If you've found a collection account from Enterprise Recovery on your credit report, you probably want to know if it's a legitimate debt or not. More importantly, you may be hoping there's a chance that the information on your report contains errors that can help you get it removed.
The fact that you're reading this shows that you already have a great sense of how the credit reporting system works. You know that it's a game of minutes and seconds – and you don't want to let Enterprise Recovery drag you down.
The good news is that credit reports are full of errors. And when it comes to collection accounts, this is especially true.
According to a study by U.S. PIRG, 79% of credit reports contain errors or disputed information. That means that there's at least a chance that your Enterprise Recovery collection account is incorrect.
But how can you find out?
Who is Enterprise Recovery?
Enterprise Recovery is a debt collection agency with a mailing address in West Chester, Pennsylvania. They're a subsidiary of BYL Risk Management, LLC, and they specialize in commercial and consumer debt collection.
There's also a separate company called Enterprise Recovery Systems, Inc. operating out of Illinois. They're mostly known for collecting on student loans, and they've since changed their name to Alltran Education, Inc.
So, you may want to double-check your credit report to make sure you know which of these companies is reporting a collection account against you.
What Does the Internet Say About Enterprise Recovery?
The Internet is full of horror stories about Enterprise Recovery. For example, Enterprise Recovery has an F rating from the Better Business Bureau (BBB). F is the worst rating a company can get, and it's often reserved for companies that have completely ignored all the complaints against them.
In fact, Enterprise Recovery hasn't responded to any of the 18 complaints that the BBB has filed against them. That's right – they have a 0% response rate.
Does that sound like a company that takes the time to verify the debts they're trying to collect? Probably not.
There are a bunch of other consumer complaints against Enterprise Recovery too. Some of them say that the company repeatedly called them. Others claim that Enterprise Recovery threatened to come to their homes. And at least one says that Enterprise Recovery contacted their family members.
The Illinois-based Enterprise Recovery Systems has an even longer history of problems. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Education canceled its contract with Enterprise Recovery. Apparently, the company made “materially inaccurate representations” to student loan borrowers. Specifically, Enterprise Recovery told borrowers that they were eligible for benefits they weren't actually eligible for, such as collection fee waivers and loan rehabilitation programs.
So is the debt that Enterprise Recovery is trying to collect from you even yours? Maybe not.
Mistaken identity is a huge problem in the debt collection industry. It's surprisingly easy for debts to get assigned to the wrong person, especially when you have a common name. Sometimes it's just a simple mix-up, while other times it's a bureaucratic error that gets repeated over and over again.
To avoid this problem, it's a good idea to regularly review your free annual credit reports from each of the three credit reporting agencies. Have you done this recently? When's the last time you checked to see what Enterprise Recovery is claiming about you?
In fact, there have been at least 164 federal lawsuits against Enterprise Recovery Systems since 1991. Some of those lawsuits have involved attempts to collect debts from the wrong consumer. Others involved debt collectors that failed to properly verify a debt.
Do you have any idea if Enterprise Recovery has properly verified the debt they're trying to collect from you?
Have You Requested Debt Validation?
If not, you should. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act requires debt collectors to respond to your requests for debt validation within a reasonable amount of time. If they can't provide proper documentation to back up their claims, they may not have any right to collect that debt.
Unfortunately, there are a number of consumer complaints that say Enterprise Recovery has refused to provide debt validation. Here's what one person posted to the BBB website:
“They have called me several times and threaten to come to my home as well as threaten to file a lawsuit against me. I have informed them that I have cancer as well as lupus and am unable to work at this time and they told me that was not their problem.”
So should you pay Enterprise Recovery? Probably not.
Why You Should Think Twice Before Paying Enterprise Recovery
Paying Enterprise Recovery may not even help your credit score. You may be hoping that your credit score will improve if you just pay off your debt. But the truth is, that's probably not going to happen.
The only thing you can accomplish by paying Enterprise Recovery is changing the status of your debt from “unpaid” to “paid.” The account will still remain on your credit report for up to 7 years, and your credit score will still suffer as a result.
Plus, you may be able to get Enterprise Recovery to delete the account from your credit report entirely. If the company can't properly validate the debt, you may be able to get it removed.
So why bother paying at all?
What If You've Already Acknowledged the Debt?
You may have already acknowledged the debt, either by talking to someone at Enterprise Recovery or making a payment. If so, you should know that this may have reset the statute of limitations on the debt in your state.
This is one of the many tricks that debt collectors use to get money out of consumers. They know that if they can just get you to admit that you owe a debt, they'll have a much stronger case against you in court.
