[QUOTE=TVeblen]
. Nothing nastier than a thwarted, ineffectual control freak.
!
[/QUOTE]
hey- that sounds like my ex- were you ex wife # 3 or 4? (mine’s on soon to be ex wife #5 now)
[QUOTE=kambuckta]
A slightly different situation, but about three years ago I got a letter from the Child Support Agency (who administer support payments for custodial parents from the non-one) informing me that they had tried and tried to get payments from my ex but to no avail, and asking me whether I wanted them to continue the pursuit.
I rang the office and informed them that my ex-husband had died four years before that, and that his estate left nothing (apart from debts) so their search and rescue mission was pretty much in vain, wot.
They thanked me for the information. 
[/QUOTE]
Wouldn’t Centrelink have clued them in? Surely your kids are eligible for some sort of benefits due to the death of a parent. Supposedly, Centrelink talks to everybody.
Weird.
Someone tracked me down for a debt my ex owes in Michigan. A debt he incurred after our divorce, and after I moved here.
He didn’t thank me for informing him. Or for giving up his phone number (we share a kid, and therefore talk). I boggled at the many phone calls - time difference, overseas costs - and the fact that a.) I no longer share a name with him, b.) I don’t have any holdings in the US, no bank accounts, nothing so that they could link me somehow with him and c.) that I’ve been here for five years and this is a very recent thing. The only thing we have in common is a son that has his last name, and no similar/same initial first name.
I have zero idea how they connected me to him and found me here. I’ve looked at those search things, and I’m shown as his spouse at several of our very old addresses, as is his second (now second ex) wife - who oddly shows at an address that only we shared years before our divorce, but nothing connects my maiden name to him at all, and when I run my old married name my maiden name doesn’t show up - I haven’t bothered to change the name on my SSN, either, so no love there.
I am confused.
Cheers,
G
[QUOTE=PunditLisa]
However, there’s really no explanation for the magazine delivery. Magazines just don’t magically appear. Someone has to order them.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, no, as others have testified.
The publishing industry has a marketing practice known as the Forced Free Trial. They send several free issues (usually to people in a desirable demographic or who have a history of buying similar products) accompanied by subscription notices that resemble invoices. It’s expensive, but it usually has a higher response rate than most other marketing techniques.
(As a recipient, you obviously have no obligation to pay for products you didn’t order.)
commasense, it’s also my understanding that some magazines (esp. startups) will send free subscriptions as a means of establishing their circulation numbers, and so justify their ad rates.
[QUOTE=commasense]
Actually, no, as others have testified.
The publishing industry has a marketing practice known as the Forced Free Trial. They send several free issues (usually to people in a desirable demographic or who have a history of buying similar products) accompanied by subscription notices that resemble invoices. It’s expensive, but it usually has a higher response rate than most other marketing techniques.
[/quote]
Well, color me stupid.
If any magazine fulfillment companies are monitoring, I’d love *Conde Nast * and Cooking Light.
[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
commasense, it’s also my understanding that some magazines (esp. startups) will send free subscriptions as a means of establishing their circulation numbers, and so justify their ad rates.
[/QUOTE]
I haven’t paid for a magazine subscription in years because of this; there are often free subsciption offers online, sometimes for the cost of getting spam at an e-mail address. They’re pretty blatant about doing it to increase ad revenue. Other times, magazines to which I once subscribed continue sending me issues far past the subscription expiration. I got a free 6 month subscription to Blender in 2004, for example… I’m still receiving it.
Anyway, glad to hear everyone else’s experiences with getting calls for exes. I sometimes felt like I was the only one getting hassled.
[QUOTE=wring]
hey- that sounds like my ex- were you ex wife # 3 or 4? (mine’s on soon to be ex wife #5 now)
[/QUOTE]
I was #3, without knowing it. He told me he’d been married once before and was a widower. Told me in elaborate detail about the car wreck that killed her, the funeral and even had a dummied-up death certificate he’d sob over artistically. Turns out she was alive and well.
And–suprise!–he was married when we met and started dating. He’d been married for less than a year to a woman up in New Brunswick Canada. I didn’t find out until years later when I kicked him out–and was blindingly furious as I’d specifically asked him if he was married, involved, etc. (We met in grad school.) He winsomely explained, ‘I knew you wouldn’t even go out with me if you knew I was married, but I’m being completely honest now.’ He was sincerely annoyed when that didn’t make everything all better.
He’s a pathological liar…and very, very good at it. Genuine elaborate double lives stuff. ::shudders:: The proverbial sociopath.
[QUOTE=fluiddruid]
What they’ll do is sell the debt, and you’ll be stuck paying for Certified Mail to notify a different agency about the same thing. It’s a nice idea, but there has got to be a better system put in place that doesn’t require random people who aren’t in debt to pay large certified mail bills to deal with all of these collectors.
