I believe you. There is no doubt in my mind that you heard what you think you heard.
I also believe (depending on the state in which you reside, and the state in which the agency exists) that the agency is just begging to get slapped with a boatload of $1000/occurance fines for violating 3rd party disclosure.
It is possible that you (or the agency) are in one of the states that emphasize the mini miranda (“this is an attempt to collect a debt . . .”) over third party disclosure. Call your Attorney General anyway.
(BTW – most, but not all, states have the office of the Attorney General handle this sort of thing. But the Attorney General’s office receptionist will usually be very happy to direct you to the proper agency.)
I don’t know if this is true in every state, but if a collection agency gets a judgment in, say, Illinois, it still has to perfect the judgment in Pennsylvania in order to garnish wages and so forth. So the court in Pennsylvania can tell the collection agency to bugger off if it thinks the judgment is faulty or (AIUI; IANAL; XYZ PDQ) unjustified. I don’t know if such a judgment is still reportable on a credit report, or if it completely goes away.
One of MadPansy’s less ethical brethren threatened to sue me over a 20-year-old debt. I told him to go for it, that I’d welcome the opportunity to defend myself before a judge. He backed off because I called his bluff. That was Friday afternoon. The following Monday, I paid a lawyer $150 to write a letter to make him go away. The collection agency showed up as a hard pull on my credit report once, but I haven’t seen it since.
Uhm, damn, I really hate to admit this, but if it disappeared from your crdeit report that quickly, the agency probably was an ethical, legitimate agency. The attorney letter possibly, but not definitely, helped get the agencies ass in gear. Without an attorney, an ethical agency may have taken an extra week or two, and another phone call (for additional info) before rejecting the debt.
We (ethical agencies) are at the mercy of our clients. If the original creditor sent the debt to me as “fresh” (ie not 20 fucking years old) and with “authority” (not all creditors will allow us to sue you), I assume it was a collectable debt. Given that info, I would have reported and pursued it, including verifying attachable assets, and getting ALL available documentation from the original creditor.
When I got that documentation, and saw the dates, I would have rejected the debt, stopped all collection attempts, and probably gotten a little snarky with the client representative.
You saying it was old would have made me demand validation from my client before I went any further. Ethical agencies aren’t perfect, nor are we psychic.
Yours is a beautiful example of a reasons to return my call.
That is correct. However, there is a move toward streamlining the process in some jurisdictions to make the ratification process more of a rubber stamp process in which the onus is on the debtor to respond, rather than an automatic re-hearing where execution is put on hold until the judge has heard both sides. For example, have a look at the Florida Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgment Act, and the Florida Uniform Foreign Money-Judgment Recognition Act.
I understand where you’re coming from from a data point of view. But it’s YOUR problem, not mine. I don’t care if you find the deadbeat or not; I mean, I wish you well in collecting money rightfully owed you, but it’s not me. “This is the wrong number” is the only answer John DiFool owes them.
Handing out part of sn SSN (or a SIN, for a Canadian like me) is foolhardy. I don’t know if you have the first five digits, why should I give anyone the last four who just called me up out of the blue looking for money? I’m not a mean person and I’ve actually been very nice to collection agencies who accled my number accidentally, but they’re not getting so much as a digit of my SIN.
And if I was the deadbeat, what would stop me from giving you some phony numbers?
The agency was far from ethical. The amount was suspiciously round, and it seemed to go up by a thousand dollars exactly or more with each call. The collector himself was abusive; he yelled at me and used threatening language loudly enough that Airman heard him from across the room; that was when I called the asshole’s bluff about suing me for the debt. Oh, yeah, and no one seemed to know exactly what the original debt was for; the original rep I spoke to seemed to think it was a deficiency judgment on a car note, even though I had never had a car loan with that bank.
They also lied to me about the statute of limitations. I Googled the agency and found a number of violations of state law that required action by the Illinois attorney general. Given that they had all those violations would lead me to believe that they’re afraid of debtors’ lawyers. Finally, they refused to consider the possibility that the debt was uncollectable. As far as they were concerned, the information was in their hands, so they had the right to “collect” the debt. Mind, this was a debt that wasn’t on my credit report at all; as far as I knew, there had been no mention of this debt for several years.
The removal of that hard pull from my credit had to have taken several months to remove. I don’t check my credit on a regular basis aside from the free ones I get each year, so it could have been removed in two weeks, or it could have been removed in six months or a year.
And as Musicat pointed out, what if the person calling is not really a collector? It’s all well and good to say giving the 4 digits will make a collector’s job so much easier. It will also make a thief’s job easier. I’m not giving part of my SSN to somebody who calls me out of the blue, when my only assurance that he’s not trying to steal my identity is his own word.
That’s right, it’s got nothing to do with people who owe money on legitimate debts and then decide to ignore them and skip. :rolleyes: If I owe a debt, I will figure out a way to pay it, and communicate with the debtor while I’m doing so. It’s what responsible, ethical adults do. YMMV, obviously.
And I usually don’t give out personal info unless I generate the call or have verified the company, which would be no problem if I have a VM message and a few minutes with Google…
Right after I moved to NC a few years ago I started getting calls regarding “an urgent business matter” for a woman whose name was in no way similar to mine. I always called back (if I hadn’t actually picked up the phone) and explained that I had just gotten this phone number, and that I had no idea who this person was. Every time the person I spoke to accepted my word for it, and promised to remove my number from their contact list. This person must have had a lot of people looking for her because these calls continued, in spurts, over the next eighteen months. To the best of my recollection, none of them asked for my name or any other identifying information (which I wouldn’t have provided if they had).
I did change my number when I moved this summer, and so far haven’t gotten any calls for her or anyone else.
Thanks, MadPansy64. I’ve been getting the “if you continue to listen, you acknowledge that you’re NotMyName” auto calls recently. I’ll grit my teeth and follow up.
I’ve only had this phone number since March. It’s apparent that the people who used to have it are, well, deadbeats. I’ve explained to three different agencies (with humans) that no, I don’t know Diane or Juan Ifergit, and that I’ve had this number less than a year. I may have talked to one of those offices twice but, for the most part, the calls from the humans have stopped.
It took a little more effort to convince TracPhone that I am not, and have never been, their customer. (Based on their customer service, I suspect that I never will be, either!)
Heck, I’d like to get in touch with Diane and Juan – if only to encourage them to pay their flippin’ bills!