Wow... I just figured out how to beat bill collectors...

[Lingering Grin]

Well, needless to say, I have bill collectors after me... yeah I screwed up, whatever...

for MONTHS I have been trying to get them to stop calling the house number and JUST call my cellphone (which is my PERSONAL number, and the only number *I* can be reached at)... yes I DO answer the house number, but I don't accept any call for me, unless it's an absolute emergency... i.e. someone is dying... which has never happened...


Well, I just discovered how to get them not to call your number... by accident.

About two weeks ago, we were trying to fax something out, so we had to plug the fax line into the house... which means that anyone calling the house, would get that really loud, annoying, fax-line sound. (Basically, the same noise you got over old-school 56k or under modems).

Well, we forgot to reconnect the actual phone line afterwards... for a day and a half... which means that any calls that came in were greeted with *DEH DEH DEH GEH GEH GEH GUH DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO*

This took place on Monday and half a tuesday.. the most popular days for the bill collectors to call... ever since then (about two weeks later)... they haven't called that number...


So there you go... how to beat the bill collector: Plug in a fax machine

[Misanthropical]

I have to skip trace after the collectors in our company has pulled the number out of the dialer for that reason, which means I get it about a week after they pull the number.

The first thing I do is call the old number to see if someone has just turned the fax on when they thought we would be calling.

You might have thrown them off, since I probably don't work for the company that is calling you, so I don't know what they do once the number is pulled from their dialer.

[Lingering Grin]

True, but it's been three weeks,

I'm not complaining.


and... you probably don't unless the company starts with "NCA", and in case it does, I have nothing against (most) of the people who work there...

[PepperElf]

Also... if you're making honest payment attempts, ... it's illegal for them to continue harassment. they usually forget that cos they deal with so many deadbeats... but sometimes honest people do have to fight them.

and if they want a bigger payment than what you're giving... it's still not grounds for them to harass you. In fact... as long as you're making honest payments legally they have to stfu and accept it as far as i know

[Lingering Grin]

and if they want a bigger payment than what you're giving... it's still not grounds for them to harass you. In fact... as long as you're making honest payments legally they have to stfu and accept it as far as i know

One word


HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


Let's just say they don't like me...

[Mamadrae]

I don't know about everywhere else but where I live collection agencies and telemarketers are not allowed to call cell phones. Just a thought.

[katie kaboom]

I don't know about everywhere else but where I live collection agencies and telemarketers are not allowed to call cell phones.

They call my cell phone all the time. I truly, truly hate Bank of America.

[PepperElf]

Let's just say they don't like me...

i take it you've reminded them of the law... not to mention burning their ears with the fax machine of course

[Lingering Grin]

i take it you've reminded them of the law... not to mention burning their ears with the fax machine of course

Well the fax machine was an accident.... as for law...

I dunno, ignoring seems to work well... for both of us... they don't like my answers, so what's the point of talking to em

[Misanthropical]

I don't know about everywhere else but where I live collection agencies and telemarketers are not allowed to call cell phones. Just a thought.

Telemarketers are not allowed. Collection Agencies can if that is the number you put down as a contact number.

[repsac]

We recently had two collection agencies get in a ton of trouble. One with the FTC and the other with the FCC itself.

The first was a scam from a company out of Mississippi. (If you know anything about this, you may know this company.) Either way they would take dead debts, stuff the statute of limitations had run out on, debts already paid or settled, or debts owed by deceased persons, and attempt to collect on them. The company would constantly harass and threaten whoever they got in touch with, even going so far as to threaten bodily harm to myself over a debt for some gentleman I don't even know. The FTC report stated they were now under investigation because of my report, and the calls stopped.

The FCC one though is a bit strange. It's been ongoing for some time now and apparently we're not the only ones in on this. Basically, AT&T farmed out their bill collections to a company out of the country. In order to get around caller ID and other screening methods, this company was using false numbers to dial from, spoofing various states and what not. They were also calling repeatedly, even after the bill had been paid, sometimes for several days afterward. It turns out, that the FCC's laws prohibit the methods this company was using for collections, especially the false number and the repeated calls. Now, they're getting the evil eye of Big Brother, and looks like that AT&T has some, to quote Ricky "Lucy, you gots some 'splaining to do!"

[BearLeeBadenaugh]

Years ago, when my wife and I had just moved into our first apartment we were recieving an average of 6 calls a day from a collection agency asking for someone named rachel. Of course, neither of us is named rachel, lol. Despite my protests and assurances that no rachel lived there, the company would not stop calling us. I even went so far as sending them registered mail requesting they cease calling. At the time, the phone company wanted to charge us to get a new number and we had intended to move relatively quickly once we found better jobs(as we'd both recently graduated from college). Not wanting to spend the money, I just started giving the cordless phone to our African Grey Parrot. Two weeks of this and the company finally stopped calling us.

It really did amaze me that nothing I did in relation to telling them rachel no longer had that number worked, but Shadow got them to stop calling relatively quickly. I'm guessing that's how long it took their calling pool to realize that calling our number would get them "There is no Rachel here. Talk to the bird." Having learned a little about telemarketers/call centres since then, I'm assuming that they either had to get a black mark on their call metrics for either having to hang up on a customer, or having to put a parrot on hold until our cordless phone died.