Harassing Phone Calls
Complaint
tiedofcalls
Country: United States
I work for a california county child support office and I have been receiving phone calls from this collection agency and previous ones for approximately 4 years. This is over a phone bill that is for someone I do not know and gave my office number as their contact number. I have explained several times and I guess they think I am lying. I am not the person they are trying to reach and am very upset as I have perfect credit and do not deserve the harassing phone calls. I have requested that they stop yet they do not. The number they leave to call back is 1-866-221-3230.
Comments
This is interfering both with the operations of your employer, and creating a hostile and stressful work environment for you (if child support wasn't stressful enough). As such, both your employer and you personally might need to take action against them should they fail to cease calling.
You want to set them up for liability to you personally, under FDCPA, for calling you at your work (regardless of who they claim they are calling) and for calling you after you have told them to cease contacting you. Both violations are actionable by you under FDCPA.
You also want your employer to exercise their responsibility to ensure a safe and non-abusive work environment to you, their employee. That is their duty.
You might want to contact your DA, county council, or HR department regarding what actions they want to take to stop these harassing calls, as they have a responsibility toward their employees here. At the same time, you want to ensure that you, as a consumer being called erroneously at work, can use the FDCPA to personally sue if you have to, to protect your own interests.
Run this approach by your county council's office, to see if they will also send a letter under their letterhead demanding that the calls stop. Note that you may still need to send the letter below, to ensure that you can independently sue, should your employer's actions fail to stop this on-going harassment. Their letter alone may or may not be enough for you to have a cause of action should this continue.
Send them a letter, notifying them that they have been calling your work number erroneously trying to contact some other person who you do not know, and who is not reachable thru your work number.
Reference the name of the person they say they are trying to reach, and the number (your work number) that they are calling.
Indicated that their calls are interfering with your work, contrary to the policies of your employer, <county> Child Support. (FDCPA: "notification that employer does not permit their calls)
Demand that they stop calling you. (FDCPA: "cease communications")
CC: your county DA, or appropriate county council (whoever would represent the county)
At the bottom of the letter, put the "certified" number, for tracking:
"sent certified: xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx"
Send the letter certified, return receipt requested, keeping a copy for your files, along with the green card or on-line delivery confirmation when it arrives.
They may either:
1) stop calling.
2) repeatedly call you back, to intentionally harass you.
3) continue autodialer calls with the same frequency.
4) or sell the "debt" to someone else who will then start calling.
(1) Solves your problem.
(4) You may start all over, but from day 1, you are ready to notify them to cease, and the next debt collector might have more sense. At this point, you should probably have your employer change your phone number or extenstion.
You want to be able to document (2) or (3), sufficiently for either you or your employer to sue.
"Allied Interstate, Inc.
3111 S. Dixie Highway Suite 101
West Palm Beach, FL 33405
Contact: Larry Perillo
Phone: (561) 671-2121
Company Rating: D
Rating Explanation:
The rating the Better Business Bureau assigns a business is determined by our composite score of such factors as its type of business, length of time in business, compliance ...
Company Profile
DBA: Allied Interstate, Inc.
Address: 3111 S. Dixie Highway Suite 101
West Palm Beach, FL 33405
Primary Phone: (561) 671-2121
Primary Fax: (561) 671-6040
Primary Contact: Larry Perillo
Compliance Dept Administrator
Website: http://www.intelliRisk.com
Company ID: 9638
Business Start Date: 1/1/1976
BBB Created Record on: 11/1/1977
Nature of Business:
This company's nature of business is Collection Agencies
Bureau Membership
Join Date:
This company is not a member of the Better Business Bureau. This fact does not disparage the company in any way.
Licensing and Bonding Information
This company is in an industry that may require licensing, bonding or registration in order to lawfully do business. The Bureau encourages you to check with the appropriate agency to be certain any requirements are currently being met.
BBB Comments and Analysis
We have no further comment about this company’s business practices or analysis of its offer that may assist you in your consideration of this company.
