I would think that if she calls ATT directly from an 800 number, not from the collections agency letter and gets specific information, she should be able to clear it up. There are many ways in which she could touch ATT...be it phone service, wireless service, credit card, digital TV....

Good question back to her "Where did you get that number"? Why wouldn't she have then asked to be transferred to management and demanded more information???? What a wasted effort. What's her plan? I would wait and see what happens next. But I wouldn't lose sleep over it until a court summons appears.

I believe that once an account is turned over to collections, the company no longer owns the account and would not have the information to provide to the person. Further evidence of this being a scam.

Was it $1600 even? That would be another clue it was a scam.

Or, someone has stolen her identity?

I agree. Rip it up and forget it. Especially since she has never had an account with ATT.

I would not rip it up but pursue it with the company. I thought I faced a scam at one point but it turned out it was in fact a bill that was due (part of my Mother's estate I was handling) and was lost and never paid. For some reason, I didn't get follow up notices until it hit collections. I was able to determine the charges were not bogus and that money was due and negotiated it down to reduce the extra charges.

Especially nowadays with more electronic billing and things auto charged to credit cards, it's easy to lose sight of a bill. And if it is a scam, pursuing it will determine that as well.

It's not likely she got ATT's number from the letter. Collection companies want you to deal with them so they get paid, not the company. She should probably pursue this to be sure it doesn't affect her credit rating. If there's an actual delinquent account in her name she needs to straighten it out.

I would google the number for the collection agency, and if legit, contact them. I've actually found them to be helpful in resolving issues.

Does it say what service it is owed on? Internet....TV....Telephone? Has she signed

up for streaming movies, etc., Does she have kids who maybe have used

her computer, TV, etc.? I do wonder about the paper billing....they much prefer

paperless billing and I would think she would get an E-mail about the bill first.

Getting her e-mail wouldn't be hard for them even if she doesn't have an

e-mail account. Hopefully, a scammer isn't just using her name, address, etc.

I wouldn't just tear it up and forget it. She does need to investigate and find

the truth of the matter....and get rid of it one way or the other completely and correctly.

Could also be identity theft.

I would call ATT directly about it. They have a customer service number, and if necessary, a fraud department that can be contacted if this is identity theft instead of a scam. And perhaps look up the number on the collections letter to see where that number leads too. There has indeed been collection scam letters using ATT the last 2-3 years, so I would really check into it before considering any payments.

All good questions. If she is at all computer savvy she should quite easily able to do some reasonable research. Please keep us posted as she gives you answers to the questions asked by you and noted here.

A pox on the millions of scam artists there are out there.

I think she's pretty aware of scams but this was a USPS contact, and not just an email. What I do know is that it's not her delinquent bill but could be identity theft, of course, that's what she's worried about. I told her to not call any numbers on that bill because since it is likely a scam, the phone numbers would just be to collect her personal information! I hope that she's called the REAL AT&T and not the scam ATT or bill collector. She says that she has never had any dealings with ATT and if there is a bill due, it's identity theft. She's a senior, so it could be they are just targeting seniors hoping to find an easy mark!

We were getting phone calls from a collection agency. No paper notices but phone calls. I checked the firm and the phone number myself and it was legit. It was a bill that my mom owed but in her alzheimers state hadn't paid and I was also named on her acct.

My point is the news stories have said to never call the number that is sent or left with you and to always google the firm and make sure the number is legit. If the number is different call the one that is on the firm's website. Scammers are extremely sophisticated these days.

It's all over the news new and aggressive scams pointed to seniors are cropping up. I would hope everyone would have a family member they talk to before ever responding to any sort of request for money or information. It is never bad to ignore things for a bit. If it's real they will let you know!!!

It's definitely not from an estate issue, both of her parents have been gone for many years.

I would try to get to the bottom of it too, before throwing it in the trash. We kept getting a call from a collection agency about several energy accounts in Texas ( we live in Kansas). They got my dh's info and moved from energy company to energy company over a 6 month period. We ignored it for a long time because we thought it was a scam until we saw it on our credit report.

Have her check her three credit reports. If there's an account in her name it will be on the reports.

I keep my credit files locked. I never have but if someone tried to take out credit in my name, I'm alerted. And if I ever want to get credit I need to unlock my credit reports.

If none of the three credit reporting agencies have any accounts in her name with ATT, it's definitely a scam. And if there is, she's got a problem.

She told me she only contacted ATT from the number you find when you google search. She contacted their fraud department too. She has contacted Equifax (I think it's called) for a copy of her credit report. She did also say she locked her credit. We all should probably do that just to be safe! The thing that most concerned me is that she said she sent a certified letter to the company that sent the letter to prove she is who she said she is. Personally, I would not have done that since there are so many scams and it is not her debt.

"Getting to the bottom" of a scam is playing with fire. Wait it out, if it's credible it will show up again. At that point I would call the police. They like to be informed of these scams.

My mother started getting calls from a collection agency after I had moved my mother down here after her stroke. She was in a nursing home, but we had gotten her a phone line in her room so that she could get calls from her granddaughter. It turned out that the agency was legit, but it was a case of "same name, wrong person" - a much younger person that they assumed this new phone # belonged to. After I answered, I was able to tell them that they were calling a nursing home, they could verify that by calling the facility itself, and they had the wrong person. Fortunately, they took my word for it and stopped calling.

Actually, just last week I got a call asking for her - don't know if it was a scam call, or a marketing call from a list that had her associated with my address and phone (I strongly suspected that the nursing home sold that information early in her stay, because I started to get marketing mail addressed to her), or related to that past collection effort...I simply told the man that Sxxx Jxxx had been dead for over a decade, and he apologized and said he would "take her name off the list".