I’ve been getting an ongoing series of annoying calls. The phone rings, I pick it up, and a recorded message starts. The message says that they’re a collection agency (EOS), that I owe an unidentified debt, and I need to call them at a phone number they then give me. The message then stops and the call ends.
To the best of my knowledge, I don’t owe any debts. But the calls are annoying so I tried calling the company. But when I call the number they gave, I get another message telling me it’s an invalid phone number.
I’ve looked up EOS online and found other phone numbers for them. But I don’t know if they’re a centralized business or if they have different branches. Like Hydra. I’m also reluctant to call them out of the blue and call further attention to myself. They might just take whatever information I give them and put me on more call lists.
DO NOT talk to them under any circumstances even if you can find a number that has a real person. Request (free) copies of your credit reports instead from annualcreditreport.com to see if there are any oustanding collections. You can also use www.creditkarma.com online (free, useful and legit).
The chances are above 99% that it is a scam. In the very unlikely event that it is a real collection attempt, write back and we can tell you how to deal with that too probably without paying anything.
In the mean time, look up the ways to block the number based on your particular phone service. Again, DO NOT even attempt to speak to them and hang up immediately if a real person from the “collection agency” ever calls you. Real collection agencies do not work the way you describe but scammers most certainly do. They are targeting ignorant and elderly people to trick out of money for “debts” that don’t exist. Don’t fall for it.
“These things”? Got any proof of that if it’s a total scam? Any legitimate examples of such entries showing up in a credit report?
I vote scam, and don’t worry about it. Any phone number given or that which shows up on CID that proves to be inactive makes it 100% sure that the caller is trying to disguise their true colors. No legitimate business does that.
Most of those complaints are about their tax preparation service and I have no experience with that. Most of the rest are complaining about things that I don’t use it for. For me, it is just a free credit monitoring site and it does that well in an easy to use format. I have used it for years with no issues.
If you are worried about that though, www.annualcreditreport.com is the official site to get your (free) credit reports from the major agencies as dictated by law. You can do that online too. It just takes a little longer and you can only do it once a year for each agency in most states but that should be good enough for your purposes.