Received a letter from American Bureau of Liens?

What is the letter referring to?

According to the company’s own description of its service, its notices concern a lien recorded against the proceeds of a possible future personal-injury settlement — typically after a car accident, where a hospital or medical provider asserts a right to be repaid out of any eventual recovery rather than billing the patient directly.

Whether that description fits your letter is something only your letter can tell you: read the claimant name, the county, the amount, and any document or case number printed on it. If those details do not match anything in your life — no accident, no treatment, no property in that county — note that mismatch and treat verification as the first task rather than an afterthought.

Is the sender the same as the entity that recorded the lien?

Almost certainly not, on the company’s own account. It describes itself as a private notice and verification service and states that it is not a court, a recorder’s office, a government agency, a collection agency, or a law firm. The claimant on a medical lien would be the hospital or provider; the recording would have been made with a county office under state law.

This distinction is the whole ballgame. Recorded filings are public, so any company can read an index and mail the person named. A letter arriving tells you that someone read a record. Whether that record exists, says what the letter says, and concerns you is a separate question with a separate answer, available from the county.

How can I check the filing separately?

1. Copy the county, the claimant name, the amount, and any document, instrument, or case number from the letter.
2. Search for that county’s recorder, register of deeds, or clerk of court yourself and confirm you are on an official .gov or state .us site. Do not use a link, QR code, or phone number printed on the letter for this step — the point of an independent check is that it is independent.
3. Search by document number where possible, otherwise by name and date range, and compare every field against the letter.
4. If nothing appears, call the office. Indexing delays, image-availability rules, and served-not-recorded lien types all produce empty results for genuine claims.

The full walkthrough is here, including how to work out which office holds which kind of filing.

What should I verify before sharing information?

The company states that it never asks recipients for money and that verifying a notice is free. Regardless of any sender’s stated policy, these are reasonable habits with unexpected mail:

• Do not send a Social Security number, date of birth, bank or card details, insurance policy numbers, or a payment in response to an unsolicited letter. No public-records check needs them.
• Treat the codes printed on a notice as private. Do not post a photograph of the letter, the QR code, or the notice address on social media or a forum — those codes are what open a page about your matter.
• Reach a company through contact details you found yourself on its published site, not only those printed on the letter.
• Before agreeing to any introduction or representation, ask who is paying whom, and get the answer in writing.
• Keep the letter and the envelope. Note the postmark date and whether it was addressed to you by name.

If a letter turns out to be an attempt at fraud, you can report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and mail-related fraud to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. We are not suggesting this letter is fraudulent — only that you should know where the official channels are.

What should I ask my existing attorney?

If you already have a lawyer for an accident or injury claim, they are the right first call, and a lien of this kind may already be on their radar. Useful questions:

• Were you already aware of this lien or claim, and does it match our file?
• Does the amount and claimant on this letter match what you have on record?
• Does this affect what I would actually receive from any settlement?
• Should I respond to this sender at all, or do you handle correspondence?
• Is there a deadline in this state that we need to be aware of?
• Do you want the original letter, and should I stop opening similar mail myself?

If you do not have an attorney, a state or local bar referral service or a legal aid organisation is a neutral starting point — the Legal Services Corporation directory lists funded providers by location.

Do I have to do anything?

We cannot answer that for your situation, and we would be wrong to try: it depends on the lien type, the state, and whether a claim of yours is open. What we can say is that verifying the record costs nothing and closes off the worst outcomes — acting on a letter that was inaccurate, or ignoring a claim that was real.