And remember: just because Enterprise Recovery says you owe them money doesn't mean that you actually do. In fact, if the company is accusing you of owing a debt that's past the statute of limitations in your state, you may have grounds for a lawsuit.
What Are Your Rights When Dealing with Enterprise Recovery?
You have a number of rights when dealing with Enterprise Recovery. For example, debt collectors can't just do whatever they want to try and collect a debt. In fact, there are a number of federal laws that restrict the actions debt collectors can take.
So has Enterprise Recovery violated your rights? Have they done anything to try and collect a debt from you that's against the law?
For example, did Enterprise Recovery contact your family members or coworkers about your debt? In most cases, this is against the law.
There have been a number of other complaints against Enterprise Recovery that accuse the company of violating federal law. In 2013, a court in Texas found that Enterprise Recovery Systems had violated both the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
Apparently, an Enterprise Recovery Systems employee refused to identify himself or his company when talking to a consumer on the phone. He also called the man's cell phone using an automated predictive dialing system – even though he didn't have the man's permission to do so.
The court found that both of these actions were against the law. And if Enterprise Recovery did the same thing to you, you may be able to use this to your advantage when trying to get the debt removed from your credit report.
Numerous complaints also allege that Enterprise Recovery representatives are misrepresenting themselves as couriers, not debt collectors. This could be another federal violation.
What's The Best Strategy Here?
Do It Yourself?
Can you represent yourself before federal debt collection regulators, the credit reporting agencies, and in the dispute process? Technically yes. The problem is that collection agencies have attorneys on retainer and are very experienced at responding to disputes. This is what they do for a living. You may only have one or two experiences in your entire life.
Enterprise Recovery LLC couldn't care less about consumer opinion. They've earned an F rating with the BBB and a 100 percent non-response rate to complaints. Earning customer trust isn't their business model. They earn their money by collecting debt, not being well liked. That means they have no motivation to work with consumers disputing on their own behalf.
Credit repair is a system that has been refined through thousands of individual results. Patterns emerge about what tactics are successful with particular collection agencies, and those lessons learned are folded into the repeatable process. You, as a consumer, do not have the benefit of that institutional knowledge.
Why Is Professional Help Important?
How would your situation change if you had someone advocating on your behalf that knew exactly how to challenge Enterprise Recovery?
A professional credit repair expert knows exactly what documentation and verification a collector must provide, where the paperwork and documentation typically has holes in collection accounts, and what strategies are most likely to result in the removal of Enterprise Recovery from your credit report.
That process always begins with a case evaluation to determine whether your Enterprise Recovery account shares the common traits that make it vulnerable to removal. This is reconnaissance and does not obligate you to any further action. It allows you to gather the necessary information to make informed decisions instead of reacting to circumstances.
It's also important to remember that a collector like Enterprise Recovery counts on urgency and fear to get what they want. They want you to act as quickly as possible, which hopefully means before you've had time to do your research and engage professional help.
The way to combat that is to slow the process down, to gather your information, and to approach the situation from a position of strength instead of reacting out of fear and panic.
We already know that Enterprise Recovery has a history of regulatory infractions, a history of court rulings against them, and a complete disregard for consumer complaints. The Pennsylvania-based Enterprise Recovery maintains an F rating with the BBB with zero responses to consumer complaints. The Illinois-based Enterprise Recovery lost their contract with the federal government for deceiving borrowers and has been the subject of 164 federal lawsuits.
While these facts alone do not mean that your Enterprise Recovery account can be removed, they do suggest that this is a collection agency with systemic problems that may extend to the legitimacy and accuracy of the accounts they report to the credit bureaus.
Your questions should not be how do I pay this debt or how do I get them to stop calling? Your questions should be is this account accurate, can Enterprise Recovery verify their claims, and can I get professional help to have it completely removed from my credit report?
Your Next Step: Free Case Evaluation
Are you ready to find out whether your Enterprise Recovery account can be removed? At FightCollections.com, we offer free case evaluations to help you understand your options and obligations. This is a consultation only and does not require you to engage our services.
So, don't call Enterprise Recovery. Don't acknowledge the debt. And don't start sending payments hoping the problem goes away.
Instead, gather your credit reports, make copies of any communication you've received from Enterprise Recovery, and contact us for a free consultation to discuss your Enterprise Recovery account and whether it can be removed.
The debt collection industry relies on consumers feeling powerless and uniformed. Once you recognize that most credit reports contain errors, that collectors must verify their claims, and that working with a professional credit repair expert evens the playing field, you begin to transition from victim to empowered consumer.
Your Enterprise Recovery account may be easier to remove than you suspect. Find out for sure with a free case evaluation today.