A debt collection company has been calling us for so long I’ve forgotten what the original issue was. I do remember that we DO NOT owe the money they claim, it wasn’t very much, maybe $50 or $100 and we made it clear we weren’t going to pay. They have been calling off and on for well over a year, sometimes two or three times a day, sometimes nothing for a week or so. It’s always a machine of course, so no skin off their back if it goes on forever. We’ve gotten used to just deleting the messages. Still, it’s starting to be annoying.
Are there any options to stop what I believe are harassing phone calls? And no, I’m not paying someone to stop poking me.
Did you ever tell them (in writing) to stop calling? You can write a letter and demand that they put all future communications in writing. They have a certain amount of time to comply, after which they’re breaking the law if they continue to call you. And you can take them to civil court and get a settlement if they EVER call you after that.
I have, from time to time, felt obliged to stiff a vendor here or there - like Tivo for example. Rather than tell them to stuff their DVR and tv guide service, I just stopped paying for it. So they sent it to collection. I knew that it would never come to anything. They’re never going to sue me for under $200 and if they do, fine, I’m a retired lawyer and need the practice anyway.
But in the meantime I received all manner of dunning letters that go from the veiled threat variety to the those with a more pleading tone and finally to those that offer to settle my “debt” for pennies on the dollar. Obviously I ignore these, but I DO save them as I plan to wallpaper a room with these and others like them some day. Some are really comical in my opinion.
They also of course try to call and harass me as well. However I have a VOIP provider for my main phone number and they allow me to set what they call a black list. Once I put a number on that list, anyone calling gets matched up against it. If they match, they go straight to voice mail hell and as a general rule I never hear from them again - ever.
“Yes, this is Mr. Slant.
…
I see, you’re calling about a debt. I can transfer you to Cyberdyne accounts payable if you like.
…
Oh, you’re calling about a PERSONAL debt. I’m sorry, this is a business line. My boss won’t let me conduct personal business on this line; I could lose my job.
…
Sorry, no, I don’t care to share any personal numbers with you. Please have a good day, though!”
Worked for me, although I haven’t had anything go to collections for a few years now.
Once it’s a business line where you can’t take personal calls, they will try calling your other lines.
If you do the same thing on those, or it’s the only line, then they’ll stop calling and resort to letters or lawyers.
If it’s $100, the latter is unlikely.
Note that if the debt is large enough to sue over, you want to consult a lawyer before responding to them via phone or such a letter.
Sending a C&D letter may accelerate the timeframe on which you get sued in some circumstances.
Actually, you can tell them that you are with a payment agency (Credability.com, e.g.) who is taking care of your payments, and say that they can’t call you anymore legally once you tell them to stop calling. I’m pretty sure you can do this without having a credit agency behind you. You can just say “stop calling me” and the are legally required to stop. You don’t need that other crap.
The telephone number we got when we moved in last April previously must have belonged to several deadbeats. After we were settled in a had changed all our contact info with about a dozen banks, brokers, etc., we began to get polite calls asking for the people in question.
How do I get them to stop, since I don’t know who they are? All I have are their toll free numbers.
I’ve been pestered by these kind of jackasses (all trying to chase down somebody I’ve never heard of).
They NEVER expose their caller ID.
The calls are usually robo-calls so there’s actually nobody to talk to. On the (infrequent) occasion that I actually answer and on the (even more infrequent) occasion that there’s actually a live person there, they will never tell me who they are, or how I can call back, or anything else. (ETA: If I ask them questions like that, they always just hang up.)
So how the hell would I avail myself of ANY of the remedies discussed above?
Is everybody but me getting collections calls from honest agencies that actually identify themselves?
More ETA:
Bear in mind that the caller ID numbers may well be bogus, and often are.
Your problem is not the same as the OP. You can get call blocking software if you have a computer with a modem that is on all the time. You can get a phone with call blocking features. You can see if your landline provider has a call blocking service. But if none of those fit your circumstances, then you are out of options, and will probably have to just endure the unwanted calls.
Your options vary with your carrier. Just like many don’t offer the black list feature I mentioned above, many don’t offer other features that will help you here.
My VOIP for example let’s me determine if I will accept calls from callers who block their number. If I set that to ‘no’, the call won’t even go to voice mail.
But one of the black list features is especially useful here. It let’s me block just toll-free numbers. These will go to voice mail just like any normal blocked call noted in the previous post.
BTW, you can get some of these features from say, Verizon. But you will pay for each and every one. With my VOIP, I pay $15/mo and they’re all free.