"I was freaking out, I don't know what to do!"
You'd be freaking out too if the company you hired to collect an $1,800 debt went out of business. Which is what happened to Bryanna Stotler.
"No business signs saying we're closed, here's how to contact us, nothing," she said.
The new mother's need for a debt collector began a couple of years ago when her car was hit in the parking lot of a Mountlake Terrace grocery store.
"I saw her coming right towards me, tried to reverse, couldn't do it quick enough," she said.
The person who hit her had a big problem - no insurance.
The Lynnwood resident tried to get the person who hit her to pay up the $1,800 worth of damage to her ride. When that didn't happen, Bryanna took the woman to court, but she was a no-show.
Jesse Jones: "The judge just basically said..."
Bryanna Stotler: "She's not here, so you win."
Bryanna then hired Ideal Credit to collect the debt two years later. But the company, formerly based out of Everett, went out of business and never paid her a cent.
"They were gone," said Bryanna.
We've learned that the collection agent actually collected the debt before going out of business.
"So each time that I actually did contact him, he already had the funds. They just didn't want to forward it," she said.
Bryanna called me and I found out that collection agencies have to have a $5000 bond to cover events like this. So we contacted Ideal Crdit's insurance company, RLI, and they are sending Bryanna a check right away.
Jesse Jones: "So what are you going to do with the money?"
Bryanna Stotler : "Pay bills, probably."
Washington has a collection agency board, run by the Department of Licensing. If you want information on a collection agency, you may want to start here first.
