I haven’t noticed a payphone anywhere lately. What year are you posting from, time traveller?
I saw one last week. I stopped and stared - It was like an acid flashback.
I can do you one better. A few years back, my husband and I were contacted about a debt that we had ALREADY PAID OFF some years back. Even if we hadn’t paid off the debt, it had had no activity for over 7 years, which is the statute of limitations under Texas law. So, it was a debt that we’d paid off in full, AND it was not a legally collectible debt.
I sent a very polite, but very venomous letter to the company HQ, and copied some federal agency on it.
There are several about 3 blocks away, in the nearby hospital. They have become a lot more rare over the years, but it is possible to find them around here if you work at it.
Possibly. If you call, they might say that they are suing you over a debt, but if you pay now, they will drop the suit. Or, they may be more evasive about the suit, and claim that they need to verify your identity before they give out information, and ask you for your SSN, bank account information, mother’s maiden name, etc., so they “know they are speaking to the right person”.
What scares me about this is that I live with my elderly in-laws. My Father in law has Alzheimer’s and usually doesn’t answer the phone. My mother in law doesn’t have an official Alzheimer’s diagnosis but I believe that she’s early stages, she does answer the phone. And if someone called she’d probably dutifully take down the 800 number and then ask me to call and see what it’s all about.
If we didn’t live here (we moved here to be closer to them so we could help them with stuff like this) she’d get scared and probably call the number. She can be skeptical so she’d probably realize that she doesn’t owe any money but might be tricked into giving personal information like her name, birth date or social security number.
And what about her sister who lives all alone just down the road? or her best friend Olga who also lives a couple of blocks down with her mentally disabled son. These are sweet old women in their 80s who might be easily tricked by something like this.
Makes me so mad.
First off I’d encourage Fear to post the full phone numbers, this thread could be added to the same Google search that aided you.
If this was a debt collection scam which seems likely, it wouldn’t be the worst I’ve heard of. For the moment Unicredit America Inc of Pennsylvania holds that “honor”. They dressed employees up as sheriffs deputes to deliver collection notices pretending to be court summonses calling the unwary to their office which was dressed up to look like a court room complete with a company functionary wearing black robes. I’m pleased to say Unicredit’s fake judge will be facing a real one soon enough:
Yeah, real law firms with real legal issues don’t use phrasing like this; they’re direct and refer specifically to the case in question from the start. They don’t use subjective and attributive phrases like “important matter,” or vague cliches like “has come to our attention.” They just say, “This is in regard to a debt owed to XYZ company.”
They must have watched a lot of the old “Mission Impossible” show.
That seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to and a very risky chance they are taking. It makes me think the rewards must really be great, at least occasionally.
They were probably using a service like this:
You can enter whatever number you want to show up on the person’s call display, and even use the voice changer if you desire.
I’ve used this service when trying to track down a debt I was owed by a deadbeat friend. Didn’t matter when I called him - no answer, so I thought “Hmm”.
I changed the number using the service to make it look like the deadbeat’s work, and all of a sudden he answers the phone, what a surprise.
As it turns out, while it probably wasn’t a law firm, it wasn’t a scam either. My sister apparently used my name as a contact person on some loan applications and hasn’t been paying. The phone has been ringing off the hook these last couple of weeks. Just when I’d gotten rid of almost all the people looking for the deadbeat who had the number before me. 