For more than six months now this debt collection agency, Peaksloan.com, has been calling my cell phone asking for someone named Christopher Jones. I am not Christopher Jones. Christopher Jones does not live here. I do not know anyone named Christopher Jones. I have never in my life met anyone named Christopher Jones. Christopher Jones doesn’t pick up my garbage. Christopher Jones doesn’t deliver my mail. Christopher Jones has never arrested me. I have never had any contact whatsoever with anyone named Christopher Jones dammit!:mad:
I have told the collectors this time and time again to no avail. They have called me repeatedly. Even after 4 times promising to remove my number from their database. How in the hell can I get these annoying bastards to stop calling me?
Contact your local police department to complain that someone is “calling repeatedly to threaten, harass, intimidate, and annoy me despite my repeated demands for them to stop.” They may or may not do anything. You can also call the FTC and the FCC with the same complaint.
Send them a Cease & Desist letter, and mention the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. If they continue to call, it is a federal violation, and you can sue them.
Get the name of whoever’s calling you, sign up for a few subscriptions to some really raunchy skin mags, and have them delivered to his place of work?
And if you want to make some money for your trouble, record the calls (after informing them, naturally) and try to get them to tell you something, ANYTHING about the other person’s debt. This third-party revelation after you’ve made it clear you are NOT the debtor may net you $5k per offense under the FDCPA.
Or you could ignore the calls. Your choice.
I’m sure the Chicago Police Department isn’t going to bother themselves with my petty problem. Is a Cease and Desist letter a legal form or just a letter from me requesting that they do so? I’m going to google Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and see what I can find out. Thanks.
Here is the one I used:
The only thing I would add to this is: I send such letters via certified mail, so that I have a record that it has been received. I have never had to go beyond sending one letter.
That’s a good letter Fear, but I think I should word it a little differently because it’s not my debt. Just my phone number. I looked at the FDCPA and found this paragraph at 806 (5) :
** (5) Causing a telephone to ring or engaging any person in telephone conversation repeatedly or continuously with intent to annoy, abuse, or harass any person at the called number.**
That looks like it would cover me because it says any person. I’ll follow your guidelines and shoot a letter out Tuesday. Thanks again.
I had (have) the same problem. Whoever had my phone number before me is a serious deadbeat. I’ve had the number for almost six years now and we still get collection calls for her and her boyfriend. We explain the problem and ask not to be called again… the problem is that each new creditor has to be told this. It seems like about every 8 months, these people skip out on their leases, rent-to-own furniture and auto loans, so we periodically have to remind a new batch of creditors that they should not call us.
I have not used a mailed letter, but I do give them a statement over the phone that is worded very similarly.
Port your phone number to Google Voice, then block the number they call from. The recording they get will say the number is no longer in service. The automated calling software they use will automatically remove the number, usually.
More than likely the debt is being sold for pennies on the dollar and more frequently as the statute of limitations runs out on the debt. Each new owner of the debt runs the debtor runs their name through the same tracing software and starts w/ the same basic information as the last owner of the debt. At the same time, their collectors are given goodies to collect older debt or debt that was cheaper to buy as there’s more profit to be gained. It’s funny how some folks are more resigned to paying off a debt they barely recall incurring but will resist paying for something incurred 1-2 years prior.
At least some of the calls are really new debts, though I’m sure that sale of the debts to new collectors explains part of the problem. For example, there are at least two different landlords trying to collect. In another case, a really persistent collector swore that these deadbeats were still writing my phone number on their applications, even after it was no longer theirs. I didn’t see proof of that, but I could believe it.