In 2015, the CFPB fined Collecto, Inc. nearly $2.5 million for collecting on “cellphone debt that consumers had already paid or that it could not verify was actually owed.” This included an agreement from Collecto to “refund consumers at least $743,000.”

• Collecto, Inc. does business as EOS CCA and is a “Norwell firm” located in Massachusetts-based firm. The firm’s function was to “overdue or charged-off debt at steep discounts” in an effort to turn a profit off of the purchased debt over time. [Greg Ryan, “Mass. firm fined for collecting on allegedly bogus AT&T debt,” Boston Business Journal, 12/07/15]

• EOS “paid $35.4 million” to purchase cellphone debt from AT&T in 2012. The debt “had a face value of $2.3 billion and related to 3 million cellphone accounts.” Despite learning that the deal “contained some fraudulent debt,” including “debt had already been paid or settled” and debt that was “too old to be legally collected,” EOS “reported and collected the debt, anyway.” The firm then “falsely told credit reporting companies that all of the debt was in dispute when that was not the case.” [Greg Ryan, “Mass. firm fined for collecting on allegedly bogus AT&T debt,” Boston Business Journal, 12/07/15]

• The firm “agreed to pay a $1.85 million civil penalty to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and to refund consumers at least $743,000.” It was also ordered to “stop collecting the disputed AT&T debt and other debt it cannot verify” and was “barred from reselling debt from other debt collectors for five years.” [Greg Ryan, “Mass. firm fined for collecting on allegedly bogus AT&T debt,” Boston Business Journal, 12/07/15]