As an active duty member of the military, Zachary Scott may not know where he’ll get deployed next. But he is sure of this: The modem and router he uses to connect to the internet belong to him.
So when the orders came to move from Virginia to Hawaii, he canceled his internet service with Cox Communications and packed his belongings, including the hardware he owned.
Everything seemed fine until he got his final statement. That’s when Cox decided to hit him with a one-time charge of $252 for the modem. When he didn’t pay the bill, Cox referred the bill to a collections agency.
“I would like this removed from my credit report and the erroneous charges removed,” he says.
His case raises several important questions:
- How do you prove you don’t have something that you never had in the first place?
- What are your rights under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act when a utility company needlessly complicates your move?
- How can you force a company to un-report a debt to collections once it realizes it has made a mistake?
“I used my own equipment”
When Scott canceled his account, the “we are sorry to lose you” note from Cox felt more like a threat than a farewell. It warned that to avoid collection costs, he needed to return all their equipment.
But Scott didn’t have their equipment. He moved to Honolulu, started his new assignment, and assumed the mistake would resolve itself once the company realized its inventory was actually correct.
It didn’t. A few months later, a debt collector was knocking on his digital door. Scott was now facing a $240 “delinquency” on his credit report for equipment he never had.
“I used my own equipment,” he says. “I had none of theirs.”
How do you prove it’s your equipment?
Proving you didn’t steal a modem is like proving you didn’t see a UFO. If the company claims its database says you have the hardware and you can’t show a receipt from 2021, the company wins.
Or does it?
Scott’s situation is a classic can’t-win scenario. He told me the equipment is over five years old. Most of us don’t keep receipts for electronics that long. Heck, most of us can’t find the receipt for the toaster we bought a few weeks ago.
The best weapon in this scenario is your past billing statements. Scott was smart enough to keep those. For years, Cox billed him for internet service but never once charged him an equipment rental fee. If a company doesn’t charge you for a modem for 60 months, it’s a fairly safe bet you aren’t using one of theirs.
When you find yourself in inventory purgatory, don’t just tell the customer service rep “I don’t have it.” Send the last 12 months of bills and highlight the missing rental fee. It’s the closest thing to proof of non-existence you’ll get.
Tip: If they still insist, ask for the MAC address of the modem they think you have. You can then compare that to the MAC address on the bottom of your actual router. If they don’t match, and you have photos to prove it — you’ve got ’em.
Are there any protections for servicemembers for erroneous billing?
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act provides a lot of protections for people like Scott, specifically regarding terminating leases and cell phone contracts when they get permanent change of station orders.
While it doesn’t cover every single utility fee dispute, the spirit of the law is meant to prevent exactly what happened here: a soldier getting distracted by a move across the Pacific only to find his credit trashed by a clerical error.
Companies often have military desks or specialized departments to handle these transitions. But as Scott found out, the left hand rarely knows what the right hand is doing. He was executing military orders to Hawaii when Cox decided to turn his credit report into a battlefield.
When you’re in the military and a company ignores your proof, it’s time to escalate. Every base has a legal assistance office. Sometimes a letter on JAG letterhead is the quickest way to wake up a sleepy corporate billing department.
Scott tried to handle it himself, but the company just handed the debt to a collector. And once you’re in collections, it mushrooms from a billing error into a financial parasite that’s hard to kill.
How do you un-report a debt you never had?
You can undo an erroneous collection report, but it’s not always easy.
If you find yourself staring at a collection notice for a debt you don’t owe, the first rule is: Don’t ignore it. Ignoring a collection agency is like ignoring a leak in your roof—it’s only going to get more expensive and more destructive over time.
Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, you have the right to request validation of the debt. You have to do this in writing within 30 days of receiving that first collection notice. In Scott’s case, he needed to tell the agency, “I don’t owe Cox $240, and here’s why.”
When you send that letter—and you should send it via certified mail, return receipt requested—the collection agency is legally required to stop collection activities until they provide you with proof that the debt is legitimate. In a case like this, where the equipment was never rented, the agency will likely come up empty-handed. But you have to start that paper trail to protect your credit score.
If the collection agency refuses to budge, your next move is a formal dispute with the three major credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. You can do this online, but I always recommend the old-fashioned way—on paper, sent through the mail. Provide copies of your final bill showing no equipment charges and your military orders if applicable.
The bureaus have 30 days to investigate. If the company (in this case, Cox) can’t prove you had the equipment, the bureau must remove the negative mark from your report. It’s a tedious process, but it’s the only way to perform a credit exorcism and get that phantom debt off your record for good.
An appeal to an executive at Cox might have helped, too. We list the names, numbers and email address on our company contacts pages.
Scott’s move to Hawaii has made this even more complicated, but the law remains on his side—even from the other side of the world. Just remember: in the world of consumer advocacy, silence is often interpreted as an admission of guilt.
Problem solved?
I reached out to Cox several times to see if it could fix this. A representative got back to me and declared that the case was resolved.
Good news, right? Kinda. Scott checked his credit report and the delinquency was still there. I asked if he’d heard anything from Cox, but he hadn’t.
I’m still optimistic that this will get fixed. The wheels turn slowly in the world of debt collection. Cox has to notify the company and then the company has to update its records, and that can be a process. But I have a written promise from Cox that it’s been taken care of.
Scott needs a letter of deletion or a debt validation response that shows a zero balance and a request to the bureaus to remove the debt. Without that paper, you’re just taking their word for it. And as we’ve seen, their word isn’t worth the $240 they’re trying to collect.
(I’ll update this story when Scott has the letter.)
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