Oh damn … I wanna CALL!!! LOL! Let’s ALL CALL! And we’ll say we’re calling on your behalf. That would screw them up real good.
My vote is: SCAM!
Believe me, if they wanted to find you, they would. I moved to this apartment on July 1st, 2002. At 8am on July 2nd, the bailiffs were at my door serving me with a summon for a court appearance. HOW THE HELL DID THEY FIND ME? Til I die, I’ll never figure that one out.
Sidebar… Long story short, before I moved, I had a bill collector call, for a long distance company I hadn’t paid. I had never used that company before, but his response was that it had bought a bunch of subsidiary companies. I apparently owed $110. I said, “Oh, I’m sorry about that. What address was I at, at the time?” They gave me an old address. I said, “Ok, just send me a copy of the detailed bill, and I’ll send you the money.” They couldn’t send the detailed bill, it had been too long. They could only send me what I owed.
Then, in an effort to “help me”, they told me that I could deposit money straight away into their bank account, or give them my credit card number. I DON’T THINK SO! My momma didn’t raise no fool, sweetheart. I said: Send the statement and I’ll pay.
Nothing in the mail. No phonecalls for months. Then the same call again, but from someone else. This time, I owed only $92 but the convo was a little more intense. Would I like my credit to suffer for this? Etc… My same reply: Send me the bill and I’ll pay. Still nothing.
Then I move in here. Someone calls with the same spiel, but for $89. I told them, “Listen, every time I ask for a bill, you guys don’t send me one. Not only that, the amount I ‘owe’ keeps getting lower. I’m not gonna pay if you don’t send me a bill.” Then the guy talks forever. I said, “Put yourself in my shoes, in my opinion, all my bills are paid. You keep calling me with different amounts, you want me to deposit in your bank account or to give you my credit card number. What would YOU do?” The guy replied, “I wouldn’t be in your shoes. I pay my bills.” BLIMEY! I told him that I expected a bill in the mail if he wanted his money and that I was reporting this as suspicious to the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police).
Long story short(er), I called the RCMP. They have a division now called Crime Busters (apparently Montreal is the CAPITAL of the world for telemarketing scams). The girl there told me to call the company itself, to see if I owed money. So that’s what I did.
The girl asks me all of my phone numbers. First present, then the last one, then the one before that. Don’t ask me how I remembered them, but I did. On the ONE BEFORE, she says, “Oh yes, you do owe us money.” Stunned, I asked, “How much?” She said, “Well with interest which has added up for 7 years, $62.” I said, “Did you send this to a collecting agent?” She said, “No, it looks like it was lost in the system”. I said, “Can you tell me where I called?” She gave me numbers for Mississauga, Toronto, Calgary and Las Vegas. I knew it sounded right. So I told her to send me a bill and I would pay, which I did.
The bitch of it is … These phone guys WERE scammers. But, as Murphy always loves to pin my ass to his laws, I got screwed anyway! LOL … They would have never found me!
PS: The RCMP aren’t really “mounted” all the time, but it makes us sound real feisty!
