Who is Diversified Consumer Services?
Diversified Consumer Services is a division of Diversified Company, an Indiana corporation founded in 2007. Diversified Company offers products and services of many types to consumers across the globe. To visit our corporate site, please click https://Diversified.Company which will open in a new page. Should you ever be dissatisfied with the treatment you receive from our representatives or actions taken, please first try to resolve the matter with a supervisor here, otherwise, please feel free to contact the corporate offices.
What is Valicate?
Valicate is a fraud prevention tool provided by Diversified Consumer Services. Valicate originated as checkpoint to combat fraudsters in the financial industry that use illegal and unethical means to access information of accounts that have been sold by the original creditor to another legitimate company such as ours. While pinpointing the source of the fraud is not always easy to do, we can do the next best thing, which is to give our customers an easy way to verify that we own the account we are seeking recovery of funds for AND letting you know who else has LEGITIMATELY owned the account in the past. If the account is with an outside collection agency and still owned by us, you’ll be able to find out the name of the collection agency we have assigned the account to and their contact information. NEVER pay ANY other company claiming rights to a debt we have informed you we own until you have checked with us first. You’ll save yourself a lot of hassle, and usually a lot of money too.
How does Valicate work?
It’s easy! To VALIdate and loCATE your account, enter the Account Number assigned by Diversified Consumer Services followed by your date of birth in the format 2-digit month, 2-digit date, 4-digit year. For example, if your account number is 123456789 and your date of birth is January 15, 1955, enter 12345678901151955. Optionally, you can use the Account Number assigned by the ORIGINAL creditor and add your date of birth as shown.
What information will be shown to me?
Assuming you have entered valid information, once you click the CLICK TO VALICATE button, the following fields will be displayed:
SPECIAL INFORMATION
Original Creditor – The creditor you established the account with shows here. If this does not match with your expectation, this may be the name of the main company that owns other companies. If unsure, please contact us.
Current Creditor – This will always say Diversified Consumer Services even if we have assigned the account to an outside collection agency.
Owned by Current Creditor Since – Date we purchased the account.
Outside Collection Agency – This will either say YES or NO.
Collection Agency – If your account has been assigned to an outside collection agency, the name appears here, otherwise it is blank.
Collection Agency Telephone – Outside collection agency’s phone number.
Prior Account Owners – Other companies besides the original creditor and our company are listed here.
Last Update – This is the last update we applied to this information. This is not necessarily the last update on the account itself.
Account Status – The current status of your account.
Account Closed – This will say YES or NO.
Original Account Number – Original creditor’s assigned account #.
Current Account Number – Account number we assigned you.
NOTE: You can click the PRINT icon to print the information that contains your account information if desired.
I tried, but no information appeared. Why?
If you do not receive the expected result, please check the account number AND correct formatting of your date of birth and try again.
Yep, did that, still nothing. What’s the deal?
If you STILL don’t receive the expected result, it is because of one or more of the following reasons:
- The account number you entered is not the one assigned by Diversified Consumer Services, and/or
- You did not enter the account number EXACTLY as it appears on your letter or Statement including hyphens and spaces, and/or
- You forgot to enter your 8 digit date of birth directly after the account number, example 01/15/1955 is 01151955, and/or
- The date of birth you entered does not match our records, and/or
- Your account is not and has never been owned by Diversified Consumer Services, and/or
- If your original creditor was Lakeshore EMS, LLC, your account may have been assigned to a collection agency BEFORE we purchased it. (Contact us!)
So, I’m just going to assume you don’t own my account because I still can’t find it. Good idea?
NO! Even if you don’t find your account information here and you have received a notice from us, it is a 99.9% certainty that we legally own the account. Before you make ANY payment to ANY other company or payment arrangements, get in touch with us FIRST and save yourself a lot of hassles. Unlike a scammer that has nothing to lose (so they think), we have EVERYTHING to lose by not being able to prove what we say!
Another company that is not listed in the search results insists they own the account. Could they be right?
Nope! If your account appears in the Valicate tool, we own the account, period. DO NOT make payments or payment arrangements to another company! If we have turned the account over to an outside collection agency, we still own the account, they do not, but as long as their information is listed int he Valicate tool, THEN and ONLY THEN is it safe to make arrangements to pay though them.
I already made payment arrangements and/or payment(s) with a company that does not own my account. Help!
STOP EVERYTHING RIGHT NOW (after reading this) and do the following:
- Contact your bank or credit card company and advise them of the situation. This may mean you need a new bank account or a new credit or debit card sent to you and the existing numbers cancelled.
- Inform your bank or credit card company the dates and amounts you paid to the company that had no right to collect. You will be submitting a FRAUD CLAIM with your bank or credit card company. The faster you do this, the greater the odds you will get your money back!
- Follow the instructions and/or guidance from your bank or credit card company to be sure the scammer can’t strike again.
- Now that you have the most important things done to protect yourself, CONTACT US! You can reach us whatever way works best, but usually, this is a good reason to pick up the phone. It tends to make it easier, but expect to be on the phone from 15 minutes to an hour or more, not because we’re going to poke along, but because often, customers require more time from us to work through these matters. We actually spend more time on the phone with our customers helping them through matters such as this than we do collecting payments. FACT! We’re fine with that. We’re Diversified CONSUMER Services not COLLECTION services. We truly are a consumer services company.
- While you are not required to do the following, it is requested that you do. This is how we fight best against fraud, by exposing it. Your complaint may seem insignificant, especially if “no harm was done” because you got your money back, but in reality, your complaint could be the one that shuts a scammer down and protects countless consumers, so PLEASE, take the time to do these things: File a complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at https://CFPB.gov. File a complaint with the Better Business Bureau at https://bbb.org.
If I don’t pay you pretty soon, I’ll be past due, but I already gave money to a scammer I’m trying to recover. Am I doomed?
Nope. RELAX! We will work with you. This almost always starts with putting your account on a HOLD status so that it suspends any action we intended to take and also suspends our expectations of your payment or payment arrangements. In fact, while we’ll accept payment arrangements or payment from you if you’re prepared to do so, we’ll point blank tell you that priority number one is dealing with the scammer and resolving that. As long as you work with us, we’ll work with you, and while there are some standard procedures we’ll follow, we’ll also work outside the box if necessary. So, really, let’s concentrate on getting the scammer out of the way and preventing you from dealing with any others.
There is no option to make a payment or change my information. Why?
The Valicate tool is simply a lookup tool. We do not take payments on this website. It looks very similar to our main site, but it is kept separate for security reasons. While we make it difficult for anyone aside from you to access your information, just to be safe, we keep the information provided as minimal as possible. You can manage your account online from our main website. Click Make Payment Arrangements or Click make a payment and you’ll be routed back to our main site. You can pay securely online, over the phone or by mailing your payment. For more information, visit Payments.
Is there anything else I should know?
Yes! Please click the following links which will cover pretty much everything else. You’ll be connected to our main website when clicking the links, as these items apply to both sites. If not, please contact us!