Williams & Fudge Inc.

This company called me and asked for an Elizabeth Pattel.
They have the first name right for me, and they had MY number and I suspected something was up since I had a someone give my phone number to ZiffDavis publications. I am tired of getting calls from random companies so I asked the rep on the phone what other details they had of this «Elizabeth Pattel» person to make sure they didn’t get any of my other information to spam me with. I am tired of people falsly representing my company and I am about to take legal action.
I explained this to the rep and they got very irate with me, even though I’m trying to protect myself and possibly others that have fallen victim to this kinda thing.
I am about to report this «business»

I got a call «in regards to (a person I had never heard of)» who had «listed (me) as a potential girlfriend». When I probed a bit asking where this person was calling from and why, they revealed that I’d been removed from their database. So I asked if this was a database call or if someone had actually listed me. Bottom line, if you get calls from this place– don’t answer. It’s likely a database scam. Also, they wouldn’t provide any information to me on the person who had allegedly listed me as their significant other and when I started asking questions, this operator busted out «i don’t know why you care so much, I’ve removed you from the database.» Right, so I get a call before 8am, in regards to a person I’ve never heard of who has listed me as a potential girlfriend and I have no reason to ask questions. I hope the BBB shuts this operation down because it’s completely illegitimate. Also, the operator was a total donkey.

This place is a joke. Granted, my University falsely submitted a claim (I left the school in 2008 and they had fees charged to my account for being a student in 2009… the late fees compounded to over a grand because I was unaware). So to start, this was a bogus and easily de-​bunked claim. All W&F needed to do was get the University to submit my 2009 enrollment (what classes I was taking) to prove that I was a student. They never did– all they kept saying to me was, «[University] has validated these claims. You owe an ungodly amount of money.» While I waited for them to fax me said validation – and to keep this postponed so it didn’t go on my credit report– I paid 10%. Foolish me.
For the next three years. THREE YEARS. I called W&F over and over and over to try and get this resolved. I was always promised proof of this charge and it was never sent. I found it comical to be calling a credit agency to pester THEM instead of the other way around. W&F called me once. The first and only call I ever got about my claim was when they told me it existed and how much I owed. I left them so many messages, went through so many representatives… ugh. What a waste of time.
Finally, I got through to someone to help me sort out this mess. At W&F, you may ask? Nope. At my University. It’s the University’s policy to not handle anything that has been sent to collections, but I think the poor woman at the Registrar’s office felt so bad for me that she bent the rules, found the error, dismissed all the charges, and contacted W&F to delete my case. (I had tried this tactic previously and had been shot down by not-​as-​generous University employees. If you’re ever in this situation, keep calling and trying different people at the University. Eventually someone will feel sorry for you.)
Now that I no longer OWED money, it was time to recoup that 10%…
I called the main manager at W&F, Bob Donkle, whose immediate response was, «Well, if they dismissed the charges, they did it knowing you had paid that money, so your record is clear AFTER that money was recouped.»
Nope. Nope, nope, nope.
I explained how the charge was never supposed to be made in the first place and I was definitely owed that money back. After three years of them not only NOT doing their job, but also making a resolution exponentially more difficult, I was dead set on getting my freaking money back.
To his credit, Bob worked with his team to get in touch with University. I had a check in my hands within 2 weeks. It was the first time anyone at W&F actually did their job.
So, the resolution was finally in my favor, but it was NOT because of W&F. They didn’t vet the charge; they never returned my calls; they never gave me «proof» of anything; they didn’t take my complaints to University… They didn’t do anything to resolve the situation. Even more pathetic was they didn’t even try to collect the money that I supposedly owed them! It was this weird limbo. It was as if they knew the charges were bogus so they didn’t harass me about them, but they never tried to fix the situation. I just had this damaging credit report looming over me and no one to help fix it.
I’m just glad it’s over. If anyone is having to deal with W&F, I suggest going to the direct party to sort it out. W&F is absolutely worthless.