7/14/14, 5:16 PM Gmail - Complaint No.

20373
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Dwight Hines <dwight.hines@gmail.com>
Complaint No. 20373
2 messages
Wright, Eric E <Eric.E.Wright@maine.gov> Wed, Jul 9, 2014 at 9:45 AM
To: "dwight.hines@gmail.com" <dwight.hines@gmail.com>
Mr. Hines: I have your letter of July 7
th
, for which I thank you. I have received an exceedingly
professional call from C.Tech. I do not believe they are a scam collector. To the contrary, they want to
comply with state law, but given the very few (they say seven) accounts they have been asked to collect in
Maine they believe (and I can appreciate this) it is not worth their while to become licensed here. Instead,
they would cease working here. But do they need to? There is a nice question whether they actually
must be licensed here. Despite my discussion of a cease and desist order in the letter I wrote, there may
be technical reasons to conclude that we in fact do not have jurisdiction over C.Tech. The Maine FDCPA
may not be as expansive in this regard as we would like. That is our problem, however, not yours. It may
require a statutory change to clarify a gap in the statute. Your problem is what is C.Tech going to do with
respect to the $218 debt they assert you owe. I am expecting a letter from them in which they are going
to address this as well as the jurisdictional issue. I am hopeful they are just going to drop their collection
effort with respect to the $218. As soon as I have more information for you, I will pass it on.

Eric E. Wright
Staff Attorney
Bureau of Consumer Credit Protection
35 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333
207-624-8517 (direct)
207-582-7699 (fax)

Dwight Hines <dwight.hines@gmail.com> Sat, Jul 12, 2014 at 10:05 AM
To: "Wright, Eric E" <Eric.E.Wright@maine.gov>
Dear Mr. Wright:
7/14/14, 5:16 PM Gmail - Complaint No. 20373
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Thank you for keeping me posted. I hope the law here can be tightened to exclude
those who do not register from having their way with people in Maine.
I look forward to their letter and will have to make a decision about what is best to do.
My first reaction was that they are likely lying to you about the number and type of
cases they have in Maine.
I suspect, given the ages and types of diagnoses that people have prior to a PET
scan, that C.Tech is picking low hanging fruit from very vulnerable people. My Mom
died with Alzheimer's and long before she was completely out of it, when she got a
bill or legal letter of any type, she went ballistic about what was going to happen to
her and her home and so on. I would love to know the breakdown on how many
people, their ages, and their diagnoses, and states, that C.Tech is currently billing. I
also would like to know what are industry standards for such billings, given the
vulnerable population they have.
After my Mom died, in Florida, I received bills from one place that claimed she owed
thousands of dollars for medical treatments she never received. The bills did not
contain the name of any doctor or any specific information. I refused to pay and so
did Medicare. Of course, Florida is famous for billing for non-existent patients in non-
existent nursing homes getting non-existent treatments. C.Tech may be legitimate
but given that the people they are billing are more than likely not competent to decide
the legitimacy of the bill, and given what we know about greed, and given the large
amount of inappropriate billing that is going on, I bet C.Tech is over the edge. N.B.
According to GAO, last year over 105.8 billion (BILLION) dollars were paid out by
government agencies that were in error. IMPROPER PAYMENTS: Government-Wide
Estimates and Reduction Strategies. GAO-14-737T: Published: Jul 9, 2014. Publicly Released: Jul 9,
2014.
Note that HHS did not make estimates on TANF.
Beryl H. Davis
(202) 512-2623
davisbh@gao.gov
Office of Public Affairs
(202) 512-4800
youngc1@gao.gov
What GAO Found
7/14/14, 5:16 PM Gmail - Complaint No. 20373
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Federal agencies reported an estimated $105.8 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2013, a decrease
from the prior year revised estimate of $107.1 billion. The fiscal year 2013 estimate was attributable to 84
programs spread among 18 agencies. The specific programs included in the government-wide estimate may
change from year to year. For example, with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approval, an agency
can obtain relief from estimating improper payments if the agency has reported improper payments under a
certain threshold for at least 2 consecutive years. A net of 10 additional programs were added to the
government-wide estimate by OMB in fiscal year 2013 when compared to fiscal year 2012.
For fiscal year 2013, GAO identified the federal government's inability to determine the full extent to which
improper payments occur and reasonably assure that appropriate actions are taken to reduce them as a
material weakness in internal control. In addition, existing internal control weaknesses at the agency level
continued to increase the risk of improper payments occurring. In fiscal year 2013, four agencies did not
report estimates for four risk-susceptible programs, including the Department of Health and Human Services'
(HHS) Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. HHS cited a statutory barrier that prevents
it from requiring states to estimate improper payments for TANF. Estimates reported for two programs were
also not included in the government-wide total because their estimation methodologies were not approved by
OMB. Further, inspectors general reported deficiencies related to compliance with criteria listed in the
Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 for fiscal year 2013, such as the use of estimation
methodologies that were not statistically valid.
As GAO has previously found, a number of strategies across government, some of which are currently under
way, could help to reduce improper payments. For example
Analysis of the root causes of improper payments can help agencies target effective corrective actions. Some
agencies reported root causes of improper payments using three error categories required by OMB
(documentation and administrative, authentication and medical necessity, and verification). However, because
the three categories are general, more detailed analysis to understand the root causes could help agencies
identify and implement more effective corrective actions.
Designing and implementing strong preventive controls can help defend against improper payments,
increasing public confidence and avoiding the difficult pay and chase aspects of recovering improper
payments. Preventive controls involve activities such as up-front validation of eligibility through data sharing,
predictive analytic tests, and training programs.
Implementing effective detection techniques to quickly identify and recover improper payments after they
have been made is also important to a successful reduction strategy. Detection activities include data mining
and recovery audits. Another area for further exploration is the broader use of incentives to encourage and
support states in efforts to implement effective preventive and detective controls in state- administered
programs.
snip
It would not cost that much to take C.Tech to small claims court for my time, etc., and to get their other
records. I think they are scam artists, at least in my case.
dh
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