the debt to a collection agency like Benuck and Rainey for a few pennies on the dollar. That means that the debt was sold with full knowledge that it may not be collectable, and the creditor who owned the debt has already been reimbursed for their loss.
When a debt is sold from the original creditor to a collection agency, one of the most common problems is that the associated paperwork and documentation may be missing or incomplete. That means that Benuck and Rainey may not have the documentation necessary to prove that the debt is valid and your responsibility.
In fact, one former employee of the company posted a review of the company on Indeed and indicated that, “The paper we collect is poor.”
Under federal law, a collection agency must verify a debt when the consumer properly disputes it. If the company is unable to provide the necessary documentation within a certain amount of time after receiving your dispute letter, the account should be removed from your credit report altogether. This requirement exists because so many collection accounts contain errors or cannot be verified for one reason or another.
Are They Trying to Pressure You into Paying?
Why Do Collection Agencies Use Pressure Tactics?
Has a representative from Benuck and Rainey advised you that you need to pay a debt immediately, or face some type of consequence? Are you feeling pressured to pay the debt as quickly as possible?
In most cases, when a collection agency is pressuring you to pay a debt, there is no urgency or emergency that requires you to pay the debt right now. Instead, the company is using high-pressure sales tactics to get you to pay the debt before you have time to think about it, research the debt, or determine whether you actually owe it.
Collection agencies like Benuck and Rainey work on very thin margins, so they need to collect as much debt as possible as quickly as they can. That means that the longer you take to evaluate the debt and determine whether you owe it, the less likely the company is to collect.
For that reason, many collection agencies will use pressure tactics to scare or intimidate consumers into paying debt, even if it’s not valid or legally enforceable. The more time you have to review the debt and your options, the more likely you are to recognize that the debt is not collectable, so the company tries to take away your time to think.
In one complaint filed with the CFPB, a consumer indicated that a representative from Benuck and Rainey called them and advised that they would be dishonorably discharged from the military if they did not pay a debt immediately. There is no basis in law for that threat, and it is the type of abusive threat prohibited by the FDCPA.
However, that threat is also the type of tactic that might scare some consumers into paying a debt they may not owe.
What Are Your Rights?
What Can Collection Agencies Legally Do?
Did you know that collection agencies are not allowed to harass you, threaten you with arrest, or mislead you into believing that they are law enforcement officers?
In 1977, the federal government enacted the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), a law that establishes very specific guidelines that collection agencies must follow when pursuing the collection of consumer debts.
When a collection agency violates your rights under the FDCPA, you may have additional leverage that you can use to deal with the debt and eliminate the harassment and abuse.
According to complaints filed with the CFPB and in federal court, consumers have accused Benuck and Rainey of violating their FDCPA rights, including:
Calling repeatedly or frequently
Threatening to sue the consumer
Improper disclosure to third parties
In one particularly disturbing complaint filed with the CFPB, a consumer indicated that a representative from Benuck and Rainey called the consumer’s elderly mother who was in poor health and disclosed the alleged debt to her. The representative then convinced the mother to provide her credit card information so that she could pay the debt on behalf of her child, even though the mother had not authorized the payment.
Not only did the representative from Benuck and Rainey improperly disclose the debt to a third party, but the representative also preyed upon a vulnerable elderly woman to coerce a payment from her without authorization.
Former employees of Benuck and Rainey have also shed some light on the business practices of the company that may be worth sharing. On the Indeed review website, one former employee wrote, “The FDCPA does not seem to matter here.” Another former employee wrote, “Management has employees strong arm the debtors to pay their bills.”
While we have no way of verifying those claims, they certainly suggest a culture within the company where the rules do not apply, or at least are viewed as flexible.
Should You Pay a Collection?
Will it Actually Improve Your Credit?
If you believe that you owe a debt that is being collected by Benuck and Rainey, you may be thinking about just paying the collection account so that it will go away. However, before you pay, have you considered how paying the debt will affect your credit?
Many consumers mistakenly believe that paying a collection account will remove it from their credit report, but unfortunately that is just not true. Paying a collection changes the status of the account on your credit report from “unpaid collection” to “paid collection,” but the negative entry remains on your credit report for approximately 7 years from the original delinquency date of the debt.
That means that paying the collection does nothing to improve your credit in the long run, because the negative mark associated with the collection remains on your report regardless of whether you pay it or not. Paying a collection only serves to put money in the pocket of the collection agency, without providing any benefit to you.
For that reason, disputing an inaccurate or unverifiable collection account may be a far better option than paying it, because in some cases you may be able to have the entire entry removed from your credit report, which can help improve your credit score much faster than simply paying the collection.
One of the main reasons why this is the case is that paying a collection does nothing to address the issue of whether the debt is valid or owed by you in the first place. If you pay a collection without getting something in return, you may still have no way of knowing whether the collector can actually prove that you owe the debt, so it may not be the best option available to you if you want to improve your credit report and score.
What if They Can’t Verify the Debt?
What Happens if They Can’t Prove It?
If you are facing a collection notice or credit report entry from Benuck and Rainey, are you aware that the company must be able to verify the information they are reporting?
Under federal law, if you properly dispute information that a collection agency is reporting on your credit reports, the credit reporting agencies are required to conduct an investigation and verify the information being reported. If the collection agency cannot provide documentation to verify the debt within a short period of time (usually around 30 days), the credit reporting agencies must delete the entry from your credit report altogether.
In many cases, collection agencies are unable to verify accounts because they don’t retain complete records associated with the accounts. As indicated above, when an original creditor places an account with a collection agency, the agency may not receive all of the documentation associated with that account, especially if the debt has already been charged off and sold one or more times.
