Help “Yesterday, I got a letter in the mail from Penn Credit Corporation- a debt collection service- claiming that I had 30 days to pay my outstanding debt to Pepco”

“Dear PoPville,

I recently moved to the country and am not quite sure how to proceed with issues like this….

I called Pepco in May to turn on electric service in my apartment, which is B102. Somehow, someone at Pepco ended up putting two apartments worth of service in my name- B102 and C102. I do not live in C102, and I never indicated that I did. I think it was probably just a mistype or other issue on their end.

I started getting bills for both apartments, and called Pepco many, many, many times to let them know that they had the wrong person for apartment C102. Each time a rep told me the problem was fixed, but I kept getting bills. Meanwhile, I continued to make on time payments for my apartment’s electric service.

When I called in August, after getting 4 months of bills for this wrong apartment, the rep let me know that there was “an investigation open in my name regarding this apartment”. This was crazy to me, since I don’t live in apartment C102 (although I’m sure whoever does has been enjoying months of free electric). I had to fax them a copy of my lease to prove that I did not live there and I have never lived there. I faxed the lease in August and was told everything would be taken care of.

Yesterday, I got a letter in the mail from Penn Credit Corporation- a debt collection service- claiming that I had 30 days to pay my outstanding debt to Pepco. For the apartment that I don’t live in. I cannot believe this is still going on and now am genuinely concerned it is going to affect my credit. The mistake was wholly on Pepco’s end- someone incorrectly put an account in my name and now refuses to take my name off that account. No one at customer service seems to be able to help, and I’m not sure where to go from here. Is there something I can do besides keep calling and file a formal complaint? Has anyone been in a similar situation in the past? Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you kindly in advance!!”