Question about Merrick Bank collection activity

[sharizap]

A few weeks ago, before finding this website, I contacted Merrick Bank regarding a CO that appears on my dh's CR. I spoke to a rep (Brenda) who offered me a settlement, and I said we'd discuss it and get back to her. Meanwhile I found this site and decided to change tactics a bit. Brenda called daily for a week or so, then stopped. (we didn't take her calls- I was still figuring out the dv/dispute/investigate process and sending out letters. We didn't send anything yet to Merrick.) Yesterday we got a call from "Mr. Jones." My dh was unavailable when he called, but called back within minutes and put the call on speaker phone. "MRS. Jones" answered the call. Apparently there are several Joneses working there. Anyway, my dh talked to him (with me coaching) and asked for the account history in writing. Mr Jones was very nice, agreed to send us the file, and said that they would not be able to do a pfd on the account. (a matter I will address in writing with someone else when we get to that point.) He did say that the last activity on the account was a payment in Sept. '01. He said he didn't know the DOFD. PA has a 6 year SOL on revolving accounts, so depending on when you start counting, the SOL is up in either Sept. or maybe Dec. or so of this year. So, they're coming down to the wire on the account. The guy did say that we had till the end of this month to settle this. (I would have asked "or what?" but my husband didn't.) I suspect that if I hadn't made that initial call, this would have gone SOL without a whimper in a few months. *kicks self in butt* But anyway- so we've got paperwork on its way, and we do need to resolve it anyway since the whole point of this is so we can qualify for a mortgage by the end of the year, and it will have to be resolved/paid for that to happen.

The thing is that now we're getting calls from Merrick... a LOT of calls. At least 4 more yesterday and starting already this morning. My dh spoke to all of them yesterday and they all went pretty much the same way. The rep starts out all stern and gruff, my dh explains that they're the 2nd (3rd, etc) person who called already, that we spoke to someone and have paperwork coming- they apologize and say that they have a new system that doesn't have the bugs worked out yet, but they'll take him out of the loop so it doesn't happen again. This morning I answered the phone and the woman I spoke to was REALLY nasty. I told her the story about the other calls, and she goes "well, you're GOING to get calls every 7 days till this matter is resolved!" I said this was WAY more than once every 7 days and was beginning to border on abuse. She got really crappy and patched me through to her supervisor. At this point, my dh (Mister Diplomacy- a much nicer, friendlier sort than I am, admittedly) got on the phone. As usual, the supervisor started out p*ssy, but apologized and vowed to take him off the system.

Do OCs have to follow the same collection procedures as CAs? Are there not rules about how often they can call you or how they're allowed to talk to you? I plan to include in our written response (after we get the paperwork) that we will communicate only by mail and to stop calling the house, and also that our calls are recorded. I already ordered the devices to do recording on my ipod. (and BTW- you can get a great deal on ebay! I got both the Belkin Mic adapter AND the Radio Shack recording controller for about $20- including shipping! So we'll be able to back that claim up shortly.)