That means that even if Benuck and Rainey is pursuing you for a debt, the company may not have the documentation necessary to prove that you owe the debt or that it is collectable.
If the information that Benuck and Rainey is reporting on your credit reports is inaccurate, incomplete, erroneous, obsolete, or unverifiable, you may be able to have the entire entry removed from your credit report after conducting a proper dispute.
In some cases, accounts may be invalid or not owed at all, so those accounts can also be deleted. Once you successfully dispute an entry and have it removed from your credit report, in most cases the collector will not have either the ability or the incentive to have the entry re-reported, so the removal is usually permanent.
For that reason, it is so important that you get any dispute right the first time to avoid having to go through the process a second time. In many cases, working with a professional may make the process much easier and less frustrating for you, and a professional will usually be more effective than you can be on your own, especially if you have limited or no experience with the credit dispute process.
Will They Sue You?
How Often Do Collectors Sue Consumers?
If a representative from Benuck and Rainey has threatened to sue you to collect a debt, do you know how often collection agencies typically file suit against consumers?
If the representative has made you feel like you don’t have a choice and that a lawsuit is inevitable unless you pay, you should know that in the vast majority of cases there is never any intention of filing a lawsuit.
Threatening a lawsuit is one of the most common tactics used by collection agencies who want to scare consumers into paying debt without taking the time to verify whether the debt is valid or owed. In many cases, consumers pay debts they don’t owe just because they are afraid of a lawsuit that is never going to be filed in the first place.
The reality is that lawsuits are very time consuming and expensive for a collection agency to pursue, so in most cases the cost of a lawsuit will exceed the amount of money to be gained from the consumer.
When an original creditor places an account with a collection agency, in most cases the agency purchases the debt for pennies on the dollar. That means that the agency has limited funds to spend collecting the debt, because spending more to collect the debt than the debt is worth would not make good business sense.
The costs associated with filing and litigating a lawsuit are extremely high, especially if you include the cost of an attorney, court filing fees, and the time that it takes to pursue a lawsuit, which can take a year or more to resolve. For most debts, and especially smaller balance debts, the numbers just don’t add up to make a lawsuit worth pursuing.
While lawsuits certainly can and do happen in some cases, in the vast majority of cases threats of a lawsuit are simply a bluff. However, those threats also tend to be very effective in getting consumers to pay debt they may not owe, so collection agencies continue to use that tactic again and again.
If you understand that the threat of a lawsuit is usually just a tactic and not based in any type of reality or likelihood that the collector will file suit, you can respond very differently than if you believe the threat is credible. Instead of panicking and paying a debt you may not owe, you can recognize the threat for what it is, and respond accordingly, whether that means ignoring the threat, disputing the debt, or taking some other course of action that protects your interests and your money.
What Should You Do?
If a representative from Benuck and Rainey has threatened to sue you, there are several steps you can take to protect yourself and your interests.
Instead of panicking or doing something rash, why not pull out a pen and paper and simply start documenting everything? That’s right; if a debt collector is threatening or abusing you, everything they say and do may be admissible as evidence if the company has violated your rights, so the more documentation you have the better.
In addition to simply documenting what happens, you should also understand that you don’t have to respond to a collector’s threat or communication at all if you don’t want to. You have the right to advise a debt collector to communicate with you in writing only, so if a representative is calling or threatening you, you can advise them to stop calling and only communicate in writing from that point forward.
You also have the right to dispute a debt and request verification of the debt from the collector, which will stop all communication from the agency until they provide the documentation you have requested.
Using those rights can help protect you and your interests, and may even help you avoid a lawsuit, because the collector may recognize that you know your rights and aren’t afraid to use them.
Conclusion
Now that you’ve read this article and learned more about Benuck and Rainey and your rights as a consumer, what questions should you be asking yourself about the debt collection notice you received from the company?
Do you actually owe this debt, or could this be someone else’s account?
Can Benuck and Rainey prove the debt with proper documentation?
Am I being abused or harassed by Benuck and Rainey?
Is paying this collection account really going to help my credit or improve my situation?
What are my other options and rights as a consumer if I believe that Benuck and Rainey has violated my rights or is pursuing an invalid debt?
As you can see from the information above, Benuck and Rainey has a history of being the subject of consumer complaints for allegedly violating consumer’s rights under the FDCPA, and the company has been sued in federal court for allegedly violating the FDCPA and FCRA.
In addition, the company has an average Google rating of just 1.9 stars, while maintaining an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. Those facts alone should provide you with plenty of reason to question whether the debt that Benuck and Rainey is pursuing is valid or whether the company is just trying to take advantage of you to make a quick buck at your expense.
Most importantly, you should understand that collection agencies like Benuck and Rainey only get away with the tactics they use because consumers don’t understand their rights. If you don’t know that a collector is violating your rights or engaging in prohibited practices, you can’t recognize or respond to those tactics.
However, once you know your rights and understand how you are protected under the FDCPA, you can recognize the tactics that collectors use to scare or intimidate consumers into paying debt. Instead of responding out of fear or ignorance, you can respond based on the facts and your knowledge of the law, which means that you will always have the upper hand when dealing with a debt collector like Benuck and Rainey.
Are you finally ready to stand up to abusive collectors, clean up your credit report, and start rebuilding your credit? Because of problems like this, we started a free service to help consumers like you through the credit repair process.
At FightCollections.com, we can help you determine whether Benuck and Rainey has the legal right to collect a debt from you, and advise you on your options under the FDCPA if you believe that the company has violated your rights or is pursuing an invalid debt.
Our staff can even help you get a free copy of your credit report and submit disputes directly to the credit reporting agencies and Benuck and Rainey on your behalf.
So why wait any longer for the help you need?
Contact us today to speak with a credit repair expert who can answer your questions and explain your options in greater detail.
