Bad Bad Debt Collectors

[kevin_standlee]

Because we don't give out our home phone number, almost no calls we receive are "real." Most of them are telemarketers. Today, however, we got one from a debt-collection agency, apparently trying to collect from someone who may have had our phone number sometime before September 2011. Their robocall is pretty dumb. It quickly rattles off a toll-free number and reference number once and then hangs up. No option to speak to someone. No repeat or even a way to repeat the number. By sheer luck, I was able to retain enough of the phone number that I was able to call them back, tell them, "I'm not that person, have never heard of that person, and have had this phone number for more than three years now."

Their system is designed only for leaving messages on voice-mail where people can replay it enough times to get the quickly-rattled-off numbers, not for someone who actually answered the phone.

I suspect, however, that we'll get robocalled again on this, despite what they told me, because they'll assume that we're lying to get the debt collector off our neck.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I got such a call, and there were several options for reply, none of which were "I am not that person and don't know how to find them."

I also once got a collection call - live person - for someone who once lived at this address (I know, because we occasionally got mail for them). What amazed me about that was that, of course, given how phone numbers work, they didn't have this number. The idea that the collector would track down the phone number of the current tenant in hopes of finding a link to a long-gone one croggles me.

[rono-60103.livejournal.com]

in 2010, when we were getting the loan to buy our house, I was flagged for a bad debt owed to a clinic in Rancho Bernardo. Now, I'd gone to this clinic a few times in 1998-1999 when I first lived in San Diego. But, I was living in the Chicago area when the debt was incurred.

I'd known that there was, almost certainly, another Ronald Oakes who was being seen at the clinic, since I once got a prescription mailed to me from a doctor I'd never seen, and for a medicine I had no need for.

So, I was pretty sure that somewhere the clinic had put his debt onto my account.

However, the fact that I was living in Chicago (actually Bartlett, or possibly Wheaton) when the debt was incurred didn't convince the collections agent that it wasn't my debt.

Fortunately, I remembered reading an obituary for a Ronald Oakes who had announced games for one of the San Diego hockey teams, and then died of a long illness. While the obituary didn't include what part of town he'd lived in, or what clinic he'd been going to to treat his illness, it was at least enough for the collections agent to agree it wasn't my debt.

Then, there was the earlier time when a former resident in my apartment started writing bad checks all over the Chicago area. Not only was I getting burred in bad check letters, I had a Chicago Police detective drive clear out to the suburbs (and not a nearby suburb either) to ask me personally if I knew the bad check writer.

[rwl.livejournal.com]

I am still occasionally getting phone calls asking for someone who apparently had my landline telephone number before it was assigned to me. And I've had this number for almost 20 years .