Collection Agency Problem - Need help!! (long)

Factual Questions
1

I need some advice from you all. I live in Canada, if that helps.

We moved in to our house in December. There were 4 tenants living there before we moved in. We still get mail for these people and recently I’ve been receiving phone calls from a Collection Agency for Chris Jones (not his real name) saying to call Mrs. X at an 800 number. When the calls first started, I did not return any of them. Then they got more and more frequent. Finally, in April, I called Mrs. X and told her that Chris Jones does not live at 45 My Street and to take my phone number off the account and stop calling. I told her he was the previous tenant and that was that.

Until today. I got a call from Mrs. X for Chris Jones, to call ASAP. I called her today and told her the same thing. That I spoke to her, and a supervisor in April & also left her voicemail. She told me today that he has at least 3 accounts in collections. She said my only alternative is to have my phone number unlisted. She said she would remove my number from his files. See, my first name is Krista and on our voicemail it says, You have reached Jeff and Krista. I’m not sure if they’re assuming Chris Jones and Krista are the same person. She said that all they do when a file in without a phone number is look up the current phone number for that address.

What can I do to stop this? I’m being harassed by a creditor that isn’t even for me!

Any advice is appreciated.

2

I am not a Canadian lawyer, but it sounds to me like you are being harrassed by this agency. Next time they call, get their address and send them (via certified mail) a letter explaining the entire situation and inform them that if you receive any more calls from them for Chris Jones that you will be filing charges with the police and any consumer-related bureau you can think of.

In the US, the practices of credit agencies are rather restricted under the law. I would bet similar laws exist in Canada and that there are books/pamphlets out there about how to deal with agencies. There may be some good ideas in there.

3

This would be seriously illegal in the USA, under Federal law. However, I can’t say as much for Canada. Why don’t you email your MP, and ask him? There will be a staffer there who will be helpful, I woudl think. If not then perhaps a provincial level elected official.

If you know a lawyer who might owe you a small favor, then ask him if you can refer the calls to him. Better, consult him.

4

I ditto db. They should have stopped ASAP, but I don’t know the applicable laws in Canada. If it continues, I don’t know if I’d even bother sending a certified letter. If it’s a large company, the person in the mail room may not know what to do with it. I’d take it straight to the police, etc.

5

Do you have any idea how often that ‘trick’ is tried by legitimate debtors?

6

Or you could do what I do when telemarketers call. As soon as I realize what the call is about I immediately hang up the phone, go back to what I was doing and don’t let it bother me. Normally, it is extremely rude to hang up the phone on someone in mid-sentence which is why they make it extremely difficult to say you’re not interested. I figure this is their job and they are used to being hung up on and don’t take it personally. I’m sure the same applies to collection agencies. If you’ve informed them that the guy they’re after no longer lives there you’ve done your part and it is now their problem. Don’t make it your problem.

7

This link may help you:
http://www.canada.com/calgary/specials/consumer/story.html?id=04FEB6C7-C399-414B-912C-9869D0FB5217

8

Type up a letter explaining the situation. Have it notarized. Send it certified, return receipt. Insist that they remove your phone number from their database. Additionally, find out who the original creditor is, and send the same letter to them. Threaten them with hasrassment charges if they do not desist at once.

9

Thanks for all the ideas everyone. I ended up speaking to a manager and he said it would not happen again. We’ll see if that happens. I found some info on the Ontario Gov.'s website and a contact number if it happens again.

10

This happened to me when I moved here, but it was not nearly such an ordeal! I simply explained that “Bruce” didn’t live here, and I didn’t know him, and they left me alone. Sometimes, they would ask for my last name as “confirmation”, or ask if I lived at such and such an address, which was not my address. (Bruce was not the previous occupant of this house; he just was the previous user of my telephone number.) Bruce had several people looking for him.

One evening, though, a man and a woman, both in office attire, came* to our house* looking for Bruce! They didn’t say who they were or why they wanted him, but they believed us and left when we said that we didn’t know him. They must have put the phone number through a reverse directory and gotten our address. Kind of scary, though.

Yeah, you’d think that collection agencies would often get “he doesn’t live here” as an excuse. However, the people who called for Bruce usually didn’t identify themselves…they’d ask, “Is Bruce Johnson there” and I’d say (just like for any wrong number) “There’s no one here by that name.” It’s probably different if he actually does live there, and you have to determine if he’s “there” to take the call or not.

Sometimes, the people would ask me if I knew Bruce, and I’d say something like “No, but I’ve gotten a lot of calls for him since I moved here.” And they’d say, “New phone number, huh?” and I’d say “Yeah.” I mean, that’s got to happen a lot, too, so I don’t see why they wouldn’t believe you.

I can’t believe that they want you to unlist your phone number in order to stop harassing you! Yeah, collection agencies are a real piece of work sometimes. Can’t they remove his address, or mark it as incorrect in some way (so they stop looking up his address and finding your phone number)?

Well, I hope that speaking to the manager put an end to the whole mess. Also, you should cross out the address on all the previous tenants’ mail and write “Addressee Unknown” and stick it back in the mailbox (or follow the appropriate procedure for the Canadian post office, if that isn’t it.) If you are keeping Chris Jones’s mail, the people sending it think that it’s getting to Chris Jones, and don’t know that the address is bad. If you are renting, you may be able to get your landlord to file a forwarding order with the post office. They often have the new address for their tenants so they can send the security deposit, etc. We got a lot of the old tenants’ mail in one place we lived, and the landlord offered to do that for us–problem solved!

Good luck!