Collections calling thanks to BioLife. Is this a scam?

Question

My father just received a phone call from collections saying he owes $650 for a product he purchased in 2015. We thought it was a scam call at first but they seemed to have his personal information correctly (name, address, phone number).

This was apparently from a product offered by "BioLife". He called one of those TV ads to purchase a weight loss waist trainer. According to the collections agent, this particular company does this commonly by having the purchaser think they're purchasing a simple waist trainer for a low price but make you commit to order an entire product line on a monthly basis without knowing it. He did not know this, so he declined products that came thereafter the initial waist trainer. His card was not charged after that nor was he contacted about it.

Now, 2 years later, collections call wants us to pay the remaining amount plus interest. We'll apparently still receive the product via UPS and were told to submit a money order for exactly $650 after receiving it, under the name "Bio". If we refuse to comply, BioLife will apparently take us to court.

Is this a scam? How should we proceed? Is there anything we can do to avoid this?

He did not verify the name of the collections agency.

Answer 1

Money order!?? SCAM.

If this was the company proper, they would be able to charge his card. It's not. Very likely, phishers and script kiddies (hardly even hackers) are trying to break into every computer system in America, and they managed to get into this company's. Or they found a PC in a dumpster or bought it at bankruptcy auction. Or a stolen laptop. Or it may be a disgruntled employee.

Either way, some crook got ahold of their customer database, and is now running scams on all their customers. This type of scam lends itself to being highly automated, either with robo-calls, emails, or paying offshore call centers to bulk out voice calls. Some of the call centers employ people with very little accent.

The scammers are scamming everybody on the list, and hoping to get a few suckers to pay. It always works, that's why scams continue to happen.

Even if it was "legit"...

Wait a minute. They're admitting he's never taken any product, and that they never charged his card. But they're claiming now after some years, -- that he must now take a bunch of product and pay for it!??

If you were really super sure they were the legit company, then contact them through their published website/phonebook number... have them mail a copy of the contract he signed, and insist that you need the copy with his signature, not an unsigned copy. Or, a copy of the phone conversation recording. they will absolutely need to have those things to not have their "lawsuit" instantly dismissed, and they are obliged to give it to you on request once a lawsuit begins. Give it a read or a listen. Of course, they will never get back to you with this data, they don't have it.

So even if this were the "legit" version, the scam here would be that they work the scam on 100,000 past customers, and 10% of them panic and obey. Be the 90% not the 10%.

They are not actually going to sue anyone for $650. It costs them about $500 of legal work just to file the suit, and about $20,000 to bring a suit to conclusion against a defendant who is fighting back. Far more if the defendant is a legal troll who uses every trick in the book to drive up their litigation costs.

No matter what's in that contract, no judge is going to make a consumer buy hundreds of dollars of product he doesn't want because of a contract that has long been dormant and really smells like a multi-level marketing/pyramid/Ponzi scheme.