[/QUOTE]
This isn’t always true. For example, my agncy doesn’t buy debt and many other agencies don’t. We have a contract with many different companies to collect for them. If we collect the debt, we get a percentage of the debt as payment.
I’ve been in this business off and on for 9 years. Most collectors really are not interested in wasting their time calling people who aren’t currently associated with the debtor. It isn’t profitable. I won’t deny there are shady agencies and shady collectors working at reputable agencies. It’s a stressful, high turnover industry (you’ve not lived until you’ve been called a cocksucker by an 89 year-old man). I have never called an ex-spouse more than once, and that’s only if that person’s info is in the account. Which would mean the debtor would have had to give the info out at some point. Now, most of the times I’ve called an ex-spouse it’s been because I thought they were still together. But exes can be a goldmine of information. They know what you are calling about and want their ex to have to pay. They will tell you everything. I now work in the legal department and was trying to get a lady served. Somehow I ended up talking to her ex-husband and he wanted to serve her for us! (Not really something judges like, btw). Anyway, in general, most agencies will not continue to call you if you make it clear that you really, genuinely don’t have any information. If they do, get the supervisor on the phone. He or she should want to resolve the matter because it’s a waste of company time and resources. Unfortunately, some people are either not well-trained or just determined to be jackasses. The bad thing about the jackasses is that some of them are actually good at collecting money so it becomes hard for the agency to acknowledge that they have a “bad” collector.
[QUOTE=Ex_Chemist]
You can stop these calls.
The next time they call get a company name and address. The caller won’t be eager to give this information to you. You will have to firm, persistent and not allow them to change the subject.
Now write them a letter using the following form:
[Today’s date]
[Your name]
[Your address]
[Company name]
[Company address]
Re: Notice to Cease Contact Regarding Debt for [Name of person who is not you]
VIA CERTIFIED MAIL
I am notifying you in writing that your agency has repeatedly contacted me at phone number [your phone number] regarding a debt for [name of person who is not you]. This letter is formal and official notification that [name of person who is not you] is at not available at my address or phone number.
Therefore, I am requesting that you cease all communication to my phone number regarding this person’s debt. If you persist in believing that [name of person who is not you] is somehow connected with my address and/or phone number, please provide proof of your claim.
You should direct all future correspondence in writing as outlined in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and cease all communication with me via telephone.
Lastly, I would like to receive confirmation in writing that you have received this letter and will no longer be contacting me about this other person’s debt, or I will be forced to seek further legal action.
I look forward to your acknowledgement that you have received this notice by [date two weeks from now].
Sincerely,
[sign here]
[Your name]
Print and sign the letter. Then send it Certified Mail with a return receipt request to the company’s address. I’ve been told that if they continue to call you after they have received the letter, you can bill them for $1000.
[/QUOTE]
While the above letter should work, with any reputable agency, you’d have to show me the code whereby you can “bill” a collection agency and it would be their legal obligation to pay. What you can do is consult an attorney who specializes in FDCPA violations and have him file suit against the agency. It costs 10,000 per offense by a certified collector or if the collector is not “certified”, the agency itself is the liable party.
When dealing with collection agencies, being polite really does go a lot further than being a dick. If you help to make someone’s day hard without them initating a bad attitude, you just make it more likely that they will have ill will towards you.
…to be divorced enough?
[QUOTE=gwendee]
One day an issue of Lucky - “The Magazine About Shopping!” (as if they aren’t ALL about shopping) appeared in my mailbox. THe label indicated that the subscription would last 2 years.
I called the number inside for subscriptions, said there must be some mistake. NO, the magazine was a gift from a catolog website that I had purchased from. There’s a miniscule checkbox that appears briefly during the checkout process. You either have to check it or uncheck it to prevent random magazines from showing up at your address. I never even saw it and missed the opportunity to not get a magazine.
The woman on the phone was bewildered that I wanted to cancel. “But it’s free…you won’t be billed for it.” While I appreciate that I will also never read it, never buy this months hottest new accessory, and will bitterly resent having to dispose of it each month, so lets just save everyone the trouble.
[/QUOTE]
Same thing happened to me with In Style. Free…but then I disregarded the “resubscribe” notices, which got progressively desperate, and finally somebody CALLED me. Ditto also on bewildered that I didn’t want it, not even for free again. I did leaf through each issue, or most of them. Then I took them to my gym and left them there for others to read on the treadmill.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
My mother died five years ago and I still get calls and mail for her. That’s just how it is in the Information Age.
[/QUOTE]
My dad has been dead for 31 years and still gets mail. And, the hilarity of it is his name is always spelled wrong. Jams. Instead of James.
