I got a call from them a week or two ago; I didn’t answer and they didn’t leave a message (I later looked up the number from my Caller ID, which is how I knew who it was). When they called back I few days ago I answered and got someone with such a heavy accent that I could barely make out what he was saying who asked to speak to Flgthnu Wjbtvcvh, or something like that. I replied that no one by that name lived here. He seemed to have trouble understanding what I meant, so I repeated that no one by that name was at my number and hung up.
Call block is a free service with most land line providers. Just dial *60 and you can block the collection agency from calling you.
I have had this happen several times. The messages they leave are usually rude. So when I so answer or call back I am not in the best mood. After I explain that I have never done business with the copany they are calling for I usually get a sorry for the call I will make note of your statements and remove your name from or call list. And that is the last call.
She may not be giving out your number. My son messed up his credit, lost his house and moved in with us. So there was a period of time when his address was the same as ours. Now two years latter I sometimes I will get a call fro my son from a collection agency. I inform them "he does not live here you have the wrong b------.
Side note.
Credit agencys and banks look at address. My youngest was living with us when he got married and moved out of state. we both have bank accounts at Wells Fargo. When he put in a change of address with the post office the bank recieved a notice from the post office of the new address. The bank changed the addresses of all accounts with the same address. That was two years ago this month. the bank sent the intrest statement of my loan to my son’s address. Another call to the bank with the statement if they can keep us straight then I will have to change banks to a bank my son does not have an accoutnt with.
A few years ago, my wife and I tried to rent an apartment, with very good credit. We were denied. We inquired with the agency, and they said that my wife was notorious for renting, then skipping out. It turned out that they were checking her NAME, and ascribing all results to her. No, they didn’t check her SSN. her name is pretty common, along the lines of “Laura Smith.” So she was “responsible” for all acts by Laura Smiths ever, apparently.
We straightened it out, but what a clusterfuck…
Joe
Did you recently get a new phone number? I did and the guy who had the number before me apparently owes quite a few people. I had to tell one company to quit calling me at least 5 times (including following their stupid little "push 3 or whatever if this is not you and you don’t know this person). I finally did some internet research which described the selling of debts to companies which try to collect by any means necessary, even if they don’t even have the correct “Laura Smith” as mentioned above.
Write and/or call them and invoke the Fair Credit Reporting Act. And keep a sharp eye on all of your credit cards and accounts.
I’m another “Laura Smith” and a few years back, I had a very nasty conversation with some idiot child from Bank of America, she kept inSISTing that I had a balance on my account roughly three times my actual balance, and that I’d agreed to pay a $500 dollar payment on “My” account.
I kept trying to tell her my real account information and she kept arguing "NO! you owe THIS much, I have your account RIGHT ON MY SCREEN (you stupid shiftless money-owing person you) and “yes you do, because we had a conference call with you and your father Peter Jackson on XYZ date and he agreed to lend you the money to pay an initial payment of $500” and so on.
Me: Um…no dear, my father’s name is James Johnson, not Peter Jackson and he doesn’t live in Virginia he lives in California.
She just kept getting madder and madder and saying “I can SEE your account right HERE, I KNOW you owe this money, you people…”. And I kept saying I do have an account there, but MY account is current and the balance is NOT $XXXXX.XX, and my address is NOT [address she kept insisting I lived at].
She finally (near screaming pitch now) she says “Yes you do, and ISN’T your home state Alaska!? And isn’t your last name “Smith”? and ISN’T your SS# XXX-XX-XXXX!!!”.
Me, “no, that is definitely not my SS# and shouldn’t you have asked ME to verify my last 4 rather than blurt out some stranger’s entire SS# to me over the phone”?
Click.
I called back immediately, got a supervisor and described the entire conversation, from his end of the conversation, I’d say that the young lady was going to be making a trip to the nearest UE office before the hour was up. The most idiotic part? I’d originally called them to make a routine payment.
Like a previous poster, I must have inherited a number from a deadbeat. I screen calls so I wouldn’t pick up but once in a while, after weeks of calls I’d pick up just to tell them they were off base. So they quit calling for a while but I’m guessing the debtor moved on to another collection agency because the calls would resume. This song and dance went on for about four and a half years - haven’t heard from anyone in a few months.
The entire time (3 years) I had my first cell phone, I got weekly calls from a London collection agency for a gal named Heather.
I’m amazed at all the people here reporting on collection agencies behaving in a reasonable manner.
I once had an agency coming after me for a debt by someone that had apparently rented a duplex before me and had bought some high end photography equipment before skipping out. Nothing I told them would convince them that I wasn’t Bozo McDebtor.
I finally said enough and sent them a Cease and Desist letter with item 5 edited to state that I was not the person they were looking for.
Someone named Ricky previously had my cell number. The same agency called for him multiple times a day. Nothing happened when I told them it was a wrong number. They hung up on me when I asked for a supervisor. I sent a cease and desist, and got a call the same day. I told them I’d sent the cease and desist, and they said if I wasn’t “Ricky” I couldn’t send a cease and desist. I told them they were wrong. After the letter was signed for, I never got another call, but just telling them it was a wrong number was not effective. Those people were evil and rude, and utterly unreasonable. Throughout the whole time I dealt with them, they never bothered to tell me Ricky’s last name.
In the past year, two or three agencies have called me looking for different people on my land line. I called them back, told them it was a wrong number, and didn’t have any more problems. I guess the reasonableness depends on the collection agency.
One time when Mrs. J. and I were renting a house, we got a bunch of messages on the answering machine from some outraged people in Pakistan demanding their money. I suspect they were after the landlord, as he turned out to be a notorious deadbeat.
These days I would take the Pakistanis-pissed-off-over-mistaken-identity thing a bit more seriously.