Self-Suck: Not my debt, don't call me about it.

[Mystic]

*Probably a sensitive topic for people who might work in the field of collections. I would suggest not reading and keeping the replies to a minimum due to fratching as this is a well known that it's a self-siting. I can be a real prick when you disrupt my happy time!*

So a friend of mine unknowingly used me as a reference on a bunch of stuff. I told him once upon a time he could do so for his schooling and I guess he took it upon himself to take that as me saying he could use my name on everything. Well, he fell on hard times, lost his job, and so he has some people he owes some money to (including some back rent to me from when he was renting a house from my family and I had to pay his rent for him for a few months because he had no income... he also left the place a mess but that's another rant for another day). I've gotten a few letters in the mail, a phone call or two on my house line, but today was the last straw.

I'm standing in the local tea shop where I get my weekly stock of yummy loose leaf goodness when my mobile starts playing some Celldweller (my ringtone of ub3r awesomeness starts at 1:18). I look at the number which isn't one I recognize which is irritating to me because I don't typically give my mobile number to just anyone for this very reason; if I don't know you, I don't want to talk to you when I'm out doing things.

So I answer the phone and our conversation goes-a-little-something-like-this (hit it!)

SCAL: Stupid Collection Agent Lady
Me:

Me: Hello?

SCAL: Hi! Is this *birth name*?

*Strike one. *birth name* is my real name, which I do not go by and haven't gone by in over 10 years*

Me: This is *birth name*, who is this?

SCAL: This is SCAL calling from *generically named collection agency to make you think it's an actual place of business if you're a moron*. We're trying to reach *friends name*, do you happen to have a current contact for him?

Me: I'm sorry, who are you?

SCAL: SCAL from *collections office with deceiving name to make it seem like we're not a collections office*

Me: So you're a collections office?

SCAL: We're a billing office, sir.

Me: Ok, so collections. Why are you calling my mobile?

SCAL: We've been having trouble contacting *friends name* and he listed you as a reference on his papers.

Me: Right, well, I'd appreciate you not calling my mobile again.

SCAL: Do you have a contact we can reach *friends name* at?

*strike two, don't ignore me when you're calling my phone*

Me: I find it pretty fucking ridiculous that you're calling friends and family of a person you're trying to collect money from. You shouldn't be doing business this way.

SCAL: Well we do, and we are.

*Strike 3, you're out. don't fucking sass me when you're calling MY phone looking to get information from ME so you can make money, bitch.*

Me: What was the name of your company again?

SCAL: *stupid generic name*

Me: Well you can bet your ass I'm going to be sending your company a strongly worded letter about this.

SCAL: Would you like the address?

Me: No, I will look it up online. I don't have time to deal with this right now. Don't fucking call me again.

SCAL: There are a couple places with our name (go figure), would you like the address?

Me: No, I will find it myself. Don't call me again.

SCAL: Yes, sir.

Me: *click*

If you're going to call people who don't owe you a cent, you better be prepared when some of them get pissed off and are willing to take the time to help bury your company for their dodgy practices. I've actually dealt with this company before in another circumstance I unwillingly got pushed into without knowing and they spend a good amount of time either skimming or blatantly breaking the law because they know that most people don't know what rights they have. They hire what seems to be the scum of the earth who don't really care about collections laws and I'm amazed they are still operating. If I remember correctly, this company is the same one who has been using similar tactics as that group that use to cold call sales all across the US that the government had a really hard time tracking down.

In this case, the person was certainly more careful about what she said than others, but she shouldn't have given me an attitude. I don't put up with that shit. None the less, a letter will be written and she should thank her lucky stars that I didn't have time or I would have held up her phone line for an hour and talked to every supervisor in the building going over the fair debt collection practices act. I certainly had an attitude from the get-go cause they were bothering my tea time. That's a huge no-no in Mystics book. He loves his tea too much to be disrupted!</third person>

[dendawg]

It really is the slimy ones who deserve the most scorn. I once had a debt collector tell me that I'd better hire an attorney. One email to the Michigan (where I used to live) attorney general's office and one fax to collector's HQ and buh-bye collector and debt. Thank you, budhibbs.com.

[Sapphire Silk]

I've had one debt collector try to intimidate me by threatening to have me arrested if I didn't him the contact info for a roommate of mine on a bill he was trying to collect on (a $25 bounced check, as it turned out later). It was my first experience with a bill collector, and scared the crap out of me because he threw around words like "detective," and "investigator" that made me think he was really a cop.

I learned from that experience. Oh, I learned . . . .

Years later, a bill collector was trying to collect on a very old debt of mine (it was a vulture bill collection agency). They contacted my parents and were very abusive to my mother, threatening her with legal action if she didn't pay my bill for me. That's right; they wanted HER to pay my bill and literally screamed at her "to just pay the fucking bill!"

Oh no you don't. You do NOT abuse my mother this way.