Maybe your late mom and my late dad should get married. I’m sure we could come up with some kind of ULTIMATE SCAM and reap the money and nevar get caught!!111!!
I moved into my current residence October 2006, and have been getting junk mail for the previous occupants ever since. I have no idea why that’s all I get for them, but I’ve just been tossing it. Then a few months ago I got a golf magazine for one of them. The subscription label shows an expiration date of two years from now. I looked inside, and cannot find any phone number to call about the subscription. Since I’m going to be moving in another month or two, I figure I’ll just let someone else deal with it.
I’m wondering if I want to bother filing a COA with the Post Office, since I can just as easily notify everyone I want to know about my new address online.
[QUOTE=Dr. Woo]
Gah! I have a similar thing going on. My husband was married before. He was legally separated in 1986 and his divorce was finalized in 1987. We began living together in 1989 and we have since married. We’ve lived at two addresses in the time we’ve been co-habitating, and we continue to get mail at our address for his ex-wife. Who has never lived at either of our addresses. Her name is not the same as anyone else in our household nor is it even similar.
[/QUOTE]
Wow, almost exactly what happens here. My husband was divorced in 1988, and his ex-wife remarried and divorced again within the following year. He and I got married in 1989, and moved to a different house in 1999 - and we still get mail for her, here.
And that mail was the reason we had to explain to our daughter that Daddy was married before. (There were no kids, so we didn’t see any need to explain someone who she’d never encounter anyway.)
At one point I was getting calls from collection agencies for a Virginia Wagner. I’ve never been married or anywhere close to it. They apparently just noticed that I had the same last name as her and, I think, lived at an address close to where she lived at one time. I would call these collection agencies back and tell them I didn’t know her and that they had better quit harassing me.
Perhaps what I should have done was call them and ask to be put in touch with this Virginia Wagner. I could ask her if she wanted to marry me. If the collection agencies were going to be bothering me anyway with her debts, why not? I don’t seem to have any other chance to get married.
[QUOTE=Tom Tildrum]
Heh. And let me guess: your username is pronounced “Marriage? Eek!”
[/QUOTE]
Now that’s funny.
How about being harrassed for being (or harbouring) a total stranger?
A few years ago, we started to get calls for someone named “Petter” or “Petyr”. They were often from women reluctant to explain who “Petyr” was, or why they thought he lived here (no-one by that name ever has). They also were often quite insistant that “Petyr” lived here, and reluctant to believe that he didn’t.
Evidently, “Petyr” was/is a popular dude.
The last call was a doozy - some woman called, on a Sunday, claiming to be from a bank. She got very angry when told there was no such person named “Petyr” (single name!) living here, threatened to call the cops claiming it is an offense to lie about the location of this guy … I politely invited her to do her worst and that real bank officals generally know the last name of the person they are looking for (and needless to say, have not heard back).
I must admit, I’m quite curious as to who this fellow is and why he’s handing out my number to what appears to be a large assortment of random women.
[QUOTE=FairyChatMom]
My husband was divorced in July of 1983 by the state of Michigan.
[/QUOTE]
I can understand why that marriage didn’t work out. How’d he think he was going to keep a whole state satisfied? It’s not a matter of stamina - there just aren’t enough hours in the day for all those people! 
[QUOTE=Malthus]
How about being harrassed for being (or harbouring) a total stranger?
A few years ago, we started to get calls for someone named “Petter” or “Petyr”. They were often from women reluctant to explain who “Petyr” was, or why they thought he lived here (no-one by that name ever has). They also were often quite insistant that “Petyr” lived here, and reluctant to believe that he didn’t.
Evidently, “Petyr” was/is a popular dude.
The last call was a doozy - some woman called, on a Sunday, claiming to be from a bank. She got very angry when told there was no such person named “Petyr” (single name!) living here, threatened to call the cops claiming it is an offense to lie about the location of this guy … I politely invited her to do her worst and that real bank officals generally know the last name of the person they are looking for (and needless to say, have not heard back).
I must admit, I’m quite curious as to who this fellow is and why he’s handing out my number to what appears to be a large assortment of random women.
[/QUOTE]
This is our situation, we got a new number in 2001 when we moved to this house. We still get calls for this one guy. Pretty much all of them are from debt collection agencies and his church. We’ve even answered a couple times and told the people at his church to please ask him to stop giving out our number all to no avail.
The one thing that really bothers me is that the mysterious data miners/direct marketers have decided that because my ex-husband is the one with the man’s name, he must be the one who bought my house. He has never lived here and he sure as hell had nothing to do with buying my house, but we did arrange for some of his mail to come here a couple years ago when he was deployed. That was all it took.