The bottom line is its all about contracts. Unless you contract with them by phone they cannot get money from you. If you are paying the money back to the original company then that's a different story.
Also i tell my story to prove a point that it does not need to be paid. Take it or leave it. At the end of the day, with this knowledge I have not paid money to collection agencies ever since. You could go into as much detail as you want about the debt, but contracts is all that matters.