Complaint Closing Statistics
The following grid displays the number and responses to complaints over the last 36 months:
No. of Cmpl Type of Response
0 Making a full refund, as the consumer requested
4 Making a partial refund
682 Agreeing to perform according to their contract
11 Refusing to make an adjustment
8 Refuse to adjust, relying on terms of agreement
22 Unanswered
4 Unassigned
731Total
Complaint Experience
Any compaints received nationally are forwarded to the Better Business Bureau of South East Florida and the Caribbean for processing.
Consumer complaints state that customer service representatives are contacting them by phone and are using inappropriate language and unprofessional behavior in their collection practices. Complaints also indicate that after consumers pay the amount to settle their accounts they are not being credited or they are charged additional amounts.
Despite the fact that the company has acceded to at least some customer requests for refunds, it has not addressed the reason its customers seek refunds, namely that the company did not do what it promised to do.
Government Actions
Agency:
Description: On June 16, 2004, the Minnesota Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Allied Interstate, Inc. The complaint alleges that the company has attempted to collect debts from the wrong person. In addition, it states that Allied often initiates its debt collection over the phone without sending a letter to the consumers. When consumers dispute the debt on the phone, the company does not tell them that the debt is valid unless they dispute it in writing; that Allied must verify the debt on written request by the consumers; and that Allied must cease collection on the dispute debt until verification of the debt is provided to the consumer. The complaint further alleges that Allied has continued collection phone calls to innocent consumers, after consumers have orally told the debt collector they have the wrong person or that they do not owe the debt.
On June 30, 2005 the Minnesota Attorney General reached a settlement agreement with Allied Interstate, Inc. Under the settlement terms, Allied agrees to cease making false representations about the status or character of consumer debt by discontinuing phone calls to consumers after these consumers have orally told the debt collector they have the wrong person or that they do not owe this debt. Allied also agrees to provide proper notification to consumers who have a debt to be collected and that notification will include information on how to dispute their debt or request debt validation. Furthermore, the company will no longer place debt collection calls without a live operator introducing the call. Allied Interstate, Inc. will pay restitution of $500 to consumers who previously filed "wrong person" complaints.
If consumers have any questions about the settlement or eligibility, they should call the Attorney General's Consumer Assistance Line at (651) 296-3353 or 1-800-657-3787.
Date of Action: 8/30/2005
..."
"The complaint further alleges that Allied has continued collection phone calls to innocent consumers, after consumers have orally told the debt collector they have the wrong person or that they do not owe the debt."
"Allied agrees to cease making false representations about the status or character of consumer debt by discontinuing phone calls to consumers after these consumers have orally told the debt collector they have the wrong person or that they do not owe this debt. "
"Furthermore, the company will no longer place debt collection calls without a live operator introducing the call. "
http://www.budhibbs.com/debtcollectorpages/allied_interstate.htm
Allied Interstate, Inc.*
435 Ford Rd. #800
Minneapolis, MN 55426-1066
Phone: (952) 546-6600 1-800-806-3342 1-866-525-7795
Fax: (952) 595-2311
Based on your experience, it doesn't sound like they are complying with their agreement with the Minnesota Attorney General.
"CC: Minnesota Attorney General"
"CC: <My county> District Attorney"
Include in your "cease communications" letter a summary of the history of their ongoing calls, and your demands to cease.
They call often (by the caller ID showing that number), I never knew who it was, usually when we are not home, so it is not a biggie. If we did answer, they hung up, I still did not know who they were.
However, yesterday they called with a recorded message saying we owed a debt, and that someone needed to call 1-866-221-3230 - I grabbed the extension to listen and when I did, they hung up (to prevent recording I guess).
The caller ID showed 1-866-221-3230
This caused concern in my home, because we have credit ratings in the high 700's and low 800's, and we were both concerned about possibly identity theft.
When I looked up the number online, I found pages after pages of issues like mine.
This crap needs to stop.
I've searched for their address, but the internet lists at least 3 different locations in Fla., Ohio, and Minnesota. More infuriating, Verizon home phone has no capability of blocking their calls!!