| Skin and Beauty |
| Skin and Beauty Center Paul Gullatt, Dora, Drs. Vadmal and Saadat Scavenger Debt Collectors, Medical Billing Scam, Falsified Patient Invoices Burbank |
| 8th of Apr, 2011 by User471235 |
| Skin and Beauty Center buys dead doctor's old medical practices and digs into their old files (4-8 yrs old in my case) to randomly send threatening bills and make threatening phone calls to dead doctor's former patients in attempts to collect any money they can for services performed by doctors other than them. This was the case with me. They claimed I owed $124 on services performed by Dr. Joel Schwartz of Burbank, who died in 2010. I was a one time patient of his, but at no time during the last few years when I was a patient or when he was still alive had his office or staff ever notified me there was an outstanding debt to be paid. My insurance company, furthermore, never informed me they didn't pay a claim and that I owed Schwartz a balance. More than 4 years later, out of the blue, a woman named Dora called me at work and demanded I pay up or face collections! She wouldn't even name herself so I hung up with her and later, my family members called back that day using the number that appeared on caller ID to get her name. She claimed I owed money for services performed by Dr. Schwartz that I never paid. But, she couldn't name or produce any original bills or debt record in writing to prove to me that I owed it. She said, "we were looking at some old bills of Dr. Schwartz and you owe us money." I racked my brain wondering why this woman out of the blue was calling to tell me I owed money to a doctor who died last year but whom I hadn't seen in over 4 years and who never himself informed me of a debt he believed I owed him. And moreover, what was her relationship to him??!! I asked her to state the nature of her relationship to Schwartz and she refused to disclose it. I also asked her to send me the written proof, ie original bills, patient record of my alleged visit(s), any notes that could substantiate the debt and instead they just dummied up a brand new bill with misspelled procedures and faxed it to me. I also asked for anything from the insurance company showing that they refused to pay that claim(s) which resulted in the so-called outstanding balance due. Nothing. So I reported these doctors to the Dept of Justice Attorney General's office in California and the Federal Trade Commission, which is what the Credit Bureaus suggest you do, so that the authorities can be informed of consumer concerns such as these. Apparently, the DOJ Atty Gen's office sent the complaint to Skin and Beauty Center and in response I received their CCed reply, which fully skirted every Civil Code of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act violations they committed, including: expired CA statute of limitations of 4 years; failure to notify me legally of their intent and identity to collect debt; the harassment provision, which states they can't threaten to turn me to collection unless they plan to do it; the privacy provision which states they have to send me correspondence marked "Confidential" and they shared my patient information with my family members freely when asked, which is a violation of my HIPAA privacy rights. Their futile attempt to address the precise civil codes I cited amounted to nothing more than half baked excuses that deny they did what they clearly did. For example, in my State complaint, I said, they were beyond the statute of limitations to collect debt, which in CA is 4 yrs. Their response to this item was to state the date of the debt - which was within that expiry date! Also, if they claim I owe them, they must produce records to prove I owe them, with applicable dates, unpaid bills, original bookkeeping and billing documents and instead they said, they don't keep originals. So, how on earth can they claim I owe anything if they can't even show me where they got this information?! I didn't realize that "...Cuz I Said So" was a legal basis to a claim of debt! Bottom line is this is what is known as "Scavenger Debt Collection," whereby a company claims you owe old debt but rarely if ever produces substantiating evidence as proof. Fight it all the way if this happens to you. And people, beware of Skin and Beauty Center - because someone named Dora or Paul may call you out of the blue and claim you owe money to them, and then they might just draw up a fake bill and try to scam you out of your hard earned money! Don't pay. If they send you to collections, file a dispute with the Credit Bureaus and force them to prove it with evidence! File a claim in your state and with the Federal Trade Commission. |
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| If you were honest, you could just get your insurance company to show you the EOB (Explanation of Benefits) Where you owe the balance. |
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