A couple of months ago my wife answered our phone. The caller apparently said he was with a collection agency or something, but he wasn’t calling about us. The story was, he was trying to get in touch with another guy who lives a few houses away but was unable to reach him by telephone for whatever reason. Could we trouble you (meaning, my wife) to leave a note at his house asking him to call us at XXX-XXXX? My wife said it was pretty clear the guy was full of it- slick, fast-talking, sounded very practiced, etc. But, she still went along and did as he asked. Not sure why she was willing to someone else’s dirty work, even if it was a legitimate request, but she did, so, there you have it. Whatever.
This morning: phone rang about 8:00 a.m. This is an unusual time for anyone to be calling us, so I figured it would either be family, or maybe a co-worker needing a ride or something. So, I picked it up. No, turns out it’s a woman saying she’s with Children’s Protective Services and is calling about our next-door neighbor. They need to talk to someone there. [The house is occupied by a widow who has several grown children who come and go a lot- other than the widow herself, I’m not actually sure which, if any, of them are actually living there.] Apparently their phone is disconnected or something, because CPS can’t get hold of them by telephone. Could they trouble us to pass a message to (a woman’s name) there and have her call CPS at 1-800-XXX-XXXX extension XXXXX?
Is it customary for a collection agency or CPS to get neighbors involved in their communications? All of this is pretty much pegging the gauges on my BS meter, but I still can’t figure out what’s really going on. Anyone got any ideas?
It is common for collection agencies. I still get collection calls for my sister-in-law who used to live upstairs, and before that, just down the block. They started calling us for various reasons - being a current neighbor, being listed in databases as a relative, and (supposedly) being listed as a reference by her. They’re doing it to try to shame the debtor into paying up, or at least to piss off the contacted neighbor enough that they hassle the debtor into doing something.
I’m assuming if it was really CPS they’d send someone over in a car if they really need to do a well-being-type check.
I think anything like that borders on violating the protections against consumer debt collection as I don’t think they’re supposed to reveal any info about collections to outside parties. Maybe the fact that they’re lying about the reason for their call makes it allowable???
Interesting- thanks, y’all. Hadn’t heard that collection agencies did that before. Not terribly surprised, though.
Yeah, I’d pretty much figured that there’s no upside for us to act as these callers’ messenger service, and several possible downsides, so I was severely disinclined to pass along that message for “CPS.” (I’m still not sure what possessed my wife to go along with the first guy that called a few months ago.) The idea that CPS would involve a third party in one of their cases just gives off a powerful odor of BS, too. I wonder if it’s a crime to falsely represent oneself as a state agency like that?
Did they actually say “Child Protection Services” or just say they were CPS? There’s a auto loan collection agency actually called CPS-- Consuper Portfolio Services, Inc. or CPS, Inc…
I bet this is totally it. I’m not positive, but now that you ask, I think they only said “CPS.” Where I live, Children’s Protective Services really is the name of the agency, so I was automatically thinking it was them. Maybe not, though.
Now that I’m back home, I have the toll-free number I was supposed to pass along. It doesn’t seem to turn up on any of several websites I went to that do reverse lookups of 800 numbers. So, no help there.
As long as we’re talking about sleazy business practices, I should point out that one of the reverse lookup websites made a big deal of how the search was FREE! And it was, too. Only catch was, it would cost a dollar if I actually wanted to see the results. But yes, the search itself was FREE! Bastards.
Bill collectors. The practice is likely illegal- ianal. They can call you and ask to verify your neighbor “Does Bill Smith still live next door?”, but they can’t ID themselves as a debt collector. Nor are they allowed to have you run messages.
This is also the source of many 'wrong number" calls some dudes get. Collection agencies (illegally) use a legit service like Lexis Nexis to look up all their debtors neighbors and call them asking for the debtor. They hope you’ll try to get Bill to call them, or that might even shame Bill into paying up. They will use the lies Ferret Herder mentioned- “being listed in databases as a relative, and (supposedly) being listed as a reference by her” and also “Bill gave this as his home number”. All lies.
They did it to me. I think I said I would, but I didn’t know the guy too well. Then I never did such a thing. He eventually moved out and the condo has been empty and foreclosed for over a year. Just a few weeks ago a realtor put up their signs.
The weird thing is, in the last year or so, I’ve heard a lot of them explicitly IDing themselves as debt collectors in their phone messages. I’m wondering if we’re just getting a lot more shady ones these days, or if maybe those collection companies are calling from outside the US (like Canada) where the law doesn’t apply to them.
Heh. I always tell them that my freelance work rate is $125 an hour, minimum of 2 hours, payable in advance. For some reason, nobody has ever actually sent me my fee for this sort of service…
Of course I’d do it for free for an actual friend or relative. But I see no reason why I should perform menial tasks for businesses just because they ask me to.
I think it’s obvious they don’t care if anyone actually passes the message on to the neighbour. The real message has already been relayed: “Hi, we’re debt collectors and we’re calling everyone in this guy’s neigbourhood to tell them this guy owes money.” It’s the same reason debt collectors always identify themselves when they call somebody’s workplace.