Mom had refused to cave and told her if they really were a law firm they could serve her with papers, but it wouldn't do them any good since Mom's name was not on the bill. She refused to give them my contact info, but obtained theirs and then called me.

I called the agent and proceeded to rip her a new one, with plenty of warnings about the FTC Fair Debt and Collections regulations, then informed her she could send all details about the bill to my address (which I gave), and that all further communication was to be in writing, no phone calls to me OR my mother.

I never heard from them again. Which meant they couldn't prove the bill was mine. I never knew what the bill was for, only that it was around $300.

Back to the OP: I would not have wasted that much time with that collections agent. My only response would be (and I have done this), "this is a cell number, and you are prohibited from making collections calls to cell numbers. Do not ever call this number again or I will file a complaint with the FTC." *click!*

Although, I read recently that there is legislation pending to allow debt collectors to call cell phone numbers. Also complaints about collectors are skyrocketing with the bad economy

[fma_fanatic]

Oh, I love it when I get the "you will be arrested if you don't do [insert ridiculous request for info that you don't have]". I've been known to offer directions if they want to send out the sheriff to my house or place of work. That seems to catch them off guard.

True story: many years ago, when I first started working for my company, I was the receptionist and had to deal with a lot of collections calls. One in particular was from a "sheriff" needing to contact HR. Well, HR didn't take those kinds of calls because it was verification of employment (verifications are done through 3rd party company; the guy didn't want to pay the fee). It got to a point where the guy started getting abusive, and said that he was going to have me arrested for impeding the law.

I offered to give him directions to the office. The funny part was while this guy kept calling, I was IMing a friend who is a lawyer and he found it funny. He'd already told me that I couldn't get into trouble because HR didn't want to deal with him.

[Mike Taylor]

This is why I don't answer phone numbers that I don't recognize.

[ExArtShopSlave]

A couple years ago, I worked in a generic 3rd party collections office. I wasn't the actual collection agent, but more like a secretary. Basically, I was the person that got the client on the phone then patched them through to the collection agent. Of course, they'd just hang up, so pointless. It was so bad there. All I heard for 8 hours a day were collectors yelling and belittling the people on the phone. I remember one man I passed through to the collector. This man was really nice. However the next thing I heard when I put him through to the collector was "You're in collections because you never paid your toll bill. Ya? Well then, you better sell your d@mn car and get used to riding a f@#$ing bike!"

I was outta there a month later.

ExArtShopSlave

[crazyofficeclerk]

A few years ago, I came home from work one day and found a message from a collections agency on my answering machine. It was for my neighbor across the street. These people knew my name and address and said that I should go tell my neighbor to contact them about paying her overdue bill. I hit the delete button. I didn't figure it was any of my business and the neighbor and I weren't on speaking terms/

[Dreamstalker]

Mystic, does the name of this company start with an A? I think I may have dealt with them, and they do indeed engage in some scummy practices.

[wagegoth]

There are collection agencies that specialize in getting the relatives of dead people to pay their bills. They use really manipulative psychological methods to get these poor people to pay bills they don't owe. Disgusting.

[music chick]

My first collections call

I remember my first collections call. I had just moved into a new apartment and the previous tenant had been evicted for non payment of rent. I didn't get a new phone number for the apartment some how so when the bill collectors started calling they called me and wouldn't believe me when I told them that the guy wasn't there. I told them over and over again. One of them tried to corner me on the issue by saying how did I know that we wanted the previous tenant if I never met him? -Um because you just asked for him by name and I know the previous tenant moved out after an eviction so I assume he had other debts. They gave up eventually.

[blas]

When I was sent to collections, the billing part of the clinic I go to told me it was a "line of credit". I was young and dumb at the time.

I got my first statement from the place, went online, and found out it's a collection agency.

Some places are so damn sketchy.

Speaking of strange numbers, there's a landline number that repeatedly keeps trying to call me, once or twice a month. It's from the city my parents live in. I have no clue who they are, but they won't leave a message so it must not be that big of a deal. Though, some people are really dense even if they hear my name on the voicemail, they'll keep calling anyway hoping next time, it's someone else.

[Heksubah]

I'm in the middle of dealing with a collector and they called my mother and told her the amount that I owed. I seem to recall, from my days working as a collector a decade ago, that doing so is highly illegal. It is my intent to research that and see what I can do about it because that has caused hell for me having her know what I owe.

[Sapphire Silk]

A few years ago, I came home from work one day and found a message from a collections agency on my answering machine. It was for my neighbor across the street. These people knew my name and address and said that I should go tell my neighbor to contact them about paying her overdue bill. I hit the delete button. I didn't figure it was any of my business and the neighbor and I weren't on speaking terms/

That's interesting, because a new trick collections agencies are using is to refuse to talk to the person unless their confirm their personal details. I've had a couple of collectors do this.

But then again, it was medical debt (insurance companies are often so slow to pay that the patient often gets sent to collections before insurance pays up--this happens to me frequently), so maybe it was a HIPAA thing.

All I know is it's extremely aggravating to have some guy on the phone play 20 questions with me when HE interrupted MY day by calling ME.

It doesn't help that I LOATHE talking on the telephone.

If some guy called asking me to pass on a message to a neighbor over a debt, I'd tell the guy, "I'm not your errand girl, and I mind my own business thank you very much, so I deeply resent being pulled into my neighbor's money issues. Therefore I'll just be calling the FTC now to file a complaint about you."

Hmm. I might make an exception for my asshole neighbor with the vicious pit bull. Nah, even he gets a pass on that kind of asshattery.

There are collection agencies that specialize in getting the relatives of dead people to pay their bills. They use really manipulative psychological methods to get these poor people to pay bills they don't owe. Disgusting.

QFT. I've heard horror stories about this. I have a friend whose parents recently passed away, and I had to remind her that she doesn't owe her parents creditors a red cent of her own money (the estate is a different matter).

When I was sent to collections, the billing part of the clinic I go to told me it was a "line of credit". I was young and dumb at the time.

I got my first statement from the place, went online, and found out it's a collection agency.

I hope you're not going to that clinic anymore!

Speaking of strange numbers, there's a landline number that repeatedly keeps trying to call me, once or twice a month. It's from the city my parents live in. I have no clue who they are, but they won't leave a message so it must not be that big of a deal. Though, some people are really dense even if they hear my name on the voicemail, they'll keep calling anyway hoping next time, it's someone else.

Probably a collections agent. A lot of people screen their calls and won't pick up if they think it's a collections agent.

I guess some people must actually answer messages left on machines, since I've had quite a few leave them on mine. But my rule of thumb is, if it isn't important enough to leave me a message about why you called, then it isn't important for me to call you back.

I used to screen my calls, but I quit doing that a few years ago. It doesn't stop the volume of calls. What DOES stop them is picking up and telling the agent, "From now on all communications are to be in writing, and you are never to call me on the phone again per FTC rules." You have to be firm and talk fast before they can get a word in edgewise, but it works.

I'm in the middle of dealing with a collector and they called my mother and told her the amount that I owed. I seem to recall, from my days working as a collector a decade ago, that doing so is highly illegal. It is my intent to research that and see what I can do about it because that has caused hell for me having her know what I owe.

Hmm. I've never heard it was illegal to do that.

Wonder if I broke the law when I acted as my own collections agent on a deadbeat roommate years ago?

Guy had rented a room from me for a semester (we were both college students) and had graduated. I was glad to get rid of him, he was a creep. Right before he left, the SOB ran up a $600 bill on a 1-900 sex line. Part of our rent arrangement was, utilities were part of the rent ($119/mo fixed, if utilities cost most I paid the overage) with the exception of long distance phone service (you paid for your own calls).

I wrote and sent him a copy of the bill. No answer. I called and he promised to pay but didn't. I called again and he hung up on me.

So I called his parents . . . and got his grandmother. When she told me the parents were not in, and asked if she could take a message (and she was a lovely lady, I still feel a bit bad for her over what I did next), I replied,

"Yes, ma'am. JP rented a room in my house this past semester. He owes me $400 (I had taken the rest out of his deposit) for his 1 900 sex line phone calls he made during the month of April. Would you tell him that I expect to be paid for this immediately?"

Poor dear's response was a loud gasp. She was shocked.

An hour later I got a very angry call from JP. "Don't you ever talk to my grandmother again!"

Me: Pay up and I won't have a reason to.

He paid all about about $60. I let it go at that point.

[MadMike]

That's interesting, because a new trick collections agencies are using is to refuse to talk to the person unless their confirm their personal details. I've had a couple of collectors do this.

One of my coworkers got one of those awhile back. How they got his work number, I have no idea.

From what I pieced together from what I overheard on his end of the conversation, and from what he was telling one of my other coworkers, they called him trying to reach a guy who has the same first and last name as him (his name is fairly common.) When he told them he wasn't who they were looking for, they wanted his information so they could verify that. I wasn't really paying attention to what was going on two cubibles away from me, until I heard him yelling, "I am NOT giving you my SS number!"

I've ranted once or twice about this guy doing stupid things in the past, but I'm glad he wasn't stupid enough to give out his SS number. What kind of legitimate company would even ask for that???

[KellyHabersham]

Reminds me a little of a situation which my mom and I are dealing with - the short version is that my sister's husband listed us as references when he'd applied for some student loan thing a few years back, and I'm not sure what the exact deal is, but we've been getting automated phone calls and letters in the mail asking for "Rick's" current contact info. And I just find it really strange that this company is able to locate/keep up with our contact info, but can't seem to figure out how to get in contact with "Rick".