Over the past few days a couple of incidents occurred, each by themselves ostensibly a nuisance, but together make me uneasy.
Over the course of a few days, I was bombarded by over a dozen calls, 7 or 8 texts, 3 or 4 voicemails regarding “my loan application” to some finance company. Even 2 or 3 calls to my land-line number. The voicemails referred to a person not at all known to me. All these calls I missed, but finally a call came and I answered it. I told them I submitted no such applications, and that I was not the person they directed their inquiries to. They asked, 'so you’re not “Jim Doe?”. Absolutely not, and to please remove my number from their files. Said they would, but the next day I got 2 more ( missed ) calls. I called them back and reiterated my original request. The agent sounded sincerely apologetic and full of resolve to correct this. Been good for 2 days now.
I just received in the mail a large envelope from a reverse mortgage company. Opening it, I set the sheaf(s) of documents aside and found the cover letter. “Dear John Doe” ( different name than from the previous calls from a different finance company ), “thanks for your interest in a reverse mortgage”. Feeling stupid that I opened someone else’s mail by mistake, I flipped the mailing envelope over, and was alarmed to see that the address was my address, but with the stranger’s name. As I’m the original owner my house, it’s not a previous resident thing.
I’m now feeling very uneasy and wondering if this an attempt at identity theft, or an odd coincidence of two cases of sloppy clerical/record keeping. Since I already opened the envelope, my first instinct is to call the agent on the business card that was enclosed and explain what happened, or to just send the envelope back marked as “not at this address”, or “no such person” or somesuch thing.
I have checked my bank info and so far no hanky-panky noted, but as we say in the mechanical world: “everything works till it breaks”. I’m worried this might get out of hand.
Just wondering if anyone can share knowledge or compare notes of similar experiences.
That definitely sounds fishy. I would call the the people on the business card. IMO, the John or Jim Doe person is using your address for some nefarious reason. Early calling beats waiting around for it to escalate.
ETA, I can’t figure out how they have your phone numbers and address, together, accidently. Hmmmm?
Actually I’m not sure if they did though. In the case of the first incident, the point(s) of contact were just a stranger’s name, and my phone numbers. Nothing of an address, though I didn’t inquire when I spoke to the caller. Seems I should have.
The mailing showed no reference to phone contacts; just my address.
Then again, the more I ( over? ) think about this, the more that leaked info may be more widespread and coordinated than I think.
Check with the Clerk of your county, where your home ownership record should be on file. If someone has attempted to take out a loan against your property, that will show up.
I get similar calls and junk mail as well. They try to make it look like there’s an existing business relationship, but they they never actually say who “your mortgage company” or “your insurance company” is. Like yours, some of them promisie to help me save on my mortgage payments, but my house is paid off - they’d have to pay me to save me any money. The reason it’s John Doe and not Your Name is they are just sending it to random addresses hoping someone will respond. I also get occasional robocalls about the extended warranty on my vehicle. I don’t even have a vehicle new enough to have an extended warranty in place.
I’ve been getting those for years, and several pieces of mail every WEEK. Someone must respond, or it wouldn’t be profitable for them to continue